One way or another, new EPA rules will end pollution from coal-fired power plant emissions

In the United States, a quarter of annual greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity production. The sector’s biggest polluters are the nation’s coal-fired power plants, decades-old facilities that emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air. Federal regulators and policymakers have spent years developing a plan to minimize emissions from fossil fuel-powered power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency finally unveiled the results of that work last week: a historic set of rules that aim to prevent 1.4 billion tons of carbon pollution by 2047, the equivalent of annual emissions from 328 million gasoline cars.

The new rules were finalized under several laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. In addition to reducing carbon emissions, they are expected to significantly reduce air, water and land pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants by preventing toxic discharges into rivers and streams, controlling better pollution by coal ash and reducing toxic mercury emissions.

Among the four new rules, one in particular sets a new precedent by being the first to require the implementation of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, so that some existing plants continue to operate. Among the facilities subject to these rules are more than 200 coal-fired power plants across the country, which collectively account for more than half of the energy sector’s carbon emissions. According to the regulations, companies that operate these facilities have three options: they can capture 90% of their emissions and continue operating beyond 2039, capture a smaller share of emissions and close by 2039, or continue operating normally and retire by 2032.

Carbon capture and storage is a complex, multi-site process that involves trapping gas at the point of emission and transporting it underground to a well where it is injected for long-term storage. Some climate advocates therefore fear that this rule will only extend the lifespan of power plants running on fossil fuels.

Other critics of the EPA rules doubt the effectiveness of the technology and point out that it has never been deployed on a commercial scale. Despite the hundreds of millions in tax incentives allocated by the Biden administration to spur CCS development, no operation in the United States currently captures a substantial portion of a facility’s emissions. Fossil fuel giant Occidental Petroleum quietly abandoned its largest CCS facility in Pecos County, Texas, last October, selling it for a fraction of its construction cost. Elsewhere, Chevron’s massive operation on Barrow Island, off the coast of Western Australia, is successful in capturing carbon, but problems with the underground storage system have led it to store just 1.6 million tonnes per year, or less than half of its capacity.

Still, other climate advocates say the rule fits well into their overall strategy: Capturing and storing carbon is such a costly endeavor that some of the nation’s oldest and largest emitters, they hope, will choose to close their doors rather than operate under the new rule. .

“This is a regulation that, on the surface, appears to primarily concern CCS,” said Emily Grubert, a civil engineer and environmental sociologist at the University of Notre Dame. But Grubert believes that this rule can be exploited for other purposes: “The goal of the climate movement is that it is about decommissioning factories. »

Grubert told Grist that it is unlikely that many operators of these plants will choose to retrofit their facilities with CCS, as adopting the technology can cost companies more than $1 billion.

“I don’t want carbon capture to be left to coal-fired power plants. The U.S. coal fleet is very old,” Grubert told Grist. “When you’re talking about investing several billion dollars in these plants, that almost certainly guarantees that they’ll stay open longer than they otherwise would have.”

Advocates who live in communities near CCS infrastructure along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana applauded some aspects of the new rule, but worry about the safety of the new technology. Capturing and storing carbon involves a complex network of industrial equipment, underground pipelines and injection wells, each with its respective risks. When a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide ruptured in Mississippi in February 2020, dozens of people were rushed to the hospital after suffering from shortness of breath. A similar incident occurred last month with a pipeline owned by Exxon Mobil in southwest Louisiana. With the EPA’s recent decision to grant industry-friendly Louisiana the authority to approve new carbon dioxide wells, advocates fear that majority-black communities that live next to a Much of the South’s fossil fuel infrastructure faces another pollution risk within it.

“We are facing a perfect storm,” said Beverly Wright, executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, based in New Orleans. “You have this shiny new object that is going to solve all our problems by putting carbon into the ground. But what terrain?

Existing coal-fired power plants have until 2032 to implement CCS and reduce their carbon emissions by 90 percent or face closure. Some politicians have indicated their determination to fight these requirements and keep the country’s coal fleet without emissions-reducing technology. When the rules were initially proposed last year, a group of Republican attorneys general led by West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey wrote EPA Administrator Michael Regan a letter saying the regulations would “kill jobs , would increase energy prices and harm energy reliability.” Last week, Morrisey threatened to challenge the EPA’s finalized decision in court. Separately, Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator from West Virginia, said she plans to draft a resolution opposing the rules. But beyond potential legal and parliamentary challenges, CCS technology will need to develop significantly over the next decade to be used on a commercial scale.

Still, Grubert told Grist that it’s important not to neglect CCS entirely. Although solar and wind farms can replace the nation’s aging coal plants, there are currently few alternatives for cleaning up major emitters like cement manufacturing plants. In its ideal scenario, the EPA’s new rules would encourage the closure of coal-fired power plants over the next decade, while spurring investment in other sectors where carbon capture may be needed in the meantime, so to minimize emissions linked to global warming.

“Reluctantly, I think we need to be able” to implement CCS, Grubert said. “Having a regulatory framework and a regulatory environment that ensures that carbon storage is safe and well communicated to people is a good idea. »

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