The EPA Threatens to Turn Out the Lights

Its proposed power-plant emission rule would destabilize the energy grid and end reliable electricity

See By William S. Scherman. Mr. Scherman is a Washington-based energy lawyer at Vinson & Elkins, LLP. He served as general counsel for FERC, 1990-93. Excerpts: 

"The EPA’s aggressive standards require all coal-fired power plants to use a new and still-tricky technology called carbon capture and storage, or CCS, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 90% by 2035, or begin co-firing with natural gas. In addition, natural-gas-fired plants must capture 90% of emissions by 2035 using CCS or switch almost entirely to hydrogen by 2038. The only other option for both: shut down.

These nascent technologies simply won’t get the job done in the next few years. CCS is used at only one commercial power plant in North America. The only U.S. coal plant to implement CCS successfully closed in 2020 for economic reasons."

"The Biden administration recently acknowledged that building and using CCS faces many of the same permitting and regulatory problems plaguing other energy infrastructure"

"while hydrogen may be a future solution for electricity generation, the science isn’t there."

"Most hydrogen is produced by steam-methane reforming, which produces large amounts of CO2 as a byproduct and doesn’t provide a net reduction in greenhouse gases."

"Closing the dwindling number of coal-fired plants and most natural-gas-fired plants would drastically affect electric reliability."

"natural-gas-fired generation will need to play an even larger role in keeping the lights on."

"higher consumption will be met with substantially lower supply."

"If these plants close, that represents a loss of 2,517 million megawatt-hours, or 60% of U.S. electric generation."

"To replace the plants these new rules would close, the U.S. would need to quadruple its renewable-energy generation in 10 years. That is to maintain present levels."

"will require hundreds of thousands of miles of new long-distance transmission lines, which are difficult to build. A multiyear backlog for energy-project interconnections means we are still years away from launching transmission projects needed to keep the lights on."

"all four FERC commissioners, Democrats and Republicans alike, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that it isn’t possible in the foreseeable future to maintain a reliable grid without the coal and gas plants targeted by the new rules."