EPA rules rolled back

[billvon 3,070]

In another victory for the administration and power companies, the EPA rolled back some emissions rules for power plants Wednesday.

Background - in the 70's, there were some very serious pollution problems in the US. The EPA instituted some new limits on air pollution. The fairest possible approach would be to just require all power plants to meet the same standard, but that wouldn't fly with utilities - they'd go bankrupt (they claimed) trying to make their old plants meet the new standard.

So the EPA proposed a gradual imposition of the new requirements. Unfair! said the utilities. That benefits new utilities with plants that already meet the standards, and penalizes old utilities with plants that pollute a lot.

So the EPA compromised and said you didn't have to upgrade the emissions controls until you were fixing that power plant anyway. Once you had the time and money to upgrade that plant, you had to install the latest pollution controls. You could put off upgrading the plant if you didn't want to meet the new standards, but the EPA assumed that since plants normally need major upgrades every 10-20 years, it would give utilities 20 years to upgrade the power plants. These requirements were referred to as the new source review; once a plant underwent an overhaul, it would be considered a 'new source' and would have to modernize.

Of course industry fought this tooth and nail. There were thousands of lawsuits as industry tried every possible trick to upgrade their plants while still polluting as much as ever. Incremental repairs, claiming that ten coal generating plants were really just one plant and so replacing one was a "minor repair" etc. but in most cases the EPA prevailed, since the intent of the law was clear.

The change implemented Wednesday effectively means utilites can do even massive repairs or upgrades - up to 20% of the value of the plant - without having to meet any new emissions requirements. As an example, two power plants in Massachusetts (Salem and Brayton) that currently kill about 150 people a year with their exhaust will not have to reduce their emissions, even though they will be upgraded significantly.

What this means in effect is that these plants will never, ever meet any emissions requirements. They will always be the cheapest plants to operate, since they do not need any pollution control equipment or even clean-burn systems - and they can now be upgraded to generate more power (and pollute more, of course.)

Oh well. Score one for big industry, and zero for the people who live around power plants.

[PhillyKev 0]

Quote from WSJ:

Bush declares Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.

[Clownburner 0]

At least in the good old days presidents would pretend to not be owned by private companies or industries.

If he gets re-elected, I'm leaving the country. Anyone care to help me start up "Skydive Easter Island??"

7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez
"I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

[livendive 8]

Bush was in my hometown last week, touting his environmental "achievements". One feather in his hat (according to him), is how he streamlined the environmental assessment process. Of course the way he did that was by removing the public comment period from the process and exempting several NFS actions from injunctive relief lawsuits.

Environmentally, Bush is completely whacked. Anyone who thinks his ideas on air pollution will work need look no farther than Houston, which passed Los Angeles in 1999 as the city with the worst air quality.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[Skypup 0]

He's just living up to his promise... Doing for all of us what he has done for Texas! Of course somehow he thinks that depleting and polluting our resources (including air), raising unemployment levels, and making sure our kids don't get no education is a good thing.

Or maybe this is all just revenge for NOT electing him and forcing some crazy "mistakes" to put him in office.

T.S.S # 5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To dream great dreams is itself an act of daring. -Eric Shipton & Bill Tilman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[billvon 3,070]

>Bush declares Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.

Hmm, hadn't considered that approach to cleaning up the environment. Just declare that the air is clean. Ozone? Storms produce it, therefore it must not be a pollutant. Unburned hydrocarbons? Some plants release minute amounts of ethylene, so that must not be a pollutant either. NOx? Heck, dentists use nitrous oxide to make you feel better, so nitrous oxides must be good for you!

[hottamaly 1]

can we recall the President?

Skydiving gave me a reason to live
I'm not afraid of what I'll miss when I die...I'm afraid of what I'll miss as I live

[billvon 3,070]

>can we recall the President?

Why not? Nevada is considering recalling their governor, and republicans in Pennsylvania are trying to get the state constitution so they can recall their governor. Why should CA have all the fun? Why can't poor old Pennsylvania have a celebrity governor too? Perhaps Sylvester Stallone is free. Or Vin Diesel. Or Britney Spears. We need more actors in our government anyway."

"You know, Mr. Jong-Il? It's, like, totally uncool that you have nuclear weapons and we don't, so unless you hand them over, we're gonna like close our border with you."

[kmcguffee 0]

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Anyone who thinks his ideas on air pollution will work need look no farther than Houston, which passed Los Angeles in 1999 as the city with the worst air quality.

Not true anymore. The top four cities (based on air pollution) were all in California this year. Houston was seventh or eighth. I think LA took back the top spot. So much for all of those California progressive environmental laws!

Ahhhhhhhh, here is the story in case anyone doubts.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s845368.htm

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do." Ben Franklin

[skybytch 273]

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So much for all of those California progressive environmental laws!

What you aren't taking into account is how much BETTER the air is in LA today than it was before those "progressive environmental laws" went into effect.

Having spent time and breathed air that you could not just see and smell but actually TASTE in the LA basin in the late 60's through the mid-70's, I can say that overall pollution in the LA area is far better today than it was back then.

[Gawain 0]

Quote

Quote from WSJ:

Bush declares Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.

Okay...so um what the hell do we exhale? In fact, what the hell do all mamals exhale? Forget about counting cow farts in Montana and the imaginary Ozone hole, we've got to stop the human emissions polluting our air!

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[kmcguffee 0]

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What you aren't taking into account is how much BETTER the air is in LA today than it was before those "progressive environmental laws" went into effect.

I don't doubt that. But, it is unbelievable that Houston was able to improve its air faster than Los Angeles under Bush's environmental laws.

Don't you just find that amazing?! I know I do. Surely there must be some outside influence. Or maybe the comparison isn't valid.

Begin your Google searches now!

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do." Ben Franklin

[skybytch 273]

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I don't doubt that. But, it is unbelievable that Houston was able to improve its air faster than Los Angeles under Bush's environmental laws.

You're right. It is rather unbelievable. I'd like to see the data they used to decide on their rankings (not that I'll know or understand wtf the data is measuring, but still ).

[wmw999 2,534]

One thing to consider is that Houston has an advantage over LA when it comes to pollution. Yes, we have the ocean blowing in to hold it onshore, but we don't have any terrain on the other side preventing it from blowing all over the place. Normal weather and winds blow west to east, and there's nothing to prevent that. So Beaumont gets it

Yes, people exhale carbon dioxide. And trees consume it. And water is good for plants. Ever seen a flood?

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[FallRate 0]

Here's an idea to further the efforts of all those concerned with air quality...

Ban all Power Sports. All those millions of gallons of fuel being burned so a priveleged few can better enjoy their weekends. This would of course include, Automotive Racing, Boating, Motorcycling, Dirt-Bikes, Snowmobiles, any weekend Joy-Ride in the family Mini-Van, etc...and...

Oh, yeah....

SKYDIVING!!!

You have to love the irony (and complete hypocrisy) inherent in an individual's position that points a finger at those who drive "gas guzzlers" or "high emission" vehicles or whatever, while enjoying the benefits of internal combustion to reach jump altitude.

Perhaps putting a stop to all skydiving is a bit extreme. We can start slowly. We'll just ground all 182's in the country. In case you haven't noticed they still run off leaded gasoline.

FallRate

[miked10270 0]

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Quote

Quote from WSJ:

Bush declares Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.

Okay...so um what the hell do we exhale? In fact, what the hell do all mamals exhale?

Yeah, carbon dioxide is confusing. Some is a pollutant, some isn't. It's actually all to do with the AGE of the CO2 (believe it or not)!

Here's how it works... "Millions of years ago" the earth was covered in vegetation, the sea had loads of algae etc... All these plants absorbed a $hitload of CO2, then died, were buried etc... They were compressed under the ground and in decomposing gradually became what we know today as "Fossil Fuel" (oil, natural gas, coal). In effect massive amounts of carbon was pulled out of Earth's atmosphere millions of years ago and trapped in the ground. This was a good thing. less carbon meant more free oxygen (that's the stuff we breath in and chemically burns the sugars we eat to give us energy & keeps us alive).

In pulling all this ancient fossilised carbon out of the ground & burning it we're releasing the carbon that was trapped millions of years ago. This carbon is recombining with hitherto free oxygen to create excess CO2. Thus we're changing the balance of our atmosphere!

In the case of what we exhale, or relatively fresh plant matter we burn, we're releasing carbon that was absorbed in modern times so the balance is largely maintained.

This is why CO2 from fossil fuels IS a pollutant, and CO2 from modern flora & fauna isn't.

Mike.

Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable.

Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

[VectorBoy 0]

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What this means in effect is that these plants will never, ever meet any emissions requirements. They will always be the cheapest plants to operate, since they do not need any pollution control equipment or even clean-burn systems - and they can now be upgraded to generate more power (and pollute more, of course.)

Bill what you are refering to when upgrades in emmision controls must be installed is called a "repower" changing something in the design which changes the heat curve or the units productivity.
Just fixing the blades on a wore out turbine, retubing the boiler all at once instead of one tube at a time or overhauling fans don't count.
What does count is changing something like the boiler flow path adding modern burners or upgrading you controls to computer fly by wire instead of the pnuematics or hydralics installed back in the 60's if you are lucky but likely the 50's.
We here in socal were mandated to install catalytic reducers on some of our smaller older ( 50's) plants ( our larger units already have been retrofitted). Not as a repower just because all of california had too. We chose the best contractor with what we believed to be the smartest design. What we ended up with was a 9 million dollar piece of crap. With numbers far below what was promissed and some safety issues. Sometimes nobody wins.
Don't be fooled into thinking an older plant without emmision controls can operate profitably. ANY newer design is more cost effective, less likely to brake down, is still supported by the design contractor and best of all operates with a fraction of the pollutants that any older plant can EVER hope to achieve.
This is much like the modern cars of today that don't even feature many of the smog Items of just a few years ago. They rely on a computer and a minimal of complex parts to keep combustion and power as optimal as possible side benifit cleaner emissions.

[jose 0]

Heh, don't ya love the fact that some of the posts that make the most sense are most likely to be ignored. People dont like your kind of thinking around here Fallrate. Stop making so much sense and give us something that we can blindly argue about and grab straws at.

I for one think that we should take the first step at stopping pollution by grounding all unnecessary air travel. All sports related aircraft will be affected since their purpose is inherently irresponsible from an enviromental standpoint. Come on people!!!! Lets make the world a better place! Let it start with no more skydiving!!!!.

P.S. After I am done taking care of the lawn and yard with 2-stroke equipment, I think I will overfertilize the lawn with 30-30-30 something. During this time, I will probably have all the doors and windows open to my house as I run the air conditioner. This evening as I sit around the campfire I built with treated lumber and roofing scraps, I will reflect on the day with a sense of pride that I didn't go jumping and for that, I have made my personal contibution to being enviromentally aware.

[betzilla 56]

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Oh well. Score one for big industry, and zero for the people who live around power plants.

Also zero for any one who gives even a tiny shit about the environment.

[wmw999 2,534]

There has to be a happy medium between "do everything both within and outside of reason to preserve the environment" and "fuck it, if I can't be perfect I'll do whatever the hell I want to."

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Gawain 0]

For everyone that thinks the sky is falling, and that we'll be suffocating from the terrible pollution this time next year, check out this table of air-quality measurements over the past twenty years by the EPA:

http://www.epa.gov/air/aqtrnd99/PDF%20Files/tables/a_11.pdf

PPM and micro-grams/cubic meter are down, across the board (national trends).

Looking at trends by MSA, overwhelmingly, the pollutant trends are DOWN:

CAUTION (1MB+ PDF)http://www.epa.gov/air/aqtrnd99/PDF%20Files/tables/a_16.pdf

Houston: Down
LA: Down
NY: Down

Bottom line, is that it is the environmentalists that prevent the overwhelming newer technology from taking hold. They don't want new plants to replace old ones. They want the old ones shut down completely, thinking that renewable resources are the trick. Wind power: don't make me laugh. Sure, there's no chemical emissions, but the very people that want it, don't want it near their house (cake, eating it, etc) and the noise emissions is very real, maintenance is prohobitive. Less than 2000MW of California's power generation is sourced from wind (1789MW from 112 sites or 16MW/site). Only 382MW from 13 sites are solar, 29MW/site.

Hydro is good, but the environmentalists won't let them be built, too disturbing to the surrounding areas (which we've repeatedly shown that we can integrate industry without killing owls or deer). Yet, nearly 14,000MW generated in California are from Hydro-electric sources, 385 plants, 36MW/plant.

Over 4500MW from San Onofre and Diablo Canyon Nuclear sites are either off-line or going off-line, 2250MW/plant.

30,000MW from 340 Oil/Gas fueled plants, or 88MW/plant.

I didn't even get into the landfill gas or woodwaste plants, but the bottom line is that overall air quality is not deteriorating in the manner that many would want you to believe. Despite several older, less efficient plants in operation in California (Gov. Davis' mandate while he was mismanaging the energy crisis).

This is the industry that gets hit the hardest by misthought regulations or activism. If a company can build a plant in an area where the overall long term emission is steam, then there should be no problem. Yet, somebody is able to successfully block the initiative because a certain flower, or endangered snake might get squashed by a bulldozer in the process.

Source of Power Plant data: California Department of Energy, www.energy.ca.gov

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[billvon 3,070]

>Okay...so um what the hell do we exhale?

Small amounts of CO2. Doesn't mean it's not a pollutant. Trees give off ethylene; doesn't mean that hydrocarbons aren't a pollutant. Thunderstorms give off ozone; doesn't mean ozone isn't a pollutant. Volcanoes give off SOx; doesn't mean that sulfur dioxide isn't a pollutant.

If you really think it's not a pollutant, I challenge you to spend a half an hour in a room that's even 10% carbon dioxide.

>Forget about counting cow farts in Montana and the imaginary Ozone
>hole, we've got to stop the human emissions polluting our air!

(sigh)

I will never understand the thinking "well, if a little is OK, a lot must be just as OK." You have arsenic in you; in fact, you need a little to stay healthy. Any more than a trace amount will sicken or kill you. Why is that concept so hard for people to understand when it comes to the environment?

[billvon 3,070]

>Ban all Power Sports.

Gotta love the extremists. Everything is simple to an extremist. Yeah, using energy more efficiently is EXACTLY like banning all power sports! Having a speed limit is EXACTLY like banning driving! Controlling sales of RPG's is EXACTLY like denying people the right to bear arms!

>We can start slowly.

Now you're making more sense.

>We'll just ground all 182's in the country. In case you haven't noticed
>they still run off leaded gasoline.

I hvae a better idea. How about approving more autogas STC's so they can burn unleaded gas? That way the gas is cheaper AND it helps the environment. Cheaper jumps and less environmental impact - is that just like banning skydiving?

[billvon 3,070]

> Bottom line, is that it is the environmentalists that prevent the
>overwhelming newer technology from taking hold.

Uh, no, it would be the power companies that don't want to upgrade (when it comes to emissions equiment upgrades.). If you don't believe that, take a look at the number of lawsuits that have been filed in an attempt to delay or remove the requirement to upgrade a plant's environmental controls; this was one of the primary reasons for changing the new source rules.

>They don't want new plants to replace old ones. They want the old
>ones shut down completely, thinking that renewable resources are the trick.

Personally, I want every plant out there to meet the EPA's standards. Period. I'm all for new natural gas plants; modern plants basically emit nothing other than heat, water and carbon dioxide. I'm very much against new coal power plants, since even modern ones emit large amounts of uranium, thorium, mercury, arsenic etc. There is no such thing as a clean coal plant.

>Wind power: don't make me laugh. Sure, there's no chemical
>emissions, but the very people that want it, don't want it near their
>house (cake, eating it, etc)

That's true of every type of power plant. Not even diehard anti-environmentalists want power plants or transmission lines in "their backyards."

In any case, the biggest market for new turbine generation is farmers. They care more about money than noise, are generally far from NIMBY homeowners, and wind turbines don't affect agriculture.

> Less than 2000MW of California's power generation is sourced from
>wind (1789MW from 112 sites or 16MW/site). Only 382MW from 13
>sites are solar, 29MW/site.

Wind power in the US is growing by about 30% a year. It's tripled since 1998. If this rate continues, within 14 years it will be supplying half of CA's power. Of course, it's likely that something else will happen in the meantime (natural gas will get cheaper as demand drops) which will slow down that growth.

>Hydro is good, but the environmentalists won't let them be built, too
>disturbing to the surrounding areas . . .

The primary problem there is that most of the good sites have already been developed in the west. Heck, we use up the entire Colorado River for water; when you use up all the water that water isn't available for power generation.

>but the bottom line is that overall air quality is not deteriorating in the
> manner that many would want you to believe. Despite several older,
>less efficient plants in operation in California (Gov. Davis' mandate
>while he was mismanaging the energy crisis).

In LA, air quality has been improved between 50 and 95% depending on type of pollution. Nearly all this improvement can be traced to CARB automotive emissions regulations. Far from trying to make people believe things are getting worse, I think that's great - and is indicative of what environmental regulation can do for the health of the people living in a city like LA.

That doesn't mean we're done. Between 10,000 and 30,000 people a year die (i.e. their lives are shortened) by particulate pollution in the US. We have come a long way since Donora, but we have some work yet to do.

>If a company can build a plant in an area where the overall long term
> emission is steam, then there should be no problem. Yet, somebody
> is able to successfully block the initiative because a certain flower, or
>endangered snake might get squashed by a bulldozer in the process.
>Crazy.

Yep. There are people who regularly try to block new geothermal plants because they fear accidental releases of steam, and the steam isn't very clean (i.e. high in sulfur, radon etc.) Doesn't make much sense when you compare overall emissions between, say, a fuel oil and a geothermal power plant.

[FallRate 0]

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Gotta love the extremists. Everything is simple to an extremist.

I'll take an extremist over an arrogant, condescending hypocrite.

FallRate