Wednesday, October 16, 2013

EPA releases carbon dioxide emissions rules for new power plants


Natural gas can meet the standards, but coal faces a struggle.

Over a year ago, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would start the process of implementing rules that would limit the carbon dioxide emissions from newly built power plants. The intended rules would put a uniform limit on fossil-fuel burning plants of 1,000 pounds of CO2 for each Megawatt-hour of electricity produced.

Today, the EPA has announced a revised set of rules to replace last year's effort. The revised versions split the single standard and only hold large natural gas plants to the 1,000 lbs/MW-hr figure. Coal and smaller plants will only have to meet a less stringent 1,100 lbs/MW-hr standard. If a new plant is built that does not meet these standards, its operators will have seven years to bring it into compliance—possibly enough time to develop carbon capture and storage technology.

See full Article: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/09/epa-releases-carbon-dioxide-emissions-rules-for-new-power-plants/