The EPA's Unprecedented Proposal for Power Plant Carbon Emissions

Monday - April 24 2023, 15:38 UTC - 1 year ago

The EPA has proposed a regulation that will cap carbon emissions from power plants across the U.S. This proposal is unprecedented, and it aims to reduce the country's carbon emissions by 25%. By 2040, all coal and natural gas power plants need to implement CCS technology to reduce their carbon footprint. To make this plan successful, the states have to pass relevant laws and regulations. However, the plan faces many hurdles such as opposition from the fossil fuel industry and legal challenges from state attorneys.

The U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign for the 2021 elections was lined by his good intentions to combat climate change. The country, after its exit from the Paris Agreement in 2017 under Donald Trump, joined back the international treaty in 2021. The administration also pledged to achieve a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. Now, in an unprecedented move, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation that will invariably require the existing and future power plants in the country to cap their carbon dioxide emissions in-house .

According to experts and industry representatives, the key technology which will help the plants reduce their carbon footprint is called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. CCS captures CO2 from power generation houses or industrial facilities that use fossil fuels or biomass. The captured CO2 is then compressed and transported to be used in a safe way in other industries or injected into deep geological formations for permanent storage .

Public utilities will have to either construct baseload gas plants with CCS technology or zero-emission renewable energy. The onus will also fall on the states to bring in new laws for compliance and regulation. Currently, this technology is only used by less than 20 of the U.S.’s almost 3,400 coal and gas-fired plants. The emissions from these power plants contribute to 25 percent of the country’s current carbon emissions .

Hence, the proposal recommends all coal and natural gas power plants capture their carbon emissions by the year 2040, as per the New York Times. As per the International Energy Agency’s CO2 Emissions Report of 2022, energy-related CO2 emissions in the world grew by 0.9 percent last year, although the expected growth was much higher owing to the rising inflation, increase in energy prices, and fuel trade disruptions .

The emissions increased by 0.8 percent. A lot of it came from the country’s increased use of natural gas during the high electricity demand in the country during summer heat waves. The regulation faces many hurdles for now. It will likely face the ire of the fossil fuel industry and its allies in Congress. It will also invite a legal challenge from a group of five Republican attorneys general who is defending the fossil fuel industry and attacking the environmental protection laws in their states, which have been placed to mitigate the effects of climate change .

The law could also be overturned by a future administration. A spokesperson of the EPA, Maria Michalos told the Times that the agency is "moving urgently to advance standards that protect people and the planet, building on the momentum from President Biden’s Investing in America economic agenda, including proposals to address carbon emissions from new and existing power plants." .