Registered: Feb 2009
Location: Reader, W.V.
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Now a new Environmental Protection Agency rule on power plants requires a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and threatens to block any new coal-fired energy facilities because they cannot hope to meet the new standards without using unproven and cost-prohibitive technology.

Concerned individuals may email the EPA with their comments at a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov. Comments MUST reference Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0495.

The rule is currently in the public comment phase, but free-market energy advocates see the coal industry clearly within the Obama administration’s crosshairs.

“They set an emission rate, and that rate is so low that no coal-fired power plants can actually meet that goal unless they include this technology called Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), which is incredibly expensive and doesn’t exist on any power plant in the world today. Essentially what this new rule is is a ban on new coal-fired power plants,” said Daniel Simmons, vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research and the author of the group’s response to the proposed rule.

Simmons told WND the new rule slashes emissions standards in half from existing levels, and he believes future coal plants are not the only targets here.

“If they are able to do this, and if they get away with it, they will then go after existing coal-fired power plants,” Simmons warned.

According to Simmons, coal provides about 40 percent of the nation’s power supply, and it is not at all clear how that would be replaced.

“That’s a heck of a lot of electricity that would have to be made up somewhere. We’re talking about dramatically increasing the cost of electricity all to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I think that is the real goal,” said Simmons, who has not officially crunched the numbers but firmly believes if the EPA proceeds with the rule it will have disastrous effects on American pocketbooks and the economy at large.

“It could get awfully expensive,” he said. “Some people might see their electricity rates double. If there’s no backup power plants, that means electricity is going to get awfully expensive when you have shortages around the country. If we want to build manufacturing in this country again, the cost of electricity is critical. Otherwise, companies are going to go places where electricity is reliable and inexpensive, and the EPA is trying to make it so that the electricity in the United States is neither reliable nor inexpensive.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/obama-pl...aH0uVe01dVVx.99 I tried to tell you, but NO ONE WOULD LISTEN!!!!!

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