Biden's carbon proposal is unworkable, US power sector warns
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[August 09, 2023]
By Nichola Groom and Valerie Volcovici
(Reuters) -U.S. power plant owners warned the Biden administration on
Tuesday that its sweeping plan to slash carbon emissions from the
electricity sector is unworkable, relying too heavily on costly
technologies that are not yet proven at scale.
Top utility trade group the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) asked the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for revisions of the proposed
power plant standards, which hinge on the widespread commercial
availability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and low-emissions green
hydrogen, adding the agency's vision was "not legally or technically
sound."
"Electric companies are not confident that the new technologies EPA has
designated to serve as the basis for proposed standards for new and
existing fossil-based generation will satisfy performance and cost
requirements on the timelines that EPA projects," EEI said in a public
comment released on Tuesday on the agency's deadline for feedback.
Resistance from the EEI and other energy-related groups poses a
potentially big challenge to the administration's climate agenda.
U.S. President Joe Biden has a goal to achieve net-zero emissions by
2035 in the power sector, the source of a quarter of the nation's
climate-warming gases. That target is a central part of Washington's
pledge to halve U.S. greenhouse gas output by 2030 as part of an
international agreement to fight global climate change.
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Proposed in May, the EPA plan would for the first time limit how much
carbon dioxide power plants can emit, after previous efforts were struck
down in court.
West Virginia, which led a lawsuit against the Obama-era Clean Power
Plan, also said it and 20 other states were opposed to the rule because
the standards would leave coal plant operators with no choice but to
close.
The proposed limits for both new and existing power plants assume
availability of CCS technology that can siphon the CO2 from a plant’s
smokestack before it reaches the atmosphere, or the use of hydrogen as a
fuel. The EPA said that last year's passage of the Inflation Reduction
Act, which subsidizes those technologies, makes them cost-effective and
viable.
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Environmental groups Clean Air Task Force and Natural Resources Defense
Council said the proposal "provides generous lead times for
implementation and compliance and will not cause reliability problems if
finalized."
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This undated handout image shows the
carbon sequesterization unit at American Electric Power Company's
Mountaineer Plant near New Haven, West Virginia. REUTERS/Tom
Dubanowich/Handout /File Photo
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Industry is particularly concerned about proposed standards for
existing natural gas power plants, saying those facilities would be
hard to retrofit with CCS, or hydrogen, due to space constraints and
other limitations.
The biggest U.S. power grid operator, PJM Interconnection, and three
other operators, serving a total of 154 million customers, raised
concern about a scenario where "needed technologies are not widely
commercialized in time to balance out large amounts of retirements"
of dispatchable generation.
The grid operators, in a joint statement, urged the EPA not to adopt
the plan before thoroughly looking into its impact on the
reliability of electric grids, flagging its "chilling impact" on
investment to maintain existing dispatchable units.
The EPA's plan would require large existing gas-fired plants that
run at least 50% of the time to install carbon capture by 2035, or
co-fire with 30% hydrogen by 2032. EEI asked the agency to "repropose
or significantly supplement" the proposed rules for existing gas
plants.
One investor-owned utility, Baltimore-based Constellation, distanced
itself from EEI's position and said it supported the EPA's proposed
guidelines. The company said, however, that it was seeking
improvements to the rule.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which
represents 900 member-owned electric utilities, asked the EPA to
withdraw the proposed rule, saying it would compromise reliability
and affordability, said CEO Jim Matheson.
Labor unions, the United Mine Workers of America and the
International Brotherhood of Electricity Workers, also called on the
EPA to redo the rule and criticized its reliance on CCS, saying it
puts jobs at risk.
The EPA's proposal had been crafted to reflect constraints the
Supreme Court imposed on the agency last year after it ruled that
the Obama era's Clean Power Plan went too far by imposing a
system-wide shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Valerie Volcovici in
Washington, additional reporting by Deep Vakil in BengaluruEditing
by Marguerita Choy and Matthew Lewis)
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