Proposed power plant emission cuts: Can US keep the lights on?
During a cold spell on Christmas Eve, Ohio’s Buckeye Power Inc. came very close to rolling blackouts that would have left its 1 million mostly rural and lower-income customers without heat.
Now, as the air conditioning season heats up, CEO Patrick O’Loughlin recently told Congress he is facing another hurdle: a rule proposed in May by the Environmental Protection Agency that would require plants like his to cut carbon emissions substantially by the 2030s.
His company has already spent more than $1 billion over the past two decades to comply with previous environmental regulations and to implement “state of the art” emission reductions technology. But this rule, he June 6, involves unrealistic timelines for implementing technology not yet proven at commercial scale, and would force Buckeye to shut down its coal plants with “nearly no hope” of replacing that power by the EPA deadlines.
