Monday, April 24, 2023
Biden's EPA Targets Power Plant Emissions in Proposal Likely to Bring Electricity Shortages
Expected to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) soon, the proposal mandates coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to cut or capture the majority of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, marking the first-ever federal action to curb power plant emissions.
Despite the EPA declining to comment, spokesperson Maria Michalos reiterated the agency’s commitment to addressing air pollution and protecting future generations.
“EPA cannot comment because the proposals are currently under interagency review,” Michalos said in a statement.
“But we have been clear from the start that we will use all of our legally-upheld tools, grounded in decades-old bipartisan laws, to address dangerous air pollution and protect the air our children breathe today and for generations to come,” she continued.
The EPA expects to issue a proposed rule in spring 2023 and promulgate a final rule by summer 2024, according to an Office of Management and Budget filing from late last year. Currently, no EPA regulations limit emissions from existing electric generating units.
With 3,393 fossil fuel-fired power plants nationwide, mostly natural gas, these facilities generate over 60% of the country’s electricity. In contrast, wind and solar projects generate approximately 14% of the nation’s power supply.
EPA data reveals that the electric power sector is responsible for about 25% of total U.S. emissions, ranking it behind the transportation sector but slightly ahead of the industrial sector.
Fossil fuel power plants have been targeted by environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers due to their significant emissions, as they push for a reduction to combat climate change.
President Biden has committed to a 52% total emission reduction by 2030 and a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. The Natural Resources Defense Council, a prominent environmental group, has urged the EPA to set affordable power plant carbon standards under the Clean Air Act and finalize them by early next year.
However, the fossil fuel industry has voiced concerns over the proposal, stating that the U.S. power grid remains heavily dependent on coal, natural gas, and petroleum.
Michelle Bloodworth, the president and CEO of America’s Power, a coal power trade group, criticized the regulation as the latest step in President Biden’s anti-fossil fuels agenda, arguing it could lead to...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1365
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #2060
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Sunday, April 23, 2023
Oops. That climate science isn't quite as settled...
Remember all that talk about methane being the scariest greenhouse gas? The claims are behind the war on meat, rice, farts, gas stoves, fracking, and just about everything else in the known universe that improves human life.
Well, except farts. They really don’t improve human life that much, unless you have gas pains. Man, it sucks when you have gas pains.
The science behind the claims that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas is pretty straightforward, if you look at only part of the science. Methane indeed traps more heat inside the atmosphere than CO2, by a wide margin. It disperses much more quickly, with a short life in the atmosphere, but if you only consider the warming impact it indeed is quite powerful.
That’s the reasoning behind the war on gas. But…
When Climate Science Unsettles – Abe Greenwald, Commentary Magazine
Yeah, well, there is a huge problem with that claim. While technically true in some abstract sense, it is much less true when you look at all the effects methane in the atmosphere has on global temperatures. In other words, it is the sort of claim that relies upon your ignorance of the multiple effects of methane gas in the atmosphere–some of which are known widely, and many of which even climate “scientists” didn’t know when they made their wild claims about doom from leaking natural gas.
New research shows that methane is still a powerful greenhouse gas, but nothing like what is claimed regularly.
This is the sort of thing that happens all the time in climate research, where variables are viewed and modeled in isolation based upon a limited set of data, and then the “scientists” extrapolate the heck out of the limited data and come up with models that are, frankly, ridiculous.
Then they pick the most extreme outcomes from models with the worst outcomes, and call it “settled science.” It is exactly the sort of thing you see in nutrition research, for example. Creating simplistic models from limited data interpreting complex and highly interdependent systems as if they mirror the falling of a bowling ball and a feather in a vacuum.
And the results, as you can see in the real world, are quite different. Bowling balls and feathers fall at the same rate in a vacuum, but once you introduce the atmosphere a feather can “fall upwards” on a breeze while the bowling ball crashes down as predicted.
The research in question here reveals the complexity of reality: methane may trap heat, but it also prevents energy from...
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