Four reasons to love Obama’s power plant rules, and three reasons not to

[xchrom]

http://grist.org/climate-energy/four-reasons-to-love-obamas-power-plant-rules-and-three-reasons-not-to/

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***SNIP

The good parts


1) It would start the ball rolling on regulating CO2 from power plants. The EPA’s plan would create the framework and — if upheld by the courts — legal precedent for curbing one of the nation’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases. Once the regulatory framework is in place, it could be tightened down the line to achieve greater emissions cuts. And there is a lot to like about the EPA’s flexible, dynamic approach. Usually, pollution regulations just stipulate which technology a polluter, like a factory or power plant, must use to clean up the stuff coming from its smokestacks. In contrast, this plan would allow states and utilities to find different ways of reducing emissions, helping them minimize any rises in electricity costs.

2) It would reduce CO2 emissions. The rules are projected to lead to a 26 percent drop in CO2 emissions from power plants from 2005 levels by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030. That’s a 5 or 6 percent drop in total U.S. emissions compared to 2005. It’s comparable to Obama’s other big move on this front, which was increasing fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks.

***SNIP

The less-good parts

1) It doesn’t actually mandate a specific drop in total emissions. A lot of media reports are inaccurately referring to 2005 as the baseline for emissions reductions. There is no baseline, because there are no guaranteed emissions reductions. The limits on CO2 emissions are “rate-based,” meaning they allow a certain amount of CO2 to be emitted per megawatt-hour of electricity produced. If you want to stop the worst of climate change, you need to get emissions below a certain point with no ifs, ands, or buts. This rule does not do that.

2) The projected emissions decrease isn’t that impressive. Thanks to the recession, dropping prices for wind and solar energy, and the glut of natural gas from the fracking boom, our CO2 emissions from electricity generation are already more than 13 percent below 2005 levels. That means we’re already halfway to our goal even without the EPA’s proposed rules. Environmentalists think the EPA should aim for cuts of at least 35 to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

[Jim Lane]

1. Another less-good part that the article omits: indirectly promoting nuclear. (n/t)

[FBaggins]

2. That's a reason to love it...

... unless your goals for climate-protecting policies don't include actually protecting the climate.

We look to Germany and see that their irrational move away from nuclear has caused them to start referring to coal as a "transitional fuel" (when the rest of the planet considers it the thing that we're trying to transition from).

And it isn't "indirectly" promoting nuclear. It's pretty explicit.

[Jim Lane]

4. Climate-protection policies must take account of other goals as well.

One can have goals for climate-protecting policies that include actually protecting the climate but are not limited to that goal. Nuclear carries its own set of problems.

The issue of other goals is even more pronounced if you consider economic justice. A simple one-dollar-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax would benefit the climate, by reducing the burning of fossil fuels (and would have other benefits in terms of reduced auto emissions of pollutants besides greenhouse gases). It would also be a regressive tax that would impose the greatest hardship on people who are already suffering.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

3. Eh, it'll happen anyway.

The rule setting is nice, but I spent about five minutes thinking about it, and then went on to think about other things.
The last part of the puzzle to getting renewable mass acceptance is storage, and that problem is being worked on by all kinds of people as I write this. Someone's going to get something to market by the end of next year at the latest, of that I'm sure. Too much money is at stake, too many markets are waiting to be addressed by smaller and faster recharging batteries.
At that point, it's game over for coal, at least, everywhere. Getting rid of coal is THE overriding goal, and I'm reasonably confident that will be true by 2050 or so, all over the world.
At that point we'll be working on everything else.