Environmental Management and Compliance News, Tips and Tools

March 31, 2012

And so it begins…

image: power plant emissions

It’s what you can’t see that is causing all the fuss…

The US Environmental Protection Agency has formally proposed the first national limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide. The Carbon Pollution Standard, proposed on March 27, will apply to new fossil-fuel electric utility generating units (EGUs). Affected units include boilers, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) units and combined cycle turbine units larger than 25 megawatts. “New” excludes existing units and permitted units that begin construction within the next 12 months. The standard also will not apply to new EGUs that do not burn fossil fuels (for example, facilities that use biomass as fuel).

The proposed standard limits carbon dioxide emissions to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of power output. EPA believes that new natural gas fired power plants will be able to meet the standard without add-on emission controls, but coal or petroleum coke units would need to incorporate additional control technologies, such as carbon capture and storage. While the standard does not explicitly forbid the construction of new coal-fired plants, the prohibitive costs for these carbon control technologies will arguably result in a de facto ban on new coal-burning facilities.
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Filed under: Air Pollution,Climate Change,Compliance,Greenhouse Gases,Rules and Regulations,USEPA — TCozzie @ 2:11 pm

January 30, 2012

Global warming worries? Just, relax…

image: snowstorm

Perhaps we’ll be enjoying these scenes for a long time yet…

Are concerns over man-made global warming (i.e., anthropogenic global climate change) overblown? So says this January 27 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal online, written by sixteen eminent physical scientists. They argue that predictive computer models have exaggerated the potential effects of continued emissions of carbon dioxide, and point to the documented halt (or pause, depending on your perspective) in rising global temperatures over the last decade or so as evidence supporting their position.

Not to be outdone, the UK Daily Mail waded into the global warming debate with two seemingly contradictory articles: First, theorizing that global cooling, not warming, may be a more immediate concern on the global temperature front, based on solar energy cycles – and then, on the same day, reporting that the British government’s national risk assessment on climate change warns that increasing temperatures will lead to “major increases in flooding, heatwaves and water shortages that could kill thousands of people a year.”

What should we make of the current state of anthropogenic climate change science?
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Filed under: Air Pollution,Climate Change,Greenhouse Gases — TCozzie @ 11:03 am

March 18, 2011

Not ready to report greenhouse gas emissions? No worries…

The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized its rule to extend the deadline for reporting 2010 emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to September 30, 2011. (Reports had been due by the end of this month.)

Those facilities required to report their GHG emissions must first register with the EPA’s electronic greenhouse gas reporting tool (“e-GGRT”). Registration will now be due 60 days prior to the reporting deadline, or by August 1.

For information on the GHG reporting requirements, visit www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgrulemaking.html. The e-GGRT reporting tool can be accessed at ghgreporting.epa.gov/ghg/login.do.  And come back to this site soon for upcoming posts on GHG rules.

Filed under: Air Pollution,Climate Change,Compliance,Greenhouse Gases,Rules and Regulations,USEPA — TCozzie @ 3:26 pm

August 9, 2010

Scoffing at skeptics…

On July 29, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denied 10 petitions challenging its 2009 determination that

  • climate change is real,
  • it is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, and
  • it threatens human health and the environment.

EPA’s decision rejected claims that climate science cannot be trusted and that collusion (dare we say, a “conspiracy”?) among members of leading research bodies to suppress conflicting data and hide errors or gaps in their own research invalidates the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Having given “months of serious consideration” to the petitions and to the state of climate change science, EPA found no evidence to support these claims. In fact, EPA has determined that climate science is credible, compelling, and growing stronger!

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson blamed the petitions on “defenders of the status quo [who] will try to slow our efforts to get America running on clean energy,” and called on petitioners “to join the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation and an end to the oil addiction that pollutes our planet and jeopardizes our national security.”

The basic assertions by the petitioners and EPA responses follow.
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Filed under: Air Pollution,Climate Change,Greenhouse Gases,USEPA — TCozzie @ 2:36 pm