Pulling The Plug On Big Coal

On Friday, the EPA proposed tougher emissions standards that new power plants must meet. In the absence of climate change legislation, it’s a BFD. Brad Plumer examines the impact:

The regulations aren’t likely to have a huge impact in the near future — the standard will make it extremely hard to build new coal plants in the United States, but utilities weren’t planning many new coal plants anyway, because natural gas is a cheaper alternative. Still, the rule does have fairly big implications for the energy industry and climate change down the road.

Brian Merchant thinks the proposal means the end of coal power plants:

Essentially, if someone wants to build a new coal plant, in order to make it clean enough to meet these new rules, they’ll have to invest in Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technology. CCS is a highly experimental (and highly expensive) technology that allows coal plants to pump…