| Emissions reduction
carbon capture technologies. If other kinds of technologies develop over time, utilities can use them given the compliance flexibility written into the final rules. The EPA estimates using CCS technology would slash 88% of the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, preventing up to 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 23 years, the equivalent of taking 328 million gasoline-powered cars off the road for a year.
Critics, including the Edison Electric Institute, have been quick to protest that CCS is not a fully mature technology ready for widespread deployment, and that it would be too expensive to widely deploy in order to comply by the 2032 deadlines. However, CCS was among the technologies that earned generous tax credits (known as provision 45Q) and research funding through the Inflation Reduction Act. These tax credits will provide utilities with a strong incentive to install the technology where it makes sense, reducing compliance costs for at least the next decade.
• Will the EPA’s new power plant rules be overturned or challenged?
The new rules are expected to face myriad challenges from Congress, the courts and potentially from future administrations. Before the final rules were even officially announced, members of Congress indicated they plan to use a legislative tool called the Congressional Review Act, which only requires a simple majority to pass, in an effort to overturn the rules. However, in the current 118th Congress, such attempts would likely be vetoed upon landing on President Joe Biden’s desk. Chances of a two-thirds majority in both chambers voting to override the veto are also slim.
Efforts to overturn these rules in the next Congress hinge on when the rules were officially published in the Federal Register (7, 8 and 9 May 2024), as any rule finalised within 60 working days of the new Congress could be subject to additional review and votes.
The rules are being challenged in the courts, and the outcomes are uncertain. Various states’ attorneys general, led by West Virginia’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, began to challenge the new rules as soon as they were published in the Federal Register. Utilities and other companies who see themselves impacted by the new rules are joining in legal filings. The Edison Electric Institute, representing investor-owned utilities, has filed an appeal on the basis, as already noted, that CCS technology has not been adequately demonstrated for broad deployment currently. Duke and AEP have also appealed. Such legal challenges would likely end up at the Supreme Court, just as the Obama-era Clean Power Plan rules did in West Virginia vs EPA. In that 2022 ruling, the Supreme Court declared that EPA could not force utilities to meet future regulations by requiring them
Carbon capture installation at NRG’s WA Parish power plant, Texas. Constructed for the Petra Nova project, this demonstrated capture from a 240 MWe slipstream coming from one of four coal-fired units at the site. (Photo: NRG)
to shift generation to different sources (eg, replacing coal with gas or wind), but must rely instead upon the best system of emissions reductions that can be applied on a plant- by-plant basis, which is the path EPA has attempted to follow with these new rules. In addition to challenges from Congress and the courts, a change of presidential administration would threaten power plant rules. Former President Donald Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 election, has promised to roll back these and other climate-focused regulations if elected.
• What’s missing from the new EPA power plant rules?
While these rules will address various forms of pollution from the oldest and dirtiest sources of electricity generation, they do not address the largest source of current carbon pollution in the electricity sector: existing natural gas power plants.
EPA has delayed regulatory standards for existing gas plants, indicating that the rule- making process could begin in 2025 and include control of other air pollutants as well. This could strengthen the regulations and make them potentially less vulnerable to legal challenges. While the new rules were both weakened and strengthened in certain areas compared to the 2023 draft rule, the emissions performance standards were substantially watered down for intermediate natural gas plants that operate from 20% to 40% of the time. Under the draft
rules, these plants would have needed to reduce emissions to a rate of about 1000 pounds of CO2
MWh by 2030 based on blending 30% hydrogen fuel with natural gas.
The removal of the requirement based on hydrogen co-firing and only limiting emissions to those equivalent to a simple cycle turbine is a substantial weakening of the rule for these plants. While the maximum operation of plants in this category was reduced to 40% from 50% in the draft rule, which would reduce the number of qualifying plants and the amount of generation that could come from this category of plants, the emissions standards should be revisited and strengthened in the future.
As World Resources Institute wrote last spring when the draft rule was first proposed, achieving faster and deeper reductions from coal- and gas-fired power plants is the most important thing the United States can do to build on the Inflation Reduction Act and achieve the national target of reducing emissions to 50%-52% below 2005 levels by 2030. It’s critical for the federal government to take additional actions to accelerate the construction of zero-emissions generation, energy storage and transmission capacity. The Biden administration should continue enacting its action plan for quicker, smarter permitting of this essential infrastructure. Congress, along with state and local governments, must also continue to encourage more effective community engagement while eliminating duplicative processes that create delays without improving decision-making.
SOURCE: 4 things to know about US EPA’s new power plant rules, by Dan Lashof, Lori Bird and Jennifer Rennicks, World Resource Institute Insights channel,
https://www.wri.org/insights/epa-power-plant-rules-explained
www.modernpowersystems.com | June 2024 | 11
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