If President Obama is to follow up on his inaugural promise – “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations” – that has to mean addressing those existing plants.
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that the president will announce his plans to tackle the emissions of existing power plants in his upcoming State of the Union address. Its not clear yet what form those plans will take, though lobbyists for coal-burning utilities are already clamoring for a say in what new rules will look like. But they wont be the only new stresses on the already fragile economics of coal power.
The EPA is also expected to issue a new rule later this year setting standards for how utilities deal with coal ash, a toxic byproduct of burning coal that is often stored in giant, uncovered and unlined ponds. The rule has been expected since 2008, when the earthen wall restraining a 40-acre coal ash slurry pond in eastern Tennessee failed, inundating two rivers and a nearby town with a billion gallons of slurry. According to a 2010 EPA study, the cost of compliance with new standards could exceed $20 billion.
These are the sorts of shocks that the already struggling coal industry isnt ready to handle. Opponents have called such regulation a “war on coal,” but the simple truth is that the environmental realities of burning coal are finally catching up to the industry. U.S. coal just doesnt make economic sense.
MORE: Big Coals Big Problems | Politics News | Rolling Stone.