by Jack
Obama has broken a lot of campaign promises, but here’s one he didn’t, he’s bankrupting the coal industry in an effort to stop coal-fired energy plants.
In 2008, candidate Obama remarked, “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them. … Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” Four major coal companies have filed for bankruptcy in just the past 15 months, many more to follow.
Under Obama’s just released plan to unilaterally reverse the effects of so called man-made global warming, the United States will be forced to close coal fired plants and eventually even natural gas energy plants and replace them with what…. wind and solar plants?
This means the cost of energy is about to skyrocket. The end user pays for everything, uh, that’s you and me Bunky.
A dramatic rise in energy costs translates into a dramatic rise in inflation, everything will cost more because everything we use is in some way linked to energy production. But, that’s just one of many problems Obama has unleashed on us. Consider how much open-space land will be required to all those host wind and solar generators. Where does the energy come from to build and ship them and is it clean? Not if they are made in China. A solar panel only lasts 20 years…then what do we do with them?
Building the new wind and solar plants will require locating them to remote areas and that means building expensive transmission lines. You are paying for all this, so you better take note!
If you like the idea of wind generation you probably don’t care much for our birds, because what Obama is ordering is going to have a devastating on our aviary population, as well as your pocket book. But killing birds by the thousands is small time compared to what it will do to our economy.
Among the new rules, Obama calls for a 32 percent reduction in emissions from the power plant sector by 2030, and the majority of those cuts would come from the retirement of coal-fired facilities. The penalties on coal plants has already started forcing them into bankruptcy. This is going to have an extreme impact on the economy in coal producing states, but beyond that the technology now invested in reducing emissions from coal energy will stop. Our coal emission standards have substantially reduced green house gases and we’ve been a model for the world to follow, although its added another 20% to the cost of coal energy.
The unilateral reduction of the United States contribution to green house gases from coal energy is infinitesimally small, especially when compared compared to those nations that depend on coal energy, but absent any of the filtration methods we employ. China is adding one new coal fired energy plant every 7 days to meet its growing energy demands while the United States is irreversibly going to damage our economy under the Obama/EPA plan.
This is the reality about coal:
• Coal is a vital fuel in most parts of the world.
• Burning coal without adding to global carbon dioxide levels is a major technological challenge which is being addressed, but it will stop if we put coal plants out of business in the USA.
• The most promising ‘clean coal’ technology involves using the coal to make hydrogen from water, then burying the resultant carbon dioxide by-product and burning the hydrogen.
• The greatest challenge is bringing the cost of this down sufficiently for “clean coal” to compete with nuclear power on the basis of near-zero emissions for base-load power.
• There is typically at least a 20% energy penalty involved in ‘clean coal’ processes.
“Coal is an extremely important fuel and will remain so. Some 23% of primary energy needs are met by coal and 39% of electricity is generated from coal. About 70% of world steel production depends on coal feedstock. Coal is the world’s most abundant and widely distributed fossil fuel source. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects a 43% increase in its use from 2000 to 2020.
However, burning coal produces almost 14 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year which is released to the atmosphere, most of this being from power generation.
Since Obama ascended to the presidency, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports coal’s share of the nation’s electric supply fell from 48 percent in 2007 to 39 percent in 2014. Because coal is a low-cost source of electricity, electric power prices have risen 15 percent since Obama became president, despite historically low inflation.
An analysis of EPA’s initial proposal, which would have required emissions to be 30 percent below 2005 by 2030, by NERA Economic Consulting shows U.S. ratepayers would have seen their electric power prices rise an additional 13 percent above inflation. This amounts to the average household paying as much as $4,157 more for electricity over the life of the Clean Power Plan. And because electricity prices will rise for businesses as well, wages and disposable income will fall short of what they would otherwise be without CPP.”
“It is up to the states to figure out the best way to cut its average carbon emissions per megawatt-hour by creating carbon-reducing smorgasbords. You could see the roll out of new cap-and-trade schemes, deployment of more solar panels and wind turbines, subsidies for weatherization and more.” Cap and trade is viewed by many as a means for some to exploit, extort and cripple competing businesses. Only the largest and most wealthy corporations will have the ability to meet conversion costs and this will have a huge effect on what consumers pay at the check out counter. America relies on competition and innovation, but both are now under attack as Obama’s new EPA rules go into effect.
It makes no sense to buy wind generators and solar panels from a gross polluter like China because it costs too much to make them here! The whole EPA plan is so poorly thought out its a travesty for America. Its time for the adults take the reigns of power away from Obama and his extreme agenda.
Watch the video of EPA head Gina McCarthy. Here is a transcript:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkkeLpbz0-Y
Via: The HARRY READ ME File: Testifying before Congress, EPA’s McCarthy defends the Agency’s climate regs as ‘enormously beneficial’ when asked about the rules climate benefit of reducing global temps by just one one-hundredth of a single degree Celsius.
CHAIRMAN LAMAR SMITH: “On the Clean Power Plan, former Obama Administration Assistant Secretary Charles McConnell said at best it will reduce global temperature by only one one-hundredth of a degree Celsius. At the same time it’s going to increase the cost of electricity. That’s going to hurt the lowest income Americans the most. How do you justify such an expensive, burdensome, onerous rule that’s really not going to do much good and isn’t this all pain and no gain.
ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “No sir, I don’t agree with you. If you look at the RIA we did, the Regulatory Impact Analysis you would see it’s enormously beneficial.
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you consider one one-hundredth of a degree to be enormously beneficial?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “The value of this rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action to address what’s a necessary action to protect…”
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you disagree with my one one-hundredth of a degree figure? Do you disagree with the one one-hundredth of a degree?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “I’m not disagreeing that this action in and of itself will not make all the difference we need to address climate action, but what I’m saying is that if we don’t take action domestically we will never get started and we’ll never…”
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “But if you are looking at the results, the results can’t justify the cost and the burden that you’re imposing on the American people in my judgement.”
It’s all about how things look, not how effective they are. And, while they are doing this how many jobs will be lost? How many children will go hungary? How many people won’t be able to afford electricity 24 hours a day? How many elderly will go broke trying to heat their homes so they don’t freeze to death. All of this so they can appear to be doing something to appease the eco-terroists while they turn the country into a third world nation.
Get ready to only have big box stores and the internet for your retail purchase options in California (now and the whole country later). The state of California is forcing PG&E through regulations to move business to “time of day use” for electricity. Maybe a factory can work at night, or a farmer can pump water at night, but what about retail. Can a mon-and-pop local retail store tell their customers to come back at 9:00 pm? Most are just getting by right now!
By the way, their estimate of 01 degree reduction does not take into account the growth of CO2 production by other countries. If you assume there is global warming (which there isn’t) and you believe that CO2 is the main cause of global warming (which isn’t true) and you take into account the increasing C02 production of China, India and other developing countries the EPA regulations only slightly decreases the increase. So when they say their rules decrease global warming (by .01 degrees) they are not telling the whole story. The reduction in the increase of CO2 can only slightly reduce the increase in temperature (if you believe CO2 is the active agent). Is it worth the pain this is going to cause the poor and people on fixed incomes. It isn’t just the cost of electricity or heating it is the cost of all products. Electricity is a expense for manufacturing, farming, retail, health care, …. everything. Drive it up and everything costs more.
This administration needs to look at its monetary policy and the huge potential for inflation because of “printing money” to pay the countries debts instead of creating more regulations that are in themselves shigly inflationary. It’s insanity!!!!!
McCarthy: “The value of this rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action…”
What nation inspired us to start cleaning up our air?
No nation did! We did it to be more responsible about how we impact our world. Our own survival, comfort, and sense of esthetics was the motivator!
The Chinese aren’t going to be inspired to take steps to clean their environment by our self-inflicted wounds. They will take advantage of our weakened economic/production state in the international market.
Reasonable people wrote most of the early regulations and gave companies sufficient time to comply. The companies have done an incredible job. Instead of celebrating this the extremists double down and asked the near impossible. Are they dedicated to the so-called cause or their own sense of importance?
The EPA is an activist organization answering to the extreme few who don’t care how their outrageous regulations will impact citizens and businesses. Symbolism is more important than survival or the well being of individual citizens.
Rush is right. The environmental movement has become the new home of marxisim/socialism. They are water melons–green on the outside, red on the in side.
The EPA is out of control and must be stopped. Read the below geologist expert and his prediction the spill would happen and it was done on purpose.
Geologist Predicted EPA Project That Caused Toxic Spill Would Fail ‘Within 7 to 120 Days’:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/13/geologist-predicted-epa-project-that-caused-toxic-spill-would-fail-within-7-to-120-days/
Coal? That is so yesterday.
Here is the best reason to get rid of the EPA which has been defunded to almost be useless.
Koch and coal billionaires have done a bang up job for their right to pollute!
Taxpayers spend millions cleaning up after these companies. Why not talk about that?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/08/3667061/coal-cleanup-insurance/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090123-coal-ash.html
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/09/us/north-carolina-coal-ash-spill/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/29/business/us-indicts-koch-industries-on-pollution-violations-in-texas.html
http://yubanet.com/usa/Koch-Paper-Mill-Profits-from-Weak-Pollution-Regulation.php#.VdCc_5diCos
Why do taxpayers have to pay? Why is cancer from toxic waste OK? Why not talk real issues and solutions?
Follow the lobbyist media money and one is sheeple