# EPA Moves to Effectively Ban all New Coal Power Plants **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985 "2012-03-27T21:59:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/61 "2012-03-31T13:37:48Z")
The other question also remains - how does replacing much of our old coal with new NG impact our participation with future international climate change protocols from a political POV? ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/62 "2012-03-31T16:06:22Z")
I is interesting that Germany will be replacing clean nuclear electric plants with filthy, CO2 generating coal power plants. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/63 "2012-03-31T16:33:01Z")
Check out [US regulators approve new South Carolina nukes](http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-03/D9TQVCAO0.htm): > [@](#): > > Federal regulators have approved plans to build two new nuclear reactors to generate electricity in South Carolina. > > The project is only the second to receive federal approval in a generation. Last month, the NRC voted to issue a permit to Atlanta-based Southern Co. to build and operate two new reactors at its Plant Vogtle site south of Augusta, Ga., the first such approval since 1978. > > During a brief meeting in Washington on Friday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to allow South Carolina Electric & Gas to build two 1,100-megawatt reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Columbia. Coming online in '16 and '19. How much natural gas does this represent/displace? How big a dent does this make in the region’s demand? If we get a 10-year natural gas roller coaster that makes the '70s oil embargoes look like dinner and a movie, nuclear and solar/wind/other will look very attractive, aside from the, ‘grrr Hulk say SMASH regulations!’ approach. Assuming that doesn’t happen, I expect solar will get a boom since it is modular and can be installed very quickly, if not to vast scale. Consider [U.S. to impose tariffs on solar panels from China](http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/20/business/la-fi-china-solar-tariffs-20120321). The effect will be the US builds its own solar panels, and global supply goes up. Basically, the public is going to get hit with a stick no matter what. Global warming or really high prices or shortages or disastrous accidents or some combination of all of the above. Looks like the stick won’t take the form of new coal plants from now on. How long until older/dirtier plants are forced to shut down? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/64 "2012-04-01T03:58:22Z")
Nuclear plants were originally approved to operate for 40 years. Assuming that all get a 20 year extension then [1/3 of the nuclear fleet will be 60 years old or over by 2035](http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/aeo_2010analysispapers/nuclear_power.html). If the operators can afford to keep them going. This was written just a year ago but already the ground has shifted: > [@](#): > > Between 1974 and 1998, 14 commercial nuclear reactors in the United States were retired. The circumstances of each retirement were unique to the particular plant, but the common thread was that the expected cost of continued operation was higher than expected revenues, and there were less costly generating options available. Highly competitive natural-gas-fired generation could have been a factor in those retirements. Natural-gas-fired combined-cycle plants were the favored option for new capacity during the 1990s, when natural gas prices were relatively low and it was widely believed that they would remain low for the foreseeable future. In contrast, real O&M costs for nuclear power plants had increased by 77 percent during the 1980s [71], owners faced the risk that new NRC regulations might require prohibitively expensive retrofits, and there was widespread concern State public utility commissions would not allow full cost recovery for expenditures on nuclear plants. > > The economics of existing nuclear power plants are more favorable today, because natural gas prices are higher, the nuclear plants are performing well, and the potential enactment of GHG regulations increases uncertainty about fuel and operating costs for power plants that burn coal and natural gas … We are back to NG prices being low and a wide spread belief that they will remain low for the foreseeable future, and likely to an era where old plants will be under great scrutiny show they are safe although aged, thus more costly to run. In short my understanding is that the fleet is going to age out and a few new nukes aren’t even going to replace what ages out. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/65 "2012-04-01T05:51:15Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I lean to a diversified approach myself - don’t use too much of the NG at one time so that it lasts longer (and also so the risk of excessive volatility is reduced) by also building renewables, next generation nuke, and even some less dirty new coal (I still lean toward co-firing with biomass) at the same time. Sounds like my opinion on the subject. Add to that investigation into the thorium cycle. > [@](#): > > The other question also remains - how does replacing much of our old coal with new NG impact our participation with future international climate change protocols from a political POV? The pessimist in me says it can give us a bit more of a bully pulpit, but that it won’t really steer any significant change. ---
**Author:** ![scJazz2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@scJazz2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scJazz2)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/66 "2012-04-01T07:05:11Z")
Reading this thread and one of SD archives… made me want to post. Having the EPA kill off any new coal fired plants seems totally insane. But then again the EPA has been more or less behaving insanely for ohhh 20 years or so now. Coal is too dirty so we can’t have any of that because of GHGs and anthropogenic global warming (a topic which is seems this board assumes is true). We can’t have nukes because they are “scary”. We can’t have Hydro because fish die. We can’t have Bio-Fuels because they aren’t efficient and might not even be carbon neutral. We can have NG because we have a lot of it right now but even still someone will file a lawsuit. (New York and anti-fracking legislation also comes to mind) What is left? Wind? Solar? Geothermal? Geothermal… around Yellowstone perhaps but there really aren’t that many suitable locations in the entire World nevermind the USA. Wind and Solar are cyclic in nature so not horribly useful unless we invent much better battery technology. Batteries that would necessarily use lots and lots of polluting heavy metals which would once again have the EPA and treehuggers filing lawsuits. Solar and Wind were/are epic failures just ask Spain. 40 years of subsidies to grow a nascent technology and they still aren’t up to speed. Which finally brings me to my point… What the hell are we supposed to use? Obama talks about “all of the above” energy strategies but then his admin kills off coal. How is that all of the above? 3 new nuke plants authorized in 34 years is a start on all of the above but we need much more than that! Earlier in this thread someone mentioned the health risks associated with Coal fired plants. Here is something serious to think about… what are the health risks of living in New England during a Nor’easter with 15 degree temps and winds blowing 40 mph with no heat because I can’t afford it? After I finish burying the dead can I file a lawsuit against the EPA and every treehugger I can find insisting that they all move to Northern Maine and live out their remaining days in a carbon neutral manner? In other words… all of the above means exactly that! Use everything to the best of our abilities! Naysayers can move to Florida and pick lice out of their hair in their non-AC’d renewable huts. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/67 "2012-04-01T12:56:56Z")
> [@scJazz2](#): > > What the hell are we supposed to use? Obama talks about “all of the above” energy strategies but then his admin kills off coal. How is that all of the above? Coal isn’t going anywhere. It is ‘only’ new coal plants larger than 25 MW that are off the table. From [here](http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states): > [@](#): > > In 2011, coal was the fuel for about 42% of the 4 trillion killowatthours of electricity generated in the United States. I speculate that, at some point in the future, regulations will demand the closure of the dirtiest/oldest coal-fired plants, but I haven’t read any official statements to that effect. In the near to mid term we will still be burning quite a lot of coal. And if we learn how to generate coal power with low enough CO2 emissions (below 1000 lb per MW, right?), this regulation will have no effect. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/68 "2012-04-01T13:46:34Z")
> [@scJazz2](#): > > Reading this thread and one of SD archives… made me want to post. Good, that’s what it should do. > [@](#): > > Having the EPA kill off any new coal fired plants seems totally insane. But then again the EPA has been more or less behaving insanely for ohhh 20 years or so now. I would disagree with that - the EPA has had more hits than misses IMO. > [@](#): > > What is left? … What the hell are we supposed to use? Obama talks about “all of the above” energy strategies but then his admin kills off coal. How is that all of the above? One thing you can add to the mix (well, two things) are: - Conservation (don’t waste so much damn energy) - Consumption control (don’t use so much damn energy) I’m going to editorialize here on this point (since it is Great Debates), which I think is shorted, especially by my fellow conservatives, to a fault. Whatever one may think about me personally I have been working in my area for decades, and I have a lot of smart folks I manage. I’ve been to I honestly don’t know how many countries and worked with even more to assess energy needs and supply. I’ve been to the houses and even stayed in the houses of fellow engineers around the world, and the amount of energy they use relative to the average American is stunningly low. And when they come over here and I bring them to an average American house and they see how we live, they are stunned at how wasteful we are with energy. Gazing across my parking lot in the morning all I see is a sea of V-8 SUVs and Ford F-250s, and guess what the last time I checked my co-workers were cubicle warriors, not Fran the Farmer or Adirondack Jack. Yet they will claim with a straight face (as will many on the SDMB) that they “need” or “must have” a giant 10-mpg behemoth, for such reasons as “they have a dog” or “they have kids.” It’s _amazing_ that for so many decades in the US families weren’t able to have either until they bought an F-350 Crew Cab Dualie… My next door neighbor to the south leaves 4 incandescent (they appear to be 100W bulbs) burning, 24/365, no matter what, because he can’t be bothered to turn them off. People run pool heaters even when we have streaks of 105 F days - goodness knows no one in history was ever able to swim on a blazing summer day without a 5 kW heater running. My office is over-air conditioned because, as my own building services manager put it to confidentially and swore me never to mention it to another co-worker, because the work force is so overweight\* on average they’re sweating bullets at even 70 F. Meanwhile I have 3 kW of space heaters in my office running - in the middle of summer - because I’m so cold my fingers are no longer functioning and I _hurt_ from the cold. I need to find the study but the single most important factor for encouraging conservation is not education, it’s not subsidies of insulation etc., it’s not sports stars on TV telling the masses to change their thermostat, it’s money - higher energy costs means more conservation. The free market acts. The problem is, what to do about the poor, who maybe end up being faced with choices like “well, what if I never turn on any lights” or “maybe I could unplug my refrigerator over the weekend”, or “huh, there’s ice in my house because I can’t turn on the heat.” So just raising energy costs can’t be the answer, there is a serious Societal change needed, one where it’s more cool to drive a small Toyota than an F-350, one where people don’t sneer at you for not buying a 4,500 square-foot “mansion.” Shoot, one where we don’t have kids demanding hundreds of presents over the year, made from Chinese energy and Saudi petroleum, to be used for a few weeks, maybe months, then entombed in a landfill for centuries. A goal of reducing total energy use from all sectors by 25% over 10 years ought to be a very worthy goal for the US, IMO, combined with addressing the supply side issues aforementioned. - I’ve considered talking Cecil into researching the energy cost of obesity in the US. Some things are easily quantified, others need some more digging. ---
**Author:** ![scJazz2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@scJazz2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scJazz2)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/69 "2012-04-01T16:12:36Z")
^Try2b I understand we aren’t closing existing plants. My poor choice of phrasing. We are preventing new ones from being built unless they are small and include so many features they are uneconomical to build. It amounts to the same thing. Killing off Coal unless/until we come up with technology that makes them cleaner. But that technology won’t be developed until we need it when NG pricing/availability forces the issue. ^ Una The EPA was a desperately needed agency back in 1970. It was very useful into the 90s. But like all bureaucracies it has swollen ranks and is doing everything it can to not just remain relevant but to grow. For one example of how insane its’ behavior just consider the recent case of the couple who wanted to build a home. > **[Supreme Court Rules For Idaho Couple In EPA Battle](https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-rules-idaho-couple-epa-battle-161825350--abc-news.html)** > > The Supreme Court today ruled in favor of an Idaho couple who had been battling the Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to build their dream home. Four years ago, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought property to build a home near a lake in... Conservation and consumption control don’t have to be added at all. They are by their very nature already present. You raise them as examples of things we can add but really what you meant was you want more of them and the mechanism you propose is to increase prices and then help the poor. Which is a bit insane because those policies will just make more people poor increasing the need for subsidies which always increase the price of the good or service being subsidized creating a positive feedback loop that fails to help fix the thing being subsidized. (See affordable education, corn based biofuels, etc) Regarding your editorial… you raise what at face value good points. However, they are just isolated examples. For all the F-250s, swimming pool heaters, and “leave the light on Larry’s” you describe there are those who are actually driving 4cyls, make considered decisions about turning a light on at all, and who are forced to turn the heat off and wear sweaters with 3 blankets to bed and hope the pipes don’t freeze. “Higher costs means more conservation” is what you said. But what is the real cost? Every winter we hear stories of people freezing to death in Europe and Russia. I’m sure we would hear the same in China if they would allow such news to be released. In the summer we get the same regarding heat stroke. This is the true price of the policies that liberals are pursuing. The energy use reduction goal has been tried with notable failure in Europe for decades now. Having said all this… Do we need all the F-250s? No. Did the EPA help with the smog problem? Yes. Do the kids need all those presents from China? Doubtful. Still Cecil said we need something like a 100% increase in worldwide energy availabilty in the next 40 years if we want some hope that the population will stabilize around 9 billion people. We will not get that with conservation. We will get it by building every possible type of power generation available and putting a choke collar on the EPA. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/70 "2012-04-01T16:56:16Z")
> [@scJazz2](#): > > For one example of how insane its’ behavior just consider the recent case of the couple who wanted to build a home. > > [Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More](http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-rules-idaho-couple-epa-battle-161825350--abc-news.html) What was insane was the legal aspects of challenging the ruling by the EPA. The facts as I understand them actually are pretty clear-cut: this couple bought property and didn’t do their due diligence to see if the land was a protected wetland, and now they want to build their house anyways. It’s similar to shooting an endangered bird and then claiming “well, I didn’t know it was endangered, it’s unfair that we’re being punished.” > [@](#): > > Regarding your editorial… you raise what at face value good points. However, they are just isolated examples. For all the F-250s, swimming pool heaters, and “leave the light on Larry’s” you describe there are those who are actually driving 4cyls, make considered decisions about turning a light on at all, and who are forced to turn the heat off and wear sweaters with 3 blankets to bed and hope the pipes don’t freeze. They’re not isolated examples when all you have to do is compare both the fleet CAFE in the US and the average home energy consumption in the US with, say, other industrialized countries in Europe or elsewhere. [Here’s a citation,](http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablee1c.xls) and the US is the 7th-worst country in the world (and that is including some outliers, such as island nations which have to import and use a tremendous amount of energy, such as the US Virgin Islands and Netherlands Antilles; see the link). > [@](#): > > “Higher costs means more conservation” is what you said. But what is the real cost? Every winter we hear stories of people freezing to death in Europe and Russia. I’m sure we would hear the same in China if they would allow such news to be released. In the summer we get the same regarding heat stroke. This is the true price of the policies that liberals are pursuing. The energy use reduction goal has been tried with notable failure in Europe for decades now. And we hear the same right here in the US - every year in my fairly affluent city, people freeze to death and die of heat stroke in their homes. So can we conclude the US has failed as well? Are there no extenuating circumstances at play here, none at all? We in America are energy pigs, and I’ll wager that everyone reading this and nodding their head could still do better. I’m an energy pig. I confess it. Some of it is hard to change - I take scores of useless business trips which burn untold amounts of fossil energy, for no good reason - but if I don’t, I lose my job. We drive two cars that between them have more than 700 hp. Our thermostat is set to 75 or higher in the winter (but 80 in the summer…). Nonetheless, according to the stats from my utilities we use about 40% the electricity of an equivalent-sized home in our “neighborhood” (defined as about a 20x20 block area). We’re about to re-insulate the entire structure of the house with R-8 foam board under new siding, and tear off the entire roof and put thermal barriers under the new roof. We replaced 21 windows with new ones with U values of 0.25 or less, even in the basement. We’re trying. ---
**Author:** ![scJazz2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@scJazz2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scJazz2)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/71 "2012-04-01T18:02:43Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > What was insane was the legal aspects of challenging the ruling by the EPA. The facts as I understand them actually are pretty clear-cut: this couple bought property and didn’t do their due diligence to see if the land was a protected wetland, and now they want to build their house anyways. _SNIP_ OK, defending the EPA with the ignorance is not a defense routine. Understandable, unfortunately not applicable. There was no water source in the area from the reporting. Hence, no reason to infer a possibility of a protected wetland. As for the insanity of the EPAs position it is obvious. A reasonable person would have said “Wow that is unusual. You are right. We should have a hearing about this quite soon. In the meantime please stop construction while we talk this over.” Instead we have a bureaucracy so drunk on power that they wouldn’t even discuss the issue. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > They’re not isolated examples when all you have to do is compare both the fleet CAFE in the US and the average home energy consumption in the US with, say, other industrialized countries in Europe or elsewhere._SNIP_ So the solution is to cripple American business while allowing and even encouraging everyone else to do the “bad things”? You think China and Africa care about anthropogenic global warming? Not really except insofar as they can use the issue to hamstring the West. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > And we hear the same right here in the US - every year in my fairly affluent city, people freeze to death and die of heat stroke in their homes. So can we conclude the US has failed as well? Are there no extenuating circumstances at play here, none at all? Funny, I don’t hear this on the news except the isolated 1 person died, 1 family died. I do hear 200 people froze/fried in France, etc. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > We in America are energy pigs, and I’ll wager that everyone reading this and nodding their head could still do better. I’m an energy pig. I confess it._snip_ We’re trying. OK my apologies as the following isn’t meant to be insulting to you but you have given personal examples. You have shown that there are definitely Americans who are behaving badly. My family’s one car has 20% that hp, my thermostat has never been set that high, and my house doesn’t even have 21 windows. This would indicate that we are at opposite ends of the economic scale. So it is your classmates that aggravate this issue while my classmates suffer under the well meaning but punishing policies that the more thoughtful among you think would be good for me. My point being, the EPA was initially a good thing. Regulating coal down to less than totally absurd emissions was a good thing. Banning leaded gasoline was a good thing. CAFE standards are generally a good thing. Ad nauseum… but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. The EPAs assault on coal, never ending stonewalling on nuclear, dictatorial abuse of power, etc are clearly too much of a good thing. Notably, when so much of the world at best pays lipservice to concerns espoused by the EPA. Somewhere between the line you draw and the line I draw is a happy place. One where we don’t strangle our economy or force more Americans to make cruel choices. One where the air is reasonably clean and the water is potable. We have to find that happy place and it isn’t way over there where you want it or way over here where I want it. Clearly, the topic of this thread is a case of the line being drawn way over there where you want it and I (the poor) will be paying the price. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/72 "2012-04-01T19:24:30Z")
> [@scJazz2](#): > > OK, defending the EPA with the ignorance is not a defense routine. Understandable, unfortunately not applicable. There was no water source in the area from the reporting. Hence, no reason to infer a possibility of a protected wetland. It doesn’t matter what people infer. Can you infer that there is a gas line under the spot where you plan on planting an oak tree in your front yard, or do you check first? I won’t defend the indefensible with respect to the lack of a hearing. > [@](#): > > So the solution is to cripple American business while allowing and even encouraging everyone else to do the “bad things”? Holy excluded middle, Batman. I understand what you’re saying, but there are clearly diminishing returns here, but the “this will hurt business” defense has been used for everything up to and including the US Civil War (“if we free them thar’ negros, the price of cotton will become meteoric! Meteoric, I tell you!” So much for your cheap dresses, ladies!") Clearly a business model based on waste and a poor environmental record is something unsustainable in the long run. Will our standard of living decline if energy prices increase? Almost every single piece of environmental legislation “hurts” someone. How much do the catalysts on a new car cost nowadays at the factory level, about $1,000/car? Clearly controlling NOx and CO hurts the poor and business, as fewer people can afford cars…and yet, people,a nd businesses, adapt. We’ve been getting a free ride, living fat on the land, and now it’s time for things to move back towards normalcy and sanity. Our country is fat, lazy, and stupid with cheap energy - it’s time to move toward becoming lean, mean, and smart. > [@](#): > > You think China and Africa care about anthropogenic global warming? No, not really. There’s clearly a lot of people leveraging it for their own personal gain, including some liberals who are looking eagerly at controlling GHG emissions as some sort of global “soak the rich plutocrats of the Satanic West” scheme. > [@](#): > > Funny, I don’t hear this on the news except the isolated 1 person died, 1 family died. I do hear 200 people froze/fried in France, etc. With respect to the “fried” French - I’ve lived in France, in fact I was over there about the time of the heat wave, and the problem was not the fact they couldn’t afford air conditioning, it’s the fact that _so many houses have no air conditioning at all._ Furthermore, as Wiki claims: > **[2003 European heatwave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave)** > > The 2003 European heat wave saw the hottest summer recorded in Europe since at least 1540. Spain, France and Italy were hit especially hard. The heat wave led to health crises in several countries and combined with drought to create a crop shortfall in parts of Southern Europe. The death toll has been estimated at more than 70,000. > The predominant heat was recorded in July and August, partly a result of the western European seasonal lag from the maritime influence of the Atlantic warm waters i... > [@](#): > > Because of the usually relatively mild summers, most people did not know how to react to very high temperatures (for instance, with respect to rehydration), and most single-family homes and residential facilities built in the last 50 years were not equipped with air conditioning. Furthermore, while there were contingency plans for a variety of natural and man-made catastrophes, high temperatures had never been considered a major hazard. > > The heat wave occurred in August, a month in which many people, including government ministers and physicians, are on holiday. Many bodies were not claimed for many weeks because relatives were on holiday. A refrigerated warehouse outside Paris was used by undertakers as they did not have enough space in their own facilities. On 3 September 2003, fifty-seven bodies still left unclaimed in the Paris area were buried. > > The high number of deaths can be explained by the conjunction of seemingly unrelated events. Most nights in France are cool, even in summer. As a consequence, houses (usually of stone, concrete or brick construction) do not warm too much during the daytime and radiate minimal heat at night, and air conditioning is usually unnecessary. During the heat wave, temperatures remained at record highs even at night, preventing the usual cooling cycle. Elderly persons living by themselves had never faced such extreme heat before and did not know how to react or were too mentally or physically impaired by the heat to make the necessary adaptations themselves. Elderly persons with family support or those residing in nursing homes were more likely to have others who could make the adjustments for them. This led to statistically improbable survival rates with the weakest group having fewer deaths than more physically fit persons; most of the heat victims came from the group of elderly persons not requiring constant medical care or living alone without immediate family. > > That shortcomings of the nation’s health system could allow such a death toll is a matter of controversy in France. The administration of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin laid the blame on families who had left their elderly behind without caring for them, the 35-hour workweek, which affected the amount of time doctors could work and family practitioners vacationing in August. Many companies traditionally closed in August, so people had no choice about when to vacation. Family doctors were still in the habit of vacationing at the same time. It is not clear that more physicians would have helped as the main limitation was not the health system but locating old people needing assistance. > > The opposition, as well as many of the editorials of the local press, have blamed the administration. Many blamed Health Minister Jean-François Mattei for failing to return from his vacation when the heat wave became serious, and his aides for blocking emergency measures in public hospitals (such as the recalling of physicians). A particularly vocal critic was Dr. Patrick Pelloux, head of the union of emergency physicians, who blamed the Raffarin administration for ignoring warnings from health and emergency professionals and trying to minimize the crisis. Mattei lost his ministerial post in a cabinet reshuffle on 31 March 2004. > > Not everyone blamed the government. “The French family structure is more dislocated than elsewhere in Europe, and prevailing social attitudes hold that once older people are closed behind their apartment doors or in nursing homes, they are someone else’s problem,” said Stéphane Mantion, an official with the French Red Cross. “These thousands of elderly victims didn’t die from a heat wave as such, but from the isolation and insufficient assistance they lived with day in and out, and which almost any crisis situation could render fatal.” No mention of high energy prices in there. See how other people live outside the “gated community” of the US. To add to this, I know in the UK at least, like the US, energy isn’t shut off to people who can’t pay their bills during weather emergencies. In this city most of the people who die from heat are elderly people, bedsit in uninsulated or poorly-insulated houses with no A/C installed. They’re not dying because they can’t pay the bills, not here anyways. Example: [the KCPL hot weather policy.](http://www.kcpl.com/about/heatassist.pdf) > [@](#): > > OK my apologies as the following isn’t meant to be insulting to you but you have given personal examples. You have shown that there are definitely Americans who are behaving badly. My family’s one car has 20% that hp, my thermostat has never been set that high, and my house doesn’t even have 21 windows. This would indicate that we are at opposite ends of the economic scale. So it is your classmates that aggravate this issue while my classmates suffer under the well meaning but punishing policies that the more thoughtful among you think would be good for me. Buying a smaller house saves energy and money. Buying a smaller car saves energy and money. Buying less throwaway crap for yourselves and your kids saves energy and money. Even not buying your kid a new smartphone every 6 months so they can keep up with their idiot classmates saves energy and money. My average co-worker is the one buying houses so huge my entire little house would just about fit in their 4-car garage or rec. room #2. They’re the ones driving the SUVs and F350s, and refuse to use a scooter or bike, even if they live within sight of my office, because those are “gay.” They’re the ones paying 2, 3, even 4 times my electric bills for their in-ground swimming pools, hot tubs, in-house “fitness centers”, walk-in cigar humidors, and big-screen TVs in every single bedroom in the house (which their lazy-assed kids won’t bother to turn off when they leave the house, because mumsy and dadsy have never had the moral fibre to teach them the value of a dollar). I may not be ideal, but I’m not even in the same league of energy hogdom as most folks I know. And I have 21 windows because my nearly 60-year old house did not originally have A/C; it used natural cooling. I’m using them today, and it’s 88 F outside, rather than run my A/C. In fact, I’m writing this from my patio under a giant ash tree, watching the bumblebees buzz around our cherry and listening to the cardinals calling each other, and as such I’m going to take a break from online for a bit. ---
**Author:** ![scJazz2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@scJazz2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scJazz2)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/73 "2012-04-01T21:59:38Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > It doesn’t matter what people infer. Can you infer that there is a gas line under the spot where you plan on planting an oak tree in your front yard, or do you check first? I do hear what you are saying. Still there are laws that say you have to check for buried utilities before digging. There is no law that says you have to check with the EPA before building. It is clearly reasonable to assume there is no protected wetland when building in a desert, scrubland, mountain top where there is no water source. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Holy excluded middle, Batman. I understand what you’re saying, but there are clearly diminishing returns here, but the “this will hurt business” defense has been used for everything up to and including the US Civil War :):eek::smack: (humor)PENALTY!!! Holy gratuitous use of racism parallel Batman!(/humor) I agree there is a diminishing returns point. Killing off all future expansion of a Energy sector is probably well to the Left of that point. Over to the Right a bit would have been something like all available economical tech must be installed on all new Utility level Coal Plants. (With some reasonable people laying out what “available economical tech” means) > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Clearly a business model based on waste and a poor environmental record is something unsustainable in the long run. Will our standard of living decline if energy prices increase? Almost every single piece of environmental legislation “hurts” someone. How much do the catalysts on a new car cost nowadays at the factory level, about $1,000/car? Clearly controlling NOx and CO hurts the poor and business, as fewer people can afford cars…and yet, people,a nd businesses, adapt. Your right business models based on waste and pollution are not sustainable. Clearly, Joe Average has been educated well enough at this point that he would reject such a business without legislation. All environmental mandates hurt someone. We agree on that. There are obvious benefits to some of these mandates. I’ve admitted as much. When every single Energy Production Business is buried under 3023412381 pages of EPA, Energy, Interior, State, Local, County rules clearly there is a problem. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > We’ve been getting a free ride, living fat on the land, and now it’s time for things to move back towards normalcy and sanity. Our country is fat, lazy, and stupid with cheap energy - it’s time to move toward becoming lean, mean, and smart. Your calling it a lazy free ride. I’m pointing to the rest of the world and laughing because by and large they all consider “energy” a luxury and tax the hell out of it to pay for all their freebies. Your normalcy and sanity is their absurd and crazy. There has to be some place in the middle we can meet. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > No, not really. There’s clearly a lot of people leveraging it for their own personal gain, including some liberals who are looking eagerly at controlling GHG emissions as some sort of global “soak the rich plutocrats of the Satanic West” scheme. Yet another reason why any of this should be entered, if at all, with slowness, deep consideration, and compromise! > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > With respect to the “fried” French - I’ve lived in France_SNIP_ OK I was going for the humor play there when I used France, Fried French… French Fries. Ya know… meh OK fail! Would you stipulate that there have been a higher than reasonable number of deaths based on lack of energy for heating which disproportionally effected the poor? I would think this safe. Since I have heard of them in the news and if they make the news in the USA then there must be something odd going on. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Buying a smaller house saves energy and money. _SNIP_ I should have been even more clear. I wasn’t directing any of my comments at you specifically. I was just using the personal examples you offered. There was no need to defend yourself because there was no attack. If I may, you raise many examples of obscene excesses by the wealthy and upper middle class. Fine, educate them, criticize them, make them look like hypocrites (pointedly not looking at Gore :rolleyes:). What you shouldn’t do is futz with the price of energy too much as the burden lands on the back of the poor. The rich and the well off won’t even notice the increases. The poor will be crushed by it. Anyway, the repetition is worth it. The Conservative platform is not the correct path. The Liberal platform isn’t either. Somewhere between them exists reasonableness. The EPAs attack on Coal is not reasonable. Now if only we could actually get reasonable people in charge of Washington and the Fed Bureaucracies! Enjoy your time under the tree but don’t hug it! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/74 "2012-04-02T00:27:27Z")
Global warming isn’t really a ‘left’ or ‘right’ issue. It is a math problem. There are correct and incorrect views with this one, and the numbers, not politics, decide which are which. There is no sense in ‘meeting in the middle’ between correct and not. It is not accurate to blame the government for ‘futzing with the price of energy’. Circumstances are futzing with it. The EPA is making a rule about how much carbon we will accept per unit of energy. In light of the millions who will suffer and be displaced if not die as a result of climate change, not to mention the horrible economic problems a worst-case warming scenario will cause for everybody, setting some standards is ordinary economic planning and does not amount to an ‘attack’. They are attempting to attach a _more_ accurate price tag to energy. I think it is debatable whether the EPA ‘nailed it’ with this ruling or not, but that’s because I’m not an expert on the details. And the poor are going to be screwed no matter what, and over more than energy. Not being poor is your best defense. Putting the burden on the poor feels oppressive when the choices are ‘work way harder than you want to, circumstances willing’ or ‘suffer these terrible consequences’. But again, sometimes it is just reality that is oppressive. It can make the poor seem almost, I don’t know, worth helping or something. ---
**Author:** ![scJazz2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@scJazz2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scJazz2)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/75 "2012-04-02T00:39:19Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > Global warming isn’t really a ‘left’ or ‘right’ issue. It is a math problem._SNIP_ It is only a math problem if you accept AGW as truth. If you are not certain or do not accept it then we are back to politics. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/76 "2012-04-02T00:47:17Z")
> [@scJazz2](#): > > It is only a math problem if you accept AGW as truth. If you are not certain or do not accept it then we are back to politics. You mean, ‘if you accept math as accurate’. The numbers point to AGW. There really isn’t a ‘left’ and a ‘right’ way to do math. What to do, how to go about it and so on can turn into political questions, but I think the broad strokes of AGW are pretty much settled as a matter of something to include in our planning. ---
**Author:** ![scJazz2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@scJazz2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scJazz2)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/77 "2012-04-02T02:39:52Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > You mean, ‘if you accept math as accurate’. The numbers point to AGW. There really isn’t a ‘left’ and a ‘right’ way to do math. What to do, how to go about it and so on can turn into political questions, but I think the broad strokes of AGW are pretty much settled as a matter of something to include in our planning. Yeah except we have things like ClimateGate, ClimateGate II, hockey stick graphs, graphs that show the warming trend stopped 10 years ago, Chesapeke Bay, etc, etc. So politics. Not math. Personally, I’m undecided. From what I understand both sides of this debate have some explaining to do. What I’m not willing to accept is taking the axe to entire industry and West Virginia’s economy. What I am willing to accept is as mentioned before a line somewhere between “pollute all you want” and “you can’t build anything”. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/78 "2012-04-02T05:11:00Z")
> [@scJazz2](#): > > What I’m not willing to accept is taking the axe to entire industry and West Virginia’s economy. I’d be cautious about unwillingness. Let me quote for you [ch 76 of the Tao](http://www.thetao.info/english/page76.htm): > [@](#): > > When alive, the body is supple, yielding. > In death, the body becomes hard, unyielding. > > Living plants are flexible, > In death, they become dry and brittle. > > Therefore, stubborn people are disciples of death, but > Flexible people are disciples of life. > > In the same way, > Inflexible soldiers cannot win (a victory). > And the hardest trees are readiest for an axe to chop them down > Tough guys sink to the bottom, while > Flexible people rise to the top. Though we probably cannot agree on the details, there does exist a reality more fundamental than any of our opinions. Get in it’s way and you will get smooshed. Nobody can resist reality. There are lots of methods of arriving at ‘truth’, but [math](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Bacon) has the virtue of being demonstrable. If you can’t follow it, that is usually your problem. If you make up your mind to ‘not accept’ some aspect of reality, chances are that is going to be a stiffness that results in a vulnerability on your part. I don’t have a problem with West Virginia. I didn’t even realize that’s what we were talking about. But again, US coal-powered generation amounts to ~1.6 trillion kwh/year. That simply will not change in a hurry. Coal will be bought. Just remember a fundamental strategy in economic planning: diversification. ---
**Author:** ![scJazz2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@scJazz2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scJazz2)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/79 "2012-04-02T05:24:04Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I’d be cautious about unwillingness. Let me quote for you [ch 76 of the Tao](http://www.thetao.info/english/page76.htm): > > Though we probably cannot agree on the details, there does exist a reality more fundamental than any of our opinions. Get in it’s way and you will get smooshed. Nobody can resist reality. There are lots of methods of arriving at ‘truth’, but [math](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Bacon) has the virtue of being demonstrable. If you can’t follow it, that is usually your problem. If you make up your mind to ‘not accept’ some aspect of reality, chances are that is going to be a stiffness that results in a vulnerability on your part. > > I don’t have a problem with West Virginia. I didn’t even realize that’s what we were talking about. But again, US coal-powered generation amounts to ~1.6 trillion kwh/year. That simply will not change in a hurry. Coal will be bought. Just remember a fundamental strategy in economic planning: diversification. There you go calling GW real and true and absolute again… should I quote the Tao back at you in reference to your unwillingness to accept that it might not actually be AGW? It is kind of cute in a way, your behaving like a fire and brimstone Baptist 🙂 Try to be rational… there is enough BS out there being slung by both sides and instances of skullduggery by both sides. Enough that anyone behaving in an absolute manner in either direction is acting irrational. Or stands to make a lot of money! ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985/80 "2012-04-02T05:37:57Z")
> [@scJazz2](#): > > There you go calling GW real and true and absolute again… should I quote the Tao back at you in reference to your unwillingness to accept that it might not actually be AGW? But I am not unwilling to accept that. All I have to see is persuasive evidence for that point of view. I strive to be intellectually honest, so the most persuasive line usually wins. AFAICT, AGW is the most persuasive line. Why shouldn’t I think so? None of the objections you raise sink the perspective. > [@](#): > > It is kind of cute in a way, your behaving like a fire and brimstone Baptist 🙂 Try to be rational… there is enough BS out there being slung by both sides and instances of skullduggery by both sides. Enough that anyone behaving in an absolute manner in either direction is acting irrational. Or stands to make a lot of money! Well, I am kind of cute and frankly I can always be wrong 🙂 But you will have to do better than that to persuade me that AGW is not the most accurate interpretation of the most comprehensive set of honest data. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/epa-moves-to-effectively-ban-all-new-coal-power-plants/616985.md?page=5)