In the United States, burning fuel to produce energy is fast declining.
President Joe Biden’s administration made the decision on Thursday to accelerate the destruction of the lungs-altering, climate-changing fossil fuel while attempting to ease the shift to cleaner energy sources.
A number of recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations mandate that coal-fired power plants reduce heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions by 90 %, require significant reductions in brain-damaging mercury pollution, ban toxic metals from entering lakes and rivers, and require hazardous coal ash from scores of unlined pits across the country.
The Biden presidency also warned that the gas industry may not continue to benefit from coal’s new economical advantages. Any brand-new gas-fired flowers constructed in the United States will have to adhere to the same strict standards as those for coal plants that are already in operation.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan stated on Wednesday during a call with reporters that” we are making sure the energy sector has the knowledge necessary to prepare for the future with trust, enabling strong purchase and preparing choices.” These activities may also enable us to address the full range of dangers that power plants pose to good land, safe water, and fresh air.
In terms of emissions of climate change pollutants, U.S. power plants are next only to travel.
For today, though,  , existing fuel- fired plants , are free from the president’s demand to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Regan claimed in February that the EPA intends to adopt individual regulations for existing gasoline plants, as well as other types of pollution that are disproportionately affecting low-income, Black, and Latino neighbors. This decision about undoubtedly depends on the outcome of the 2024 election.
Energy companies that also rely on fossil fuels will pay more for regulations aimed at coal plants, which could lead to the closure of producers with low profits. The Biden EPA’s policies, according to activists who pleaded for changes and brought lawsuits against the agency, may push the economy to pay for decades of abuse, harm to public health, and the surroundings.
According to Thomas Cmar, an lawyer for Earthjustice, a volunteer legal organization that challenged the Obama and Trump administrations ‘ weaker coal dust and waste regulations, “power species have been able to get away with treating our waters like an empty sewer.” It is much earlier time for this dangerously destructive process to finish.
Despite dozens of fuel plants closing in recent years, the sector has also contributed to about a fourth of the large metals released into the oceans on a global scale, more than any other economic sector.
Additionally, owners of about 250 coal plants dumped toxic ash into earthen pits, which are more loosely regulated than regular garbage dumps for family garbage.
One of the sites that may experience more stringent federal monitoring is the former , Waukegan Generating Station , on Lake Michigan, a former ComEd fuel grow ringed by two earthen dust lakes and an unlicensed waste. ComEd and other businesses dumped coal ash in Joliet, as well as a coal plant in Michigan City, Indiana, owned by the Northern Indiana Public Service Co., which planned to excavate and safely dispose of only half of its waste.
The only thing stopping the Michigan City plant’s waste from escaping into Lake Michigan is a quickly deteriorating steel wall, according to Donnita Scully, chair of the NAACP’s LaPorte County branch.
” I’m concerned about the people who do n’t know about this threat to their health”, Scully said.
The nation’s energy mix is rapidly changing as a result of the new regulations.
In the United States last year, coal produced just 17 % of the electricity it generated, down from more than 50 a decade earlier. Gas accounted for 42 % of the electricity, but in some states, a combination of wind and solar energy, combined with battery storage for when the wind is n’t blowing or the sun is n’t shining, provides the majority of the energy during various times of the year.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made it known that the Biden administration would try to increase renewable energy in the electric grid by accelerating environmental reviews of new transmission lines and offering regulatory incentives to upgrade existing lines to carry more energy.
Illinois is moving toward cleaner energy in many ways ahead of the federal government.
Governor Christie brokered a state law. J. By 2045, coal- and gas-fired electricity will be prohibited under B. Pritzker’s and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.
Illinois also offers a warning about the transition, though.
Five Chicago suburbs and dozens of Downstate communities made an agreement in the middle of the 2000s to help pay off more than$ 5 billion in debt for the company that is one of the Top ten industrial heat-trapping carbon dioxide producers in the United States, Prairie State Generating Station.
Municipal investors in the massive coal burner, including Batavia, Geneva, Naperville, St. Charles and Winnetka, helped block Pritzker’s more aggressive plans. Springfield, the state capital, followed suit by building a new coal plant around the same time as private investors abandoned dozens of similar projects, alarmed by rising construction costs and the possibility that climate pollution would eventually be regulated.
___
© 2024 Chicago Tribune
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
