Coal likely to disappear faster even in the absence of EPA power plant rules

In April last year this agency tried to set the new rules to cut carbon emissions of power plants under the Clean Air Act. It is something the EPA has been obliged to do since the supreme court decision made in 2007 on the case that begun during the Clinton administration. The last attempt appeared to be the most imposing; some of them requiring the retirement of coal fired power plants or CO2 capture equipment on those using coal and some natural gas plants to tough it out without carbon emissions or only green hydrogen. However, as the new study in the Science on Thursday shows, even if they survive a court challenge they wouldn’t likely have a sweeping impact on the US’s future emissions.

However, the approach implies that the rules act as a brake to stop other policy changes and rising demand from rolling back the progress that would otherwise occur. This is just as well, since the rules are soon going to be scrapped by the incoming Trump’s administration anyway.

While the net result of a number of Supreme Court decisions is shown below, Green House gasses are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and the EPA was required to examine whether Green House gasses are a threat to people. The EPA under George W.

Bush carried out that analysis but kept the findings secret till it left office and the EPA under Obama arrived at the same conclusion. The EPA further developed guidelines for reducing carbon emissions on a state by state basis but these quickly became obsolete because renewable power and natural gas started replacing coal even where the EPA was not calling for it.

However, the Trump administration enacted new rules on the same that were aimed at achieving even less and those rules were scrapped by a court before Biden took over. At the same time, the Supreme Court decided on the even more utterly meaningless Obama rules in an aesthetic to allow the EPA to regulate only carbon emissions generated by power plants not grids.

But the Trump government in its wisdom chose to replace these rules with ones which were intended to do even less, and these were duly tossed out by a court just before Biden’s inauguration. At the same time, the Supreme Court intervened to make a decision on the even more irrelevant Obama rules, certain the EPA could only regulate carbon emissions at the level of individual power plants, not the entire grid.All of that paved the way to the latest EPA rules, which was developed by the EPA under the Biden administration. Under pressure from the court to set standards for individual power plants the EPA continued the preceding, allowing the coal plants that were planning to retire over the decade to persist as is.

Anything that would continue to run longer would have to either change fuels or add carbon capture equipment. In the same manner, natural gas plants had been regulated depending on the existence of certain conditions, including the operating schedule wherein if the plants operated only less than 4000 hours annually, that is 40 percent on average, very steep new regulation could be applied to them. More than that, and they have to sequester CO 2 or burn a fuel that is primarily hydrogen generated without CO 2 emissions. As we speak, Biden EPA rules are winding their way through judicial process, but we know the Trump administration will quickly pull those rules shortly after taking office, thus rendering this case obsolete. However, people had begun to assess their possible effects even when there was no sign that there would be a Trump presidency.

And the analysis is useful in the sense that it will indicate what it will be like when the rules are no more. And by some of these yardsticks, the answer might not be that much. But the answer is also very dependent upon whether the Trump administration goes all out against renewable energy.

The work builds on the observation that the various authors and organizations have proposed models to analyze how the US electric grid could economically satisfy demand under different scenarios, such as changes in the regulatory regime. The researchers found nine of them and operated them with and without the EPA’s proposed rules in order to evaluate the effect. By itself, the lifting of these rules has quite a small destructive influence. Lacking the rules, average CO _{2} emission of the US grid in 2040 will be between 60 and 85 percent less than that in 2005. With rules, the range is between 75 percent and 85 percent—that is, the rules provide far less risk concerning outcomes that entail the least variation.

And that is particularly so because they are structured in the way described here. Mainly, they focus on coal plants because they contribute to almost 48% of the grid’s emissions yet provide only 15% electricity. Well, they have been closing at a very fast pace, and would probably close at the same fast pace even without the prodding from the EPA. Natural gas plants, the other significant source of carbon emissions, would largely – and in the worst case scenario – run less than 40 percent of the time, thereby avoiding onerous regulation while being able to meet instances where renewable power underperforms. We now have a large enough number of natural gas installations that demand can be met without a significant amount of construction with most installations running at only 40% of their capacity.

It also makes this possible for growth in renewables and storage to continue as has been our intentions here. This response shown in the model has the following paradoxes: Because IRA has provided for the production of renewable energy equipment and energy-efficient homes and vehicles, the models indicate that these two measures do not much matter. The IRA contains provisions for the deployment of CCS and green hydrogen, that is hydrogen produced with no carbon emissions. It would probably definitely take more than these credits for the economics to work in favour of the technologies should there be other options like renewable power plus storage systems around. The IRA also extends tax credits to deployment of renewables and storage, thus taking the economics to another level for the technologies.

As there are no many differences, the rules do not impact the price of electricity too much. The presence of the rules increases costs by about 0.5 to 3.7 percent in 2050 relative to absence of the undertakings. Therefore the wholesale price of electricity is adjusted by only two percent.

In any case, the team that performed the analysis theorises that, to some extent, the rules could go a long way depending on other factors. Trump has indicated he will go after all of Biden’s energy policies, and that would include the IRA itself. Its repeal might negatively impact new renewable deployment in the US; so could more issues with grid expansion for integration of new renewables. Moreover, the US particularly experiences an upswing in demand for electricity to a higher extent in 2023 than it did during the ten years to it. While it's still unclear whether that's a result of new demand or simply weather conditions boosting the use of electricity in heating and cooling, there are several factors that could easily boost the use of electricity in coming years: this includes transport electrification, increase use of data center and electrification of appliances and home heating.

Should these enhance demand adequately, it could mean that continued coal use could be conducted cheaply without the EPA rules. Future rules can thus be seen as safety nets against the worse-case emissions outcomes under future scenarios with better coal plant economics the paper conclusion offers ‘better’ scenarios as “Higher demand, slower renewables deployment results from interconnection and permitting delays or higher natural gas prices.” And it could possibly be the only backstop we are going to get. The report also revealed that the several states have already positioned themselves for tougher emissions cuts that include, and net zero by 2050. But these do not constitute a substitute for federal climate policy because, while some of the states that are putting these measures in place consume very little coal.