Long after the the "need" is proven not to exist, and the IPCC's AR 5 is laughed at as scientific pap, the "true believers" esconsed for life in the bureaucracy go on mindlessly creating stupid regulations far afield from its original charter.

I fully support taking the toxic Air Quality regulations to the endpoint of any possible further regulation. That is to pristine Air Quality with a T2B2 tightening, or "ZEVs for all vehicles" mandate.

Then there is nothing else the EPA needs to do other than to shut itself down.

Mission Accomplished.

Of course bureaucracies are the only immortal things Man has ever achieved, anywhere. So to kill it will require depriving it of its blood supply of constantly increasing government funding. Finding the political will to do so is almost impossible, requiring politicians to actually, DO something, and divert the funds to solving other needed problems.

This new set of regulations should be fairly lawyer-proof. Remember, regulations were created some months earlier and then pulled back exactly because it was decided that they might not hold up to strong legal attacks.

This is a great moment. It really signals that coal is done in the US. There's no way to build a coal plant with carbon sequestering and have it be able to compete in today's energy market.

Our existing coal plants are mostly old and nearing the end of their useful lives. Most of our plants are over 30 years old and the average lifespan for a coal plant is 39 years.

Yesterday the federal government canceled a sale of coal. The highest bid was only one fifth of the minimal acceptable price. The market for coal is collapsing.

Now, let's get cranking on wind and solar so that we can minimize our hurt from climate change. And reduce the billions of tax dollars we spend dealing with the health and environmental damage from coal pollution.

It is great that Obama is trying to prevent the building of more coal-fired electrical plants, but we need also to close/decommission the old ones.

Dave, most of the cost of electricity in Germany is taxes. Germany industry pays far, far less for their power than residential customers.

I'm not sure why Germany decided to tax electricity so heavily, but it started well before the decision to close nuclear plants or to install lots of renewables. Germany, and all(?) of Europe also tax vehicle fuel quite heavily.

Perhaps it's to encourage efficiency? Germans use about 1/4th as much electricity per capita as do Americans.

Due to their efficiency Germans pay less of their incomes for electricity than do Americans even though the cost of their electricity is quite high by American standards.

Now, in 2012 having solar on their grids dropped the cost of electricity by 5 billion euros. The cost of electricity in Germany in 2012 was 8 billion euros less than what would have been spent if fossil fuels had generated the renewable input. Germany now has that renewable generation in place and year after year they will be saving billions rather than spending extra money on fuel.

I know that you have some very strong beliefs. And I'm impressed at your ability to hang on to them in the face of facts which prove your beliefs incorrect.

Shine on....

The new plants can use the CO2 with natural gas to make synthetic fuels that substitute for refined products. That way we reduce the amount of C02 emitted AND reduce the amount of imported oil at the same time.

“all that's left to have 100% renewables is a bit of practical grid energy storage,”

Is that all? Storing large amounts of electricity will never be practical.

“is ultra cheap compared to what will happen if we keep burning coal.”

What will happen? I have heard some theories on that.

“People used to say that renewables couldn't reduce baseload, ”

This statement demonstrates how clueless some are when it comes to generating power. Wind does not reduce the need for generating capacity. Since the generating capacity already exists, expensive wind power generation can replace some coal generation that is at half the costs. RPS and PTC allow wind farms to make a profit.

Here is a real time load/demand curves for the PNW.
http://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg.aspx

Late Friday tried to go sailing but had to use gasoline to motor up the Columbia River. We plan to have a regatta today. At the moment there is not enough wind to overcome the river current. There is no reason that we cannot use wind but we depend on coal.

This is counterproductive, but since emissions limits (a hammer) are the only thing the EPA has in its toolkit, everything looks like a nail.

A sane system would be a per-ton fee on carbon emissions from electric power generators (with partial credit for cogenerators), rebated to the generators on a per-kWh basis.  Generators emitting less carbon per kWh would receive a net dividend, those emitting more would pay a net fee.  This would replace renewable feed-in tariffs and production credits.  High-emitting generators could stay on the grid, they'd just be used only when spot prices were high and thus have relatively low emissions.

Of course, utilities would also be scrambling to keep Vermont Yankee on the grid, and re-commission Kewaunee and SONGS.

Kit P, I think you're on the fossil payroll. It doesn't matter (talks like a duck...), in any case you're way out of step with the state of technology. Repeating the same old lies in the face of exponentially falling renewable energy prices and exponentially rising worldwide installations is beginning to sound more and more like desperation.

About California, we have half the energy intensity of the rest of the nation per unit of economic output. So limit your own gasoline usage if you want. It might get you *equal* to where we've been out here for decades. As for me, I drive an electric car, so I could care less if you want to "ration" my gasoline. Or charge me $20/gallon. Or charge me a large per-ton carbon fee, *I don't care!* I'm getting more and more "carbon-proof" every year. CA is already at 20%--on its way to 33% renewables.

If you say that "wind does not reduce the need for generating capacity" it means you *didn't even look at the EIA link that I posted.* Proving exactly the opposite. Nice try. As for your completely irrelevant sailing example, the wind is always blowing somewhere, and it blows strongest when the sun is not shining. What a coincidence! Sounds like synergy to me...

Yes, $0.30/kWh is ultra cheap compared to what happens if we keep burning coal. Just ask the people affected by Sandy, or the Colorado floods, and on, and on. And $0.30/kWh is way too high as a comparison, anyway. I can sign up for a 20 year PPA right now to put solar panels on my house for a guaranteed price of $0.17/kWh. I don't do it because I can buy green power from CA for about $0.15. Next year or two, the curves will cross, and bingo, the money makes sense.

You just dismiss grid storage with a wave of the hand. Is that how you evaluate everything else in your life? People betting against technology usually lose. And the carbon apologists are on the really harsh end of that losing bet.

I don't know how you live with that kind of cognitive dissonance, Kit P. I'd get on the right side of history if I were you.

Engineer-Poet, I completely agree, but in this political climate, it's a fair miracle that anything at all has been accomplished on carbon regs. This was never the Obama administration's preferred tool.

@Sean
“Kit P, I think you're on the fossil payroll.”

I work in the nuclear industry designing new reactors. The company I work for does nuclear and renewable energy. We do not do fossil.

“About California …”

I have worked in the power industry for more than 40 years and my father moved to California in 1960. I know all about California especially some who are clueless. There is a difference between leadership and BS.

“You just dismiss grid storage with a wave of the hand.”

Of course, do you want the whole list of things that folks who are not interested enough in energy to study in it in college but think are a good idea?

“People betting against technology usually lose.”

Nuclear power is technology. I did not bet against it and I am a winner.

“nuclear is dying”

Actually it is doing very well.

“SONGS”

The California mentality! A screw up in California does not translate to the rest of the country and world. My company has replaced many steam generators extending the life of the nuke plant to 60 years.

“It's going to cost billions just to decommission the damn thing.”

Every US nuke plant sets aside funds for decommission.

“They still can't even get insurance”

Every US nuke plant is fully insured.

“or loans without government guarantees”

No problem getting loans and government guarantees have not been used.

“mired in controversy”

Really! Why are people in California so concerned about how people in Georgia replace coal?

nuclear is dying. If we had built Yucca Mountain--*maybe* it would be worth saving.

China wouldn't have bought another 4 AP-1000's in addition to the 4 already under constructin if "nuclear is dying".

Gregory Jazko made an illegal decision to halt the approval process for Yucca Mountain.  It's almost entirely built, just not "approved".  Furthermore, I don't see what we need it for anyway.

1. The uranium in spent LWR fuel is perfectly usable in heavy-water reactors; we can sell it to the Canadians for their CANDUs (or build our own).
2. The plutonium in spent LWR fuel is perfectly usable; we can use it to start fast-neutron breeder reactors, like S-PRISMs.
3. Short-lived radwaste isotopes are gone before we need to really deal with them.
4. The longest-lived of the relatively-unstable fission products (Sr-90 and Cs-137) are valuable for purposes such as killing pathogens in food, treated sewage and drinking water.
5. Some of the long-lived radioactive fission products, e.g. technetium, are relatively inactive and chemically useful as platinum-group metals.
6. All the stable fission products or ultimate decay products of radwaste are radiologically safe.

SONGS just destroyed two multi-hundred-million dollar steam generating units in a couple of years

They were far from destroyed.  One set was mis-designed such that max-flow conditions produced vibrations which created out-of-spec tube wear.  Calculations showed that operating at 70% of spec power would eliminate those vibrations and the consequent wear.  The utility made the mistake of asking the NRC for permission to operate at a power level which eliminated the problematic vibrations (instead of just doing it)... and the fission-phobic NRC required a several-year, uncertain approval process instead of just allowing it.  The utility read the writing on the wall.  This resulting in throwing away a multi-billion dollar asset, but the current value of that asset under the legal assault of the anti-nuclear forces was less than the value of the decommissioning fund.  You (since you are in the service area of SONGS) will regret that soon enough.

Here is an actual news release from a Ca relative to SONGS.
It shows the mass mentality against nuclear:

Chryssa Atkinson, 51, the mother of two teenagers, said her son liked to surf near San Onofre. Like many other surfers, he insisted the water — which the nuclear plant used to cool the reactors — was warmer than at nearby beaches.

“I was not a fan,” Ms. Atkinson said. “I’d tell him, ‘Yes, the water is warmer, but you didn’t have that tail before you went in.’ ”

But now, for the first time, she doesn’t mind her children surfing near the power plant. “Now that it’s closed, I tell them, ‘Sure, go for it.’ ”

This paper is good. I love this quote:

"A cat that sits on a hot stove lid will not do so again, but neither will it sit on a cold one." -Mark Twain

"In September 2007, Lew Hay, CEO of FPL Group, said the total cost of a new nuclear plant (all in mixed future dollars as-spent) could be ~$5,000–7,000/kW, or “on the order of magnitude of $13 to $14 billion” for a two-unit plant. Yet just five months later, FPL31 filed formal cost estimates up to nearly twice that high—$12–24 billion (again in mixed future dollars) for a 2.2–3.04-GW two-unit plant, equivalent to ~$4,200–6,100/kW in 2007 $.32 And even that cost may be understated, because FPL’s implicit real cost escalation rate is only ~1.1–1.5%/y, severalfold slower than recent experience.33"

SO @E-P and @Kit P, are you going to tell me that I couldn't build a renewable energy plant with storage sufficient to provide--say--25% of its rated capacity through the night for baseload for $4,000-$6,000 per kilowatt? And since renewable energy requires no fuel, are you going to tell me such a plant wouldn't be cheaper to operate than nuclear?

http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion