The New York Times reports today about a proposed coal-fired power plant’s air pollution permit being revoked by a state judge because it did not set limits on carbon dioxide emissions — according to the article, “the first time a court decision had linked carbon dioxide to an air pollution permit.”
I’m not sure sure where the sponsors of the blog stand, but in my mind, this is the most important passage in the article:
“Judge Moore said in her decision that the permit would have to require ‘best available control technology’ for all emissions that could be regulated, including carbon dioxide. But Mr. Vogt said that in contrast to pollutants like soot, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, there was no commercially available carbon control technology, nor a government-set limit on emissions. ‘There simply are no regulations out there to tell us what we would have to do,’ he said. ‘The E.P.A. is wrestling with this right now, as is Congress.’ ”
This tells me three things. First, if judges are going to revoke air pollution permits on the basis of carbon emissions, there needs to be a clear regulatory regime in place so that plant builders know what is allowed and what isn’t. Otherwise, no new power plants will be built. While I’m generally not a big fan of more government regulation, we here at Terra Rossa have discussed many times the potential benefits of a market-based cap-and-trade system.
Second, companies that are looking to build new coal-fired power plants are going to have to develop and implement new technologies that capture carbon. Again, we’ve spent a lot of time here talking about how cap-and-trade could help stimulate the development of such technologies.
Third, America must make a renewed commitment to nuclear power. If power companies were allowed to build nuclear plants, arguments over carbon emissions would become moot. It is time to start building nuclear power plants again in the U.S.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 10:16 am and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, Cap and Trade, Eco-Business Strategies, Politics/Government . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
[...] my last post, I talked about how a Georgia judge revoked the air pollution permit or a proposed coal-fired power [...]