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Economy
Obama EPA regulations kill 15 power plants, 480 jobs in Georgia
2013-01-09
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Georgia Power asked state regulators for permission to shut down 15 power plants yesterday, claiming new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) make the plants too expensive to run.
I'm thinking seriously about adding another category and simply calling it "Government."
The 15 coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired power plants currently produce 2,061 megawatts (MW) for Georgia energy consumers. Georgia Power plans to close 11 of the plants on the exact day the EPA's new mercury regulations are set to take effect, April 16, 2015. Georgia Power will seek waivers from the EPA to keep four of the other plants open for a single year, and then shut those down too on April 16, 2016. It is unclear how the Georgia energy sector will make the 2 gigawatts up.

The EPA claims its new mercury regulation will produce $140 billion in annual benefits, but only $6 million of the benefits come from actual mercury reductions. According to Dr. Anne Smith, Senior Vice President of NERA Economic Consulting's Global Environment Group, effectively all of the EPA's estimated benefits come from "coincidental reductions" of fine particulate matter. But fine particulate matter is already regulated by a separate section of the Clean Air Act.

The plant closures will cause at least 480 fewer power plant jobs and higher electricity rates for all Georgia energy consumers.
Posted by:Fred

#14  I honestly have no (environmental) dog in this fight. Just want to be transparent myself and show fallacies in some opinion pieces, is all.

Much appreciated, BA. More information is better. :-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2013-01-09 20:09  

#13  
So we are getting mercury out of our power plants while we bring it into our homes in the form of curly light bulbs.


Gotta store it somewhere.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2013-01-09 17:47  

#12  Not sure, TW, but here they have until next July/August to do so. I think (not sure about this) GA Power built several NG fired plants years ago to handle "peak demand" times (hot summer days). Maybe they can use those (although I doubt it'll replace 2 GWatts) and/or quickly build new NG units.

I believe GA Power (when it saw the NE brownouts a few years ago) went into high gear to build extra capacity. Even in last summer's extreme heat here (we had more days of 90+ than we've had for a while), we never experienced brown-outs, so obviously there's capacity. I'm just not sure how much.

Finally, the 3 plants they listed were outside of a lot smaller towns (which probably means more consistent use of the grid), so I'd like to think that GA Power has planned for this. The plants they listed on radio were outside of Brunswick (extreme SE Georgia), near Savannah and outside of Newnan (SW of Atlanta). Also, I'd guess that Brunswick has been hit hard as it's an industrial town and in O's economy, a lot of plants there have been shuttered (further decreasing electrical demand).

I honestly have no (environmental) dog in this fight. Just want to be transparent myself and show fallacies in some opinion pieces, is all.
Posted by: BA   2013-01-09 15:31  

#11  Georgia Power plans to close 11 of the plants on the exact day the EPA's new mercury regulations are set to take effect,

So we are getting mercury out of our power plants while we bring it into our homes in the form of curly light bulbs. Yeah, I'm sure that is better somehow.
Posted by: SteveS   2013-01-09 13:34  

#10  BA, how long between the closure of the currently operating units and the opening of the gas-fired ones? I have to assume there is no firm start-up date for the nuclear power plants...
Posted by: trailing wife   2013-01-09 13:32  

#9  Also, the below link shows that it is proposing to close 15 units at 4 power plants. That's the confusion, I guess.

Linky
Posted by: BA   2013-01-09 11:05  

#8  Don't know and won't opine on long-term storage of spent fuel.....

However, nuke reactors "solve" the GHG emissions issues....
Posted by: BA   2013-01-09 10:47  

#7  Nke reactors?

Seems OK, wnat about the long term storage of "Spent" fuel, No answer?
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2013-01-09 10:34  

#6  Also, to further clarify my original post, EPA is implementing mercury rules (Clean Air Act) because of the federal D.C. District's ruling against EPA in a lawsuit brought by NJ (not a NJ state court ruling, as my original post implies).....

And, for full disclosure, I work for the EPA (albeit in the wastewater arena, not air).
Posted by: BA   2013-01-09 10:27  

#5  Big Jim, I think GA Power has the "big picture" in mind. They are moving forward with new nuke reactors at 2 of our nuclear plants. Hope that the NRC gives approval....
Posted by: BA   2013-01-09 10:25  

#4  Burning Natural gas?
That'll cause CO2, and that's illegal.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2013-01-09 10:18  

#3  While I'm usually the first to jump on this stuff, let us note that EPA is doing this because of a court ruling against them by the State of NJ.

Local news here in Atlanta stated that GA Power will only close 3 plants and replace them with cheaper natural gas plants. That seems to be an economic win-win to me, who lives here and will pay the cost. I honestly didn't even know we still had oil fired plants in GA and Natural Gas is something we can produce domestically (another win-win).
Posted by: BA   2013-01-09 10:14  

#2  Kills? How about Power Plant Violence Prevention?
Posted by: JohnQC   2013-01-09 09:37  

#1  Not just Georgia. This is happening in many states. I have seen it in my Ti-State area.
Costs will only go up and up "to infinity and beyond". "Government" that doesn't care anymore.
Posted by: Dale   2013-01-09 09:10  

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