A Free-Market Energy Blog

EPA's Utility MACT Proposal: Negative Economics for What?

By Scott Segal -- March 17, 2011

[Editor note: This new white paper by the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council (ERCC) is summarized by director Scott Segal (full bio below). ERCC is a coalition of power companies that works with labor unions, consumers, and manufacturing and service businesses on clean air issues.]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has now signed a proposal to advance a new maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standard for the electric utility industry, known as the Utility MACT.

Back in 1998, the EPA made a finding regarding the need to regulate mercury emissions from power plants. At the time, EPA made clear that there were no incremental benefits associated with addressing any other hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from the power sector other than mercury. Specifically, no health benefits were found from addressing non-mercury HAPs such as acid gases.…

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A Broader Viewpoint: Roger Pielke Sr. on the State of the Climate Change Debate

By Chip Knappenberger -- March 16, 2011

Recently, Roger Pielke Sr., Senior Research Associate at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC) at the University of Colorado Boulder, participated in the March 8, 2011 House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing, Climate Science and EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulation.

His succinct testimony, reprinted below, provides a viewpoint on climate change science that is (refreshingly) different from the somewhat limited one espoused by the IPCC. While the IPCC sports blinders that prevent it from seeing much beyond human emissions as being the primary culpable agent of climate change, Roger sees the much bigger, more complex, picture. And Roger suggests that a response considered for the big climate change picture would likely be much different from that being considered for human emissions alone.…

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Five Questions for DOE Secretary Chu (so what has DOE done for you lately?)

By Glenn Schleede -- March 15, 2011

“If the guiding agency is less knowledgeable than the system it is trying to guide—and even worse, if its actions necessarily result in further undesired consequences in the working of that system—then what is going on is not planning at all but, rather, blind interference by some agents with the plans of others.”

– Don Lavoie, National Economic Planning: What is Left? (Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1985), p. 95.  

Upon reading the latest letter from the Secretary of the Department of Energy, Stephen Chu, five questions came to mind. Perhaps he, a staffer, or anyone else can provide answers to see just how justified this part of DOE’s mission is during a time of fiscal challenge.

Question #1: Can Secretary Chu spell C-E-N-T-R-A-L  P-L-A-N-N-I-N-G ?

Question #2: If there is “…deep energy expertise within the Department and our national laboratories…” how does one explain the minimal results from the approximately $150 billion (2009$) that has been poured into “energy R&D” (not counting money spent in basic sciences) by DOE and its predecessors?

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Little Killers of Economic Recovery: State Mandates for Dilute, Unreliable Energy

By Marita Noon -- March 14, 2011
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Anti-Energy, Anti-Industrial Policy: When is Enough Enough?

By -- March 11, 2011
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55 Positive Externalities: Hail to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment

By Chip Knappenberger -- March 10, 2011
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The Great Texas Wind Swindle: Environment, Step Aside (Part II)

By Sam Pakan -- March 9, 2011
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The Great Texas Wind Swindle: Property Owners vs. the State (Part I)

By Sam Pakan -- March 8, 2011
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The Michael Lynch Power Hour Interview

By -- March 4, 2011
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