US coal fired power stations must clean up or close down, says environment agency
BMJ 2024; 385 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q991 (Published 30 April 2024) Cite this as: BMJ 2024;385:q991
Coal fired power plants in the US will have to clean up or close down under unprecedented new environmental rules announced by the Biden administration.
The move is a key element of the president’s commitment to decarbonise electricity by 2035 and all sectors by 2050. It includes new limits on air pollution from power stations, as well as tighter rules on the disposal of wastewater.
The power sector is the second largest producer of climate changing emissions in the US, after transport. Coal burning for electricity is also a major contributor to air pollution, having killed nearly half a million people in the US over the past 20 years.1
The plans, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),2 are the first time any countrywide legislation has been applied to electricity generation from coal. Fossil fuel driven power stations that plan to stay open beyond 2039 will have to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2032. Plants due to retire earlier than 2039 will have less strict rules applied to them, and those that close by 2032 will not be affected.
The options for cutting such emissions, however, are extremely limited. Carbon capture and storage is frequently touted as a solution but has never been proved at such a scale, said Emily Grubert, associate professor of sustainable energy policy at Indiana’s Notre Dame University. “Carbon capture is important in a couple of sectors, but I don’t think it’s important for the power sector,” she told The BMJ. “It’s a really expensive technology that doesn’t get you to zero emissions. The big thing too is that we have alternatives that work better—renewables.”
There have been mixed reactions to the new restrictions. Rich Nolan, president and chief executive of the National Mining Association, was reported as saying that “the EPA is systematically dismantling the reliability of the US electric grid.”
But the news has been warmly welcomed by others as a national first and a statement of intent about tackling the climate emergency.
Air quality experts have also given the rules the thumbs-up. Frank Kelly of the School of Public Health at Imperial College, London, said, “This Biden initiative is just one of the things that need to be done to move in the right direction. I think the States are leading the world in air pollution control—they are well beyond the EU. The UK is even further behind.”
“Not ambitious enough”
Others, however, say that more is needed from the planet’s second largest producer of greenhouse gases, as the latest science says that the world could be on course to exceed 1.5°C of global heating—a maximum level that scientists believe is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.3
Matt Groch of the international environment group Mighty Earth campaigns to decarbonise heavy industry, particularly motor manufacturing. “Fundamentally, these goals are not ambitious enough,” he told The BMJ. “You can’t have low carbon steel and aluminium for the auto industry without low carbon power, and that means a complete phase-out of dirty coal.”
When it comes to the true impact of the plans, says Grubert, the devil is in the detail. She is unconvinced that they will speed up the pace to net zero carbon by 2050, as US emissions from coal are already diminishing quickly.
Burning coal to produce power has been in rapid decline for years, she said, down from a peak of generating over half the country’s electricity in 1990 to around 16% last year. A lot of existing coal plants are “over the hill already,” she added. “The idea that many of them will still be operating past 2039 is unrealistic.”
The real significance of the EPA’s announcement, says Grubert, is what it means for the future of clean power in the US, as limits on emissions will also apply to new gas plants that will replace some of the country’s ageing coal fired power stations.