Friday, July 02, 2010

"My Program Will Bankrupt Utilities Which Use Coal"

And here comes Part One of the bankrupting process.

New regulations for the disposing of coal ash proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency are likely to increase costs for utilities in Wisconsin, which are particularly dependent on coal – and those costs are expected to be passed on to consumers. The regulations may also make it more difficult for Milwaukee’s utility, WE Energies, to sell the ash, which is a byproduct of the coal burning process. It’s successfully marketed this waste product to concrete, cement and wallboard manufacturers.

...If the EPA decides to classify the waste as “hazardous,” it would oversee its regulation. If not, the agency would only mandate a set of minimum national standards and leave it up to state governments and citizens’ groups to enforce them.

Both options proposed would add to the costs of operating Wisconsin’s 14 coal-powered power plants. The federally-controlled option would cost a total of $1.5 billion with coal users and the federal government sharing most of the cost, EPA estimates.

The less-restrictive "State" option would cost around $600Million.

WE Energies will pass the cost to ratepayers, of course.

3 comments:

Amy said...

It'll be so fun to freeze in winter. Obama should plan on coming back and explain to people why $600 energy bills are good for the planet.

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

This regulation is incredibly bogus and needs to be challenged. You will never get fly ash to fail a TCLP (standard test for determining hazardous waste). If they can "deem" fly ash hazardous waste, they can make anything so.

What happened to "putting science back in the White House"?

TerryN said...

Didn't the EPA-holes declare an inert life sustaining gas a pollutant in the past year?

Now that's the new science in the White House.