The EPA’s Appeal Board has ruled that no new coal-fired powerplants can be built without CO2 limiting technology, or at least, that’s the message implied in the Sierra Club press release on the matter:
In a move that signals the start of the our clean energy future, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) ruled today EPA had no valid reason for refusing to limit from new coal-fired power plants the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. The decision means that all new and proposed coal plants nationwide must go back and address their carbon dioxide emissions.
“Today’s decision opens the way for meaningful action to fight global warming and is a major step in bringing about a clean energy economy,” said Joanne Spalding, Sierra Club Senior Attorney who argued the case. “This is one more sign that we must begin repowering, refueling and rebuilding America.”
“The EAB rejected every Bush Administration excuse for failing to regulate the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States. This decision gives the Obama Administration a clean slate to begin building our clean energy economy for the 21st century,” continued Spalding
The decision follows a 2007 Supreme Court ruling recognizing carbon dioxide, the principle source of global warming, is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.
Looking at the ruling itself (PDF), it seems the truth is sligthly more complicated. The Sierra Club brought this appeal as part of its ogoing battle against a specific new coal-fired power plant in Utah. What the appeals board has decided is not that this plant cannot be built without the “best available control technology” for minimising CO2 output, but instead that the EPA Region responsible for giving a building permit for this plant was wrong not to consider whether or not to require the plant to have this “best available control technology”.
It’s not so much then that every coal-fired powerplant now must have this technology, but rather that, like with various other pollutants, every permit for such a plant needs to consider whether or not this technology must be fitted, depending on circumstances. Additionally, if such technology is to be fitted, it still needs to be determined what this “best available control technology” actually is.
Because of this ruling the permit for this particular project is no longer valid and needs to be reconsidered, which can take one to two years. Even better, every other permit for such a project is back to square one as well, unless they’ve already considered this question. It doesn’t mean the end of coal power in the US, but at the very least it buys time for Obama to get its environmental legislation in order. With pressure from the Sierra Club and other enviromental organisations, the hope is for the new administration to require all coal-fired powerplants to be fitted with CO2 limiting technology.