Have Environmentalists/EPA Triggered Electric Power Outages To 3 Million Americans?

JoeClarke.Net ^ | 07/03/2012 | JoeClarke.Net

[joeclarke]

As many people fall down in the sweltering heat, because of the loss of power to air conditioners, there are others jumping up and down, because the excessively hot weather seems be to punishing those naughty Americans, known around the world to use more than their "fair share" of energy. Coupled with the severe storms knocking out power lines, to an environmentalist, it may, indeed, be a perfect storm.

In the past several years, American power generating companies have been diverted from upgrading their existing equipment, including coal generating plants, transmission lines, substations, etc. on the Grid, by the incessant hounding of the EPA, which has redirected power companies away from upgrades and planned maintenance, and toward - anything but coal. The EPA has induced hundreds of billions of dollars of expenses, and plan even more penalties,fines, and taxes. To me, a penalty levied by the federal government is a fine, and is a tax. Justice Roberts doesn't like "quibbling over labels," but its all the same - mo money demanded by the government. BTW, In the Senate, “Energy policy has been creeping into the tax code [Carbon Tax] at an exponential rate" Senator Orrin Hatch, June 12, 2012.

From the East Coast, past Illinois, up to 3 million people have been without electrical power, and so the first suspects to be considered responsible for the catastrophes are, of course, the Environmental Protection Agency and its environmentally ill allies like the Sierra Club, as well as President Obama.

Even at this late date, 2,000,000 citizens are without power, including those within Washington, D.C. Bureaucratic slowdowns happily expected.

Obama promised to "bankrupt coal," and in fact, coal companies have been either closing down in droves, or are in the midst of powering down, thus causing the closure of coal powered electric generating stations, as well as coal mines, while firing thousands of workers. This prophetic notice by the Electrical Worker Online Coal Plant Shutdowns Threaten Blackouts from April of 2012, predicts exactly that - America's electric transmission grid will be overly burdened as coal plants are powered down:

"As utility companies face new deadlines for coal-fired power plants to comply with tight new EPA clean air regulations, many energy suppliers have plans to shutter plants that employ thousands of IBEW members rather than invest in costly upgrades.

If thousands of megawatts are suddenly taken off-line, this could trigger massive electricity shortages, just as demand is expected to increase, according to a regional transmission organization report.

A report from PJM, a regional transmission organization covering 13 states and the District of Columbia, estimates that 18,000 megawatts of electricity will be lost to the power grid due to expected coal plant shutdowns. That's the loss of enough power to light and heat 18 million homes."

It is very difficult to research the direct relationship between this June-July power outage and the powering down/switching/closing of coal fired electric generating plants, because the media is very protective of everything the evironmentalists and Democrats pontificate, and will seldom do stories that give a black eye to the Greens. Even power companies are very beholding and sensitive to the federal government environment czars, and must constantly ingratiate themselves in the presence of Obama's regulatory czars.

Even if the recent power outages are more due to storm/mechanical damage to the electric grid, rather than the unavailability of backup power due to decommissioning of generating plants, the fact is, that American power companies have been distracted by the EPA and federal government from upgrading the transmission stations and other infrastructure as they are forced to invest capital into ways of transferring from the traditional (and cheap) coal to other sources such as natural gas. Either way, Obama's big rear is still sitting on American energy production. And, don't think they won't be going after natural gas with a vengeance, as they have attacked oil and nuclear through the years.

Here are some alarming charts/graphs of what is planned by the EPA as it robs Americans of its choice to use plentiful coal for energy.

From The Business Insider:

'The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule has received nothing but negative feedback from the affected energy industry, which argues the stricter federal emission law will result in higher costs for electricity and massive loss of U.S. jobs. The plan will also require billions of dollars to retrofit power plants with clean coal technologies.

According to a study prepared by the National Economic Research Associates (NERA), the legislation is among the most expensive EPA rules ever imposed on coal-fueled power plants that will cause electric rates to skyrocket by as much as 23 percent and lead to nationwide employment losses totaling 1.4 million job-years by 2020.

Power-plant closures are expected to increase in the coming months, as utilities complete their cost analyses of complying with the Cross-State rule, according to Industrial Info Resources. The EPA rule has already forced coal facilities in Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas to retire old units, rather than bare the expense of installing pollution-control equipment.

The coal industry maintains that the EPA doesn't seem to care about the economic damage new regulations will cause."

From The Institute For Energy Research:

IER Identifies Coal Fired Power Plants Likely to Close as Result of EPA Regulations:

[dirtboy]

Sorry to raise your hackles, but my intention was to convey that man cannot plan society for every eventuality.

Do you realize that this blog post was trying to blame human idiocy - namely EPA anti-coal policies - for a weather-caused outage?

[Cyber Liberty]

Knock it off.

Stating people who don’t agree with you 100% are ignorant of the facts is a logical fallacy. I’ve *studied* these phenomena for decades. To me the links provided (and read by me) were juvenile. I was hoping you could enlighten me about this particular one. I expected better from you, because I’ve “known” you for *years* on FR, and I thought you knew me better as well.

[Figment]

When did AC become a necessity of living? It was non existent at one time and people lived comfortably. Why do they die from a lack of it now?

[dirtboy]

Do you live on the East Coast? Have you seen what the trees we have here can wreak in a bad storm, be it thunderstorm or ice?

I have, and I have lived it. So I won't knock it off. You are clutching at straws here.

[Cyber Liberty]

Yes I do. That’s why you won’t see an overhead residential line in my city (in the West). We don’t care about trees, because we bury the lines.

Chopping down the pretty trees is not the only long term solution to the picture you accurately portray.

[dirtboy]

When did AC become a necessity of living? It was non existent at one time and people lived comfortably. Why do they die from a lack of it now?

Well, the persons who are now 95 years old and completely dependent upon modern technology to stay alive would not have lived that long back then.

[dirtboy]

Yes I do. That’s why you won’t see an overhead residential line in my city (in the West). We don’t care about trees, because we bury the lines.

And does your Western suburb deal with decades-old infrastructure that is already above ground?

[Cyber Liberty]

I have lived in the East. Stop thinking you are so damned special because you had a hurricane-sized patch of bad weather, which killed a lot of people. Do you think the people who live in hurricane ravaged areas have had it too easy or something, special guy?

You are starting to piss me off, and I came into this thread on your side.

[Cyber Liberty]

And does your Western suburb deal with decades-old infrastructure that is already above ground?

I guess he term "retrofit" has no purchase outside of Western suburbs.

[dirtboy]

Answer my post 47. It gets to the root of the issue. The costs of taking decades, if not century-plus infrastructure, and adapting it. Be it water lines, sewers, power lines and bridges.

[aruanan]

When did AC become a necessity of living? It was non existent at one time and people lived comfortably. Why do they die from a lack of it now?

Are you so completely out of touch with reality as to not realize that refrigeration is probably the single largest boon to civilization along with the internal combustion engine, electricity, antibiotics, and surgical anesthesia? Without these five things, life would be unimaginably dirty, painful, uncomfortable, expensive, dangerous, limited, and short.

[dirtboy]

Western suburbs do not have the extent of issues that older East Coast suburbs do. My township had to install a five-mile long bypass line to deal with runoff issues that overflowed sanitary sewers. I doubt your suburb combined runoff and sanitary sewers, they learned from the mistakes that the East Coast made.

[cripplecreek]

I’m in the middle of a very localized drought this summer. Desert dry here but plenty of rain 20 o 30 miles away in all directions. There’s been a lot of rain in southern Michigan, just not here. We get thunder, lightning and wind but no rain. I hate the dry weather.

Its been this way since around the time of the ealy tornado in Dexter about 20 miles NE from here and I didn’t even get in rain that day.

I’m gonna start calling it a Drycho

[dirtboy]

Are you so completely out of touch with reality as to not realize that refrigeration is probably the single largest boon to civilization along with the internal combustion engine, electricity, antibiotics, and surgical anesthesia?

Good post, but you left out clean running water and flush toilets. All of these elements make modern civilization possible and for our old and weak to live decent lives.

[Navy Patriot]

You should be in the business of making sure your opinions fit the basic facts on the ground.

My opinions exactly fit the facts regarding grid maintenance, improvement, tree trimming and environazi/EPA interference in the same.

I've seen the results firsthand, and proper EPA performance would and will mitigate storm outages.

Pound sand.

[dirtboy]

My opinions exactly fit the facts regarding grid maintenance, improvement, tree trimming and environazi/EPA interference in the same.

Please provide us examples, then. With links. Especially, please show where EPA policies prevented power companies from trimming suburban trees that overhung power lines.

[Cyber Liberty]

You make excellent points in #47. I have no snappy answer (because you are *correct*), but if the EPA has been making retrofits unaffordable (and I know there are denizens of that place who would like nothing more), then they are to blame for making a bad situation a worse situation.

I moved to the West for the same reason our forefathers moved to this continent: Our old sh!t was beyond repair. But stop saying your weather event is unique. It is not. Stop saying I didn't read your links. I did.

Last summer we had a Haboob, which is a crapload of destructive wind, I couldn't see across my suburban street, and it left dunes of dust in the streets. The pharmacies were running out of asthma meds. It took the grace of God with His rains to wash out the mess. And the utility guys reassembling the destroyed 65KV lines. Things are tough all over.

[dirtboy]

There are no easy answers to any of this. For every sane citizen who supports basic tree maintenance, there is the idiot who resists such. And that idiot will be the first to complain when his power is out for more than a few hours due to a major storm such as this one.

And the same liberals who talk about taxing the rich will complain about property tax increases to fix local infrastructure problems.

That is just the nature of the idiots in the world. You have then in your neighborhood and I have them in mine. It's just that I have more of them in mine. :^)

[Cyber Liberty]

Western suburbs do not have the extent of issues that older East Coast suburbs do. My township had to install a five-mile long bypass line to deal with runoff issues that overflowed sanitary sewers. I doubt your suburb combined runoff and sanitary sewers, they learned from the mistakes that the East Coast made.

We all have our crosses to bear, nature-wise. I type this as I look at my exterior thermometer which reads 110 Fahrenheit. I have a whole bunch of issues to deal with because of that. Now YOU go read up.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

It is all in accordance with United Nations Agenda 21, which was supported by Daddy Bush, Bill Clinton, Baby Bush and Obama.

We have no representation.