Word: co2
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...interest in Silicon Valley science fiction, the most cost-effective green technology can be found in our own homes, simply by improving the energy efficiency of our houses and apartments. On average, heating an American home with natural gas creates about 6,400 lbs. of CO2 a year; using electricity will produce about 4,700 lbs of emissions. Both numbers can be larger if you live in a cold part of the country. The problem is that many American houses are poorly constructed and insulated, leaking heat in winter and cool air in the summer - and that's not cheap...
...Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Appeals Board is so important. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over a new coal plant being build on American Indian reservation land in Utah, the board ruled that the EPA has no valid reason to refuse to regulate the CO2 emissions that come from new coal-powered plants. The decision pointed to a May 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court that recognized CO2, the main cause of climate change, is indeed a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act and therefore needs to be regulated...
...Sierra Club had originally sued to stop the construction of Deseret Power's Bonanza Generating Station in Vernal, Utah, part of their nationwide campaign to stop new coal. The 110-megawatt plant, which received its EPA permit in July 2007, would have emitted 3.37 million tons of CO2 a year - the equivalent to putting another 660,000 cars on the road. In detail, Thursday's decision means that any new air pollution permits for coal plants will require that Best Available Control Technology (BACT) be used to reduce CO2 emissions, the same criteria currently used for other pollutants, like sulfur...
...Right now, however, there is no definition of BACT for CO2, and environmentalists estimate it will take six months to a year to figure that out. In the meantime, all other coal plants in the permitting process, or stuck in the courts, will be frozen. Over the longer term, it's possible that new coal plants may be impossible to certify at all until a technology exists to greatly reduce or sequester carbon emissions from coal plants - and currently none has been proven. "The decision says the EPA can't ignore CO2," says Nilles...
...That effectively punts the future of coal in America to President-elect Barack Obama's incoming Administration. It's not yet clear how he'll act, but his renewable energy advisor Jason Grumet has said that Obama would be willing to use the EPA to directly regulate CO2 - something President George W. Bush has refused to do. "This lays the groundwork for Obama to move quickly to put in place a regulatory system and begin to achieve CO2 reduction and build that clean, 21st century economy he talks about," says Nilles. Obama's position on coal isn't exactly clear...