Tag: epa
Solar panels

Renewables Best Coal As America's Second Largest Energy Source

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced that renewables generated 21 percent of all electricity in the country for 2020. Renewable energy sources like biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind accounted for 834 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of the nation’s power last year. That falls just behind natural gas, which generated 1,617 billion kWh or 40% of all energy in the U.S. The news comes from a report released in July that the EIA shared again last week as the year winds down and we look towards 2022. The agency believes that coal-fired electricity use likely rose this year due to rising natural gas prices, increasing about 18 percent compared with 2020. This will likely push coal to be the second-most used energy source in 2021.

It’s highly unlikely that the trend of coal surpassing renewables will continue into 2022. For one, coal-fired electricity has been on the downturn since 2007 when it peaked at 2,016 billion kWh and was the largest source of energy until 2016, most likely because natural gas has replaced much of coal’s capacity. According to another EIA report, dozens of coal-fired plants have been replaced or converted to natural gas since 2011. Some of those decisions made by power companies are in order to comply with emissions regulations, like the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which was unveiled in 2011.

In the following years until 2019, Alabama Power Co. converted 10 of its generators at four Alabama coal plants to comply with the standard, which took effect in 2016.As for renewables, the EIA believes their power generation will rise 7% this year and another 10% next year. The agency also forecast that 2022 will be another year in which renewables are the second-most-used energy source, making 2020 not an anomaly, but a possible sign of trends to come. It’s anyone’s guess what 2022 will hold in terms of emissions, primarily because it’s unclear how deeply the pandemic will continue to affect the power industry.

Graph Shows Alterative Energy Beating Coal in 2021

images.dailykos.com


A report released on December 22 by the EIA shows that 2020 saw a substantial decrease in carbon dioxide emissions due in part to a warmer winter season and factors exacerbated by the pandemic, including more people working from home and traveling less, plus industry slowdowns resulting in lower commercial building activity. One of the long-term factors cited by the EIA was a trend in declining natural gas production. This resulted in a decrease in emissions of 11 percent in 2020, or 570 million metric tons compared to 2019. Such declines in emissions haven’t been seen since 1983, shortly after an amended Clean Air Act was implemented requiring cars built in 1981 and beyond to comply with lower emissions standards. More stringent emissions goals, such as the Biden administration’s push for 50 percent of new vehicles to be electric by 2030, could see a similar reduction that puts the U.S. one step closer to reaching its goal of net-zero by 2050.


Rep. James Comer

Republicans Protest EPA Firing Of Big Oil’s Mouthpiece On Scientific Board

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee expressed outrage on Wednesday at the Biden administration's decision to remove a slate of Trump-appointed individuals from Environmental Protection Agency advisory boards, including Louis Anthony "Tony" Cox, who has extensive ties to the oil industry and had been accused of using his position in the interests of industry propaganda instead of those of science.

Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) sent a letter to EPA administrator Michael Regan expressing concern over his decision to "abruptly fire all Trump administration appointed members" of the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and Science Advisory Board.

The Congressmen demanded that Regan provide them with documents and information pertaining to the removals, which they characterize as "unprecedented." They accused the Biden administration of purging officials "who do not share its political beliefs."

In a March interview with the Associated Press, Regan said the removals were part of the Biden administration's determination to "reset" the boards.

"We have to identify and root out any decisions from the past that were not properly aligned with science," Regan said.

In a March 31 press release announcing the changes, the EPA noted that the Trump administration hadn't followed standard procedures for appointing committee members, had prevented individuals who had previously received EPA grants from serving, and had eliminated key air pollution review panels.

"Resetting these two scientific advisory committees will ensure the agency receives the best possible scientific insight to support our work to protect human health and the environment," Regan said.

Cox was put in place by EPA chief Scott Pruitt in 2017 to lead the panel on air pollution. He had previously served as a consultant for the American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying group bankrolled by major oil and gas companies.

Cox produced a report for the group in 2017 that claimed asthma is associated more with income levels than with particulate matter in the atmosphere, a finding that runs contrary to those of many other studies that do link pollution and asthma. Cox later said that he allowed the Institute to "proofread" and "copy edit" his research.

On the EPA advisory board, Cox attacked existing EPA methods for calculating the public health benefits of smog regulations, describing them as "unreliable, logically unsound, and inappropriate."

When Cox was reappointed to his position in 2020, Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Cox is "uninterested in following the careful science-based process that EPA has followed for decades to set science-based and health-protective air pollution standards."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

paint remover

States Banning Deadly Paint Stripper Allowed By Trump

Reprinted with permission from DCReport

Wendy Hartley, whose son Kevin died at age 21 after using a toxic paint stripper, met with ex-EPA chief Scott Pruitt two years ago to urge him to ban a chemical in the stripper that has killed people since 1947.

But when the EPA evaluated the chemical, methylene chloride, under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the agency decided the chemical didn't present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment under some conditions.

"Nothing short of a ban would be sufficient," said Hartley, who brought photos of her son and his death certificate to her meeting with Pruitt.

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soot emission

Trump Appointees Permit Higher Soot Emissions, Increasing Covid-19 Mortality

Reprinted with permission from DCReport.

A new Harvard study has found that long-term exposure to microscopic soot in the air appears to be associated with higher death rates from the coronavirus.

But Trump's EPA has recommended keeping the 2012 standards for microscopic soot that are linked to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year.

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