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themp
Citizen
Username: Themp
Post Number: 145
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 11:12 am: |     |
"WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — After more than two years of internal deliberation and intense pressure from industry, the Bush administration has settled on a regulation that would allow thousands of older power plants, oil refineries and industrial units to make extensive upgrades without having to install new anti-pollution devices, according to those involved in the deliberations.
The new rule, a draft of which was made available to The New York Times by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, would constitute a sweeping and cost-saving victory for industries, exempting thousands of indus trial plants and refineries from part of the Clean Air Act. The acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency could sign the new rule as soon as next week, administration officials have told utility representatives."
NY Times 8/22/03
Why do people in the Northeast (where acid rain is a huge problem) collaborate with an adminstration that is so hostile to our interests? This guy is so alienated from the Northeast that he won't even admit that he is from Connecticut. Look back at reports on his visit to NYC before 9/11. He studiously avoided saying anything positive about the city; instead he said neutral things like "it's a nice day today." |
jur050
Citizen
Username: Jur050
Post Number: 397
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 3:58 pm: | |
Themp, hostile to our interests? You must be kidding, or at the very least uninformed.
By allowing fixed sources the opportunity to improve energy efficiency, (which always results in environmental benefits), or by allowing businesses to move towards phasing in the installation of emission abatement equipment, without scrapping the entire plant and restarting from scratch. (which leads in many cases to bankrupting the company, or a poor business choice) So, by allowing businesses to meet federal "Acid Rain" requirements, using "Cap and Trade mechanisms, instead of bankrupting the businesses themselves, doesen't make sense to you?
Technology is improving each year. You don't need to install outragously expensive SCR's to reduce NOx when cheaper means are currently available. Allowing companies to figure out their own best method of achieving emission reductions works, a "command and control" style doesn't.
You might question the motives of "The Natural Resources Defense Council" or "The NY Times," or any other environmental groups to determine if they are truly interested in seeing businesses survive to achieve the results over time. Throwing the baby out with the bath water may be tempting for you in your effort to clean the tub..., but a lot of jobs, the basis for the energy behind our entire economy might be at stake, and yet you allow a handfull of lawyers representing who? (themselves most likely).
Hey, if you truly have any interest in what you are talking about, I'd welcome the opportunity to help you appreciate the complexity of the problem. Try sending me a privateline, it may not work, but I know what you are pointing to is so extremely biased against businesses, jobs and the economy, that it is troubling to suggest.
Look back at what California has done to the energy business and stop blaming business. Start getting realistic about how to transition a move instead of forcing it to come about, you might just save some jobs and states in the process. |
themp
Citizen
Username: Themp
Post Number: 146
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 7:49 pm: | |
I think installing modern (or BART - for Best Available Reduction Technology, I think) pollution reduction equipment when old plants - and some of these are ancient stinkers - are modified is a good and responsible idea. It isn't leftist or anti-business. It's the kind of thing that responsible people have to bear the cost of in a society.
Industry (or its spokesmen) always presents reasonable steps like this as catastrophic to its interests. You can't take the lead out of paint! You can't mandate the catalytic converter! Yet our capitalist economy manages to persist. If you are truly convinced that we are on the brink of extinguishing the spirit of free enterprise in this country, I think you need to take a look around you, and you'll see that America is a happily capitalistic society.
"I know what you are pointing to is so extremely biased against businesses, jobs and the economy, that it is troubling to suggest. "
Go ahead, suggest it. I don't even begin to understand what you mean. I don't want to private line you. You're a spraying anger hydrant and I don't want re-education via cut and pasted Rushbo columns.
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jur050
Citizen
Username: Jur050
Post Number: 398
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 11:18 pm: | |
Themp, how dare you try and paint me as the very thing you portray. Suffice that you will never begin to understand what I mean if you continue to hold forth prejudice as was demonstrated in your pithy response. You obviously have little clue as to what you are talking about here and your refusal to maintain an open mind concerning issues with which I am quite familiar is disturbing, but typical of what I am familiar with seeing.
New Source Review or NSR is the portion of the Clean Air Act that remains in question. How can it be applied consistently and equally under the law to different types of fixed sources?
It is potentially arbitrary when BART is employed to certain industrial projects as opposed to an EGU, or electric generating unit. Industrial sources frequently desire applications that differ dramatically from Electric Generation Units because they require steam as a part of their manufacturing process. Therefore they seek Cogeneration in a facility, where not only electricity but steam is produced. However, because the rules were written with EGU's in mind, applying BART in all situations, such as when being applied to a cogen facility, may not be prudent.
Let me give you a perfect example. I know first hand of a facility in Boston where NOx emission levels were to be dramatically reduced from over 330 ppm down to 27-30 ppm, a reduction of over 90%. The industrial source was preparing to install a “state of the art” cogen. Yet, EPA officials balked. Instead they demanded that if the project were begun, they would require a NOx level of 7ppm. So, since the business could not achieve such levels with their proposed cogen, they halted the project and are continuing to pollute at the grandfathered rate.
Nice huh? That is how the EPA has been enforcing the NSR rules in some cases, especially those involving industrial sources. And how do I know this, well you can bet I didn’t read it in the NY Times, or did I?
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themp
Citizen
Username: Themp
Post Number: 147
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 9:58 am: | |
I don't know where you read it. I am not an engineer. I assume you are. There is a common argument style with regards to global warming and other issues that have an element scientific uncertainty, which is to insist that the details of ones own argument are utterly persuasive, and that the source, not the details, of the other side's argument makes that argument invalid. I guess with the source of your argument unnamed, you are basing what you say on primary research.
I am a NY Times reader - guilty as charged. But I read other things too, some even more inflammatory than that scarlet journal. Admittedly, I don't have a deep knowledge of these issues, and I don't have a background in science. I rely on certain authorities to help me formulate my opinions on political issues, as do most people. These authorities are often main stream environmental groups who in turn have scientists as advisors.
I am convinced that New Source Review rule is a good idea, and that the dirty old plants in question, which produce pollution in an extremely high proportion to electricity, should be required to modernize their anti-pollution equipment whenever they make modifications that increase capacity, or significantly change their plant.
I am sure that there are anecdotal cases of these regulations having unintended outcomes that are negative. That always happens. Watch any John Stossel special, and you'll learn how no rule ever works and the little guy is always hurt by government. That is an old libertarian technique - ignore the big picture and stress the negative anecdote.
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