The Biden administration unveiled a comprehensive plan to decarbonize the aging US electrical grid and tackle rising utility bills while curbing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The regulations include the nation’s first-ever limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, tighter restrictions on mercury and coal ash, and a new streamlined process for constructing urgently needed transmission lines. Paired with the billions of dollars in incentives provided by President Joe Biden’s landmark climate spending laws, the rules aim to reduce carbon pollution by nearly 1.4 billion metric tons through 2047. That’s equivalent to removing 328 million gasoline-fueled cars from the road or eliminating a year’s worth of emissions from the current US electric power sector. The most anticipated part of the package is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) power plant rule, which requires most existing coal-fired and new natural-gas-burning power plants to capture 90% of carbon from smokestacks before it enters the atmosphere or face closure as early as 2039. Existing natural gas plants, which currently provide over 43% of the country’s electricity, are exempt from the regulation, as are new natural gas stations primarily used to supplement the grid during periods of high demand or when weather-dependent sources like solar panels and wind turbines are unreliable. In response to industry concerns about regulating existing gas plants, the EPA initiated a public consultation last month to gather ideas for reducing emissions from the current fleet. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan stated, “What we’re doing with the status of existing natural gas plants is directly in response to our stakeholders, both our industry stakeholders and our environmental stakeholders, who said, ‘You can do better.’” The rule also defines criteria for “systems emergencies,” such as electricity supply shortages or extreme weather events that disable power plants, during which the EPA allows all new gas-fired plants to prioritize maintaining power over meeting emission standards. The EPA finalized three additional rules mandating that coal-fired plants reduce mercury emissions by 70% over current regulations, eliminate over 660 million pounds of pollution annually from wastewater discharges, and adhere to new federal standards to prevent toxic ash pits from leaking. According to 2023 data from the consultancy Lazard, a conventional natural gas plant generates electricity for as little as $33 per megawatt hour without subsidies. In comparison, onshore wind turbines and utility-scale solar farms can produce electricity for as low as $24 per megawatt hour without subsidies. With subsidies like Biden’s new federal tax credits, the cost of renewables drops to $0. White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi commented on the call, “At those prices, the average cost of solar and wind is ‘fully comparable with the average cost of existing gas and coal.’” Judging by the 1,500 gigawatts of solar and wind projects awaiting approval to connect to the grid, there is no shortage of demand for these renewable sources. The expansion of renewable energy in the US is hindered by a lack of capacity in the existing transmission network. Building power lines has been particularly challenging due to the difficulty in obtaining approvals from all the state and local governments with permitting and zoning authority along a project’s route. To simplify the process, the Department of Energy issued a series of final rules Thursday to accelerate environmental reviews for new transmission lines and establish a new federal program designed to expedite the permitting process. The Energy Department is streamlining the regulatory process for transmission lines with a final rule establishing a program called Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorization and Permits (CITAP). The new rule makes the Energy Department the primary point of contact for navigating the regulatory process and requires developers to address local concerns by developing public outreach plans before obtaining permits. The regulation also sets a two-year deadline for permits, which is half the current average. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on the call, “We need to build new transmission projects more quickly, as everybody knows. Right now, it takes about four years on average to permit a new transmission project in the U.S. In extreme cases, it can take over a decade.” She also set a goal to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines over the next five years. Rob Gramlich, president of the consultancy Grid Strategies, wrote in an email Wednesday night, “The transmission announcements are exciting.” Noting that federal officials first proposed making the Energy Department the lead agency on transmission permitting two decades ago, he called the new rule “better late than never.” Although not explicitly part of the latest regulations, Biden administration officials highlighted recent progress in supporting new power plants that would utilize nuclear fission or geothermal heat, two types of zero-carbon electricity that, unlike wind and solar, operate 24/7 and occupy significantly less space. Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission released its long-awaited proposal to expedite permitting for advanced reactors like those that billionaire Bill Gates’ startup TerraPower intends to build as part of a groundbreaking project to convert a coal plant in Wyoming. This month, the US produced the first 200 pounds of specialized uranium fuel necessary to power those advanced reactors. Previously, the Russian government had a monopoly over the sale of such fuel. In a move likely to encourage investment in the nascent industry seeking to harness the Earth’s molten heat for clean electricity generation, the Bureau of Land Management last week exempted new geothermal power stations located on public lands from key environmental review processes. Emphasizing the urgency, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said, “We need to build new transmission projects more quickly, as everybody knows.” Power plants’ emissions are central to the US decarbonization strategy because reducing emissions from automobiles, homes, and buildings largely depends on replacing gas-powered cars, oil furnaces, and natural gas stoves with electric alternatives. If that electricity doesn’t come from low-carbon sources, the demand simply shifts from one sector to another. However, the imperative to overhaul the existing system arises as years of underinvestment coincide with a grid facing unprecedented demand from data centers and air conditioning units on increasingly hot days. With this in mind, the past two presidents have attempted to regulate power plant pollution. The Obama administration proposed the Clean Power Plan, interpreting a section of the Clean Air Act to allow utilities to offset emissions at fossil-fueled plants by investing in more renewables at other facilities. Republican states, led by then Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, sued and persuaded the Supreme Court to halt implementation of the rule while the EPA sorted out whether that interpretation was legal. Before the saga concluded, Donald Trump won the presidency and appointed Pruitt as his new EPA administrator. The Republican administration revoked the Clean Power Plant and replaced it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, eliminating most emission cuts and even providing incentives to burn more coal. That rule, too, was halted in federal court and never took effect. Biden won in 2020 and declined to defend the Trump-era regulation in court. Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court made the unusual decision to take up a case that would resolve the question permanently, siding with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act and against the Obama-era EPA’s reading of the law. When asked how the EPA’s latest effort to regulate power plants’ emissions would withstand legal challenges, Regan expressed confidence in the rules, stating, “We have spent time ensuring that each path taken is durable. You’ve heard us say we are measuring twice and cutting once, and learning from past actions and past results that we’ve seen.”
US Unveils Plan to Decarbonize Power Plants, Speed Up Transmission
