EPA’s War On Coal Puts US At Risk Of Brownouts And Blackouts

by William Teach | April 12, 2014 6:59 am

Anyone surprised?

(Fox News[1]) Facing the Obama administration’s so-called “war on coal,” some utility officials are warning that fewer coal-fired power plants could leave the U.S. power system vulnerable to blackouts in the near future.

The officials warn that intense summer heat or extreme winter cold could soon be too much for the system to handle.

“I worry about the potential of brownouts and blackouts if we’re … actually depending on this generation that’s going to be retired,” Nick Akins, from American Electric Power, told Fox News in an interview.

“Regulation from five years ago is closing about 20 percent of the coal plants. Regulations being proposed now could close an additional 20 percent of coal plants. And that creates huge stresses — we’re just not ready for anything like that in this country,” Mike Duncan, from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, told Fox News.

I’ll note once again that I’m not a big fan of coal, which is not entirely clean, and can be bad for environmental health (I’m not referring to “climate change”, but real environmental issues). Nor do I buy into clean coal. At this time, there power generation has not been replaced, and solar and wind are still non-viable alternatives.

Obviously, Gina McCarthy’s out of control EPA, along with Gina herself, say there’s nothing to worry about, and

“Nothing we do can threaten reliability. We have to recognize that in a changing climate like the one we have recently been experiencing, it is an increasing challenge to maintain a reliable energy supply,” McCarthy said.

That’s right, she blames any grid issues on “climate change”. Aren’t you glad the person in charge of your electricity supply is insane?

Still, considering this past winter’s severe cold and “Polar Vortex,” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski noted at a Senate hearing this week that the system was at its limits.

“Eight-nine percent of the coal electricity capacity that is due to go offline was utilized as that backup to meet the demand this winter,” Murkowski said.

This is the danger of having radical activists with an axe to grind in charge of any government agency, much less the EPA: they aren’t really worried about the overall impacts of their foolish, deranged, and irrational rules and regulations. With the coal rules, they’re worried about the fictional issue of Man causing changes to the climate 50-100 years down the road, despite all their models failing, rather than about the need for Americans to have the energy needed for a modern society.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove[2]. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach[3].