Environ News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing a new clean air rule that would tighten pollution caps for nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) from power plants across the United States, but this could then raise electricity costs for consumers. Clean Skies News talks to environmental experts and a homeowner about the potential effects of the EPA’s proposed Transport Rule, which would require 31 states and the District of Columbia to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and fine particle pollution in other states. Source: Clean Skies News

Clean Skies News talks to NRG Energy’s David Crane, who gives an update on the company’s post-combustion carbon capture and sequestration project, which was just awarded $135 million by the Department of Energy. He also discusses the future for older coal power plants. Source: Clean Skies News

The US, which depends on coal for more than half of its electricity production, is looking to so-called “clean coal technologies” to lower coal’s carbon footprint. But environmentalists and people living in the areas where coal is mined say that the fuel’s ecological and environmental impacts are devastating and will continue – regardless of whether the CO2 emitted by coal-fueled power stations is captured and stored. Source: AFP

In the knowledge that coal power plants will come under legal and financial pressure to reduce CO2 emissions as part of efforts to reduce climate change, French firm Alstom on Friday unveiled the world’s largest carbon capture facility at a coal plant – a process known as sequestration. It’s a technology that backers hope will fuel a new multi-billion dollar industry and keep the coal industry alive. Source: AFP