The Environmental Protection Agency has removed existing gas-fired power plants from a proposed regulation that is designed to reduce emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency has excluded already existing gas-fired power plants from a new regulation that would mandate the installation of carbon capture systems on smokestacks to reduce emissions. 'The agency is taking a new, comprehensive approach to cover the entire fleet of natural gas-fired turbines, as well as cover more pollutants including climate, toxic and criteria air pollution,” EPA Administrator Michael Reagan said, as quoted by Reuters.
This, the industry argued, would compromise electricity supply security as many plants would be forced out of business leaving less baseload capacity available to back up growing wind and solar generation. The U.S. grid is already under growing strain in terms of reliability of supply, regulators such as the North American Reliability Corp. and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have warned in recent months.