DETROIT – The Obama Administration?s announced plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants will require Michigan to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of its electric generation beginning in 2020. It?s a dramatic move, one that will force difficult decisions for state officials and likely increase the cost of electricity.
President Obama announced in 2013 that he was instructing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use the federal Clean Air Act as a vehicle to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electric power plants. The president outlined a timeline calculated to have rules in place before his current term expires in January 2017.
An EPA proposal released in January would require new coal or gas-fired generation units to meet an emission standard for carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent to the rate achieved by one technology ? combined cycle combustion turbines fired by natural gas. The EPA accepted comments on its proposal through May 9 and final rulemaking is expected by the beginning of 2015. If the EPA?s final rule tracks its original proposal, then for the foreseeable future the only new electric generation from combusting fossil fuels will be from combined cycle units.
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