The Environmental Protection Agency’s second stab at a proposal to set the first-ever limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants would make it impossible for companies to build the kind of coal-fired plants that have been the country’s biggest source of electricity for decades.
Under the proposal, released Friday, any new plant that runs on coal would be permitted to emit only about half as much carbon dioxide as an average coal plant puts into the air today.
EPA administrator Gina McCarthy tells NPR the steps the EPA is proposing in the rule to address climate change “can actually form the basis for a sound economy, while at the same time we can begin to tackle what is essentially the most significant public health challenge of our time.”
The EPA proposal aims to help the White House to cut greenhouse gas emissions by attacking the largest single source in the United States: Power plants pump out 40 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases.
The EPA’s sets a limit for future power plants of 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour for large electricity generators that are powered by natural gas. And it sets a slightly higher limit of 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour for small natural-gas generators and for coal-fired generators.
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