President Obama using the EPA to shut down coal fired electricity generation in the USA

These two online articles show that concern is rising in the USA about two main issues around the shutdown of coal fired power – the impact of higher electricity prices on the less well off and the reliability of the grid.
I hope that policymakers in the USA can learn from Australian experience after our Coalition Govt foolishly introduced a tiny RET scheme (Renewable Energy Target) in 2001 – then in 2010 this was vastly increased by GreenLabor. Of course the USA gets 20% of electricity from nuclear energy – I do not know if that sector can take up any slack from reductions in coal use.
IMHO Australia is sleepwalking towards increased risk of grid instability but adopting the 33Gwh target for 2020 has eased that risk a little. On the other hand some states are working towards higher targets. Queensland wants 50% renewable energy by 2030 and the ACT (only ~300K people) has a 90 percent renewable energy target for 2020. All against a background of China increasing emissions out to 2035 at least. Nothing we try to do matters a cup- full of warm spit.

6 thoughts on “President Obama using the EPA to shut down coal fired electricity generation in the USA”

  1. Yep, that is smart! Perhaps he can get China to ship over a few pedal powered generators to make up the slack in the grid & employ some of the 93M looking for work.

  2. Do they realise that they will still need close to 100% conventional power backup to prevent periodic (effectively planned) outages.

  3. TedM:

    No, they don’t realise they need backup. Their idea is that electricity is like water; somewhere there is a big pond of electricity which flows out of their wall. All you have to do is top up the pond when the wind blows and all will be OK.
    They can’t, or possibly don’t want to, grasp the idea of a national grid.

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