A rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency would force power plants fueled by coal or natural gas to capture smokestack emissions or shut down.

Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency.

New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change. The rules are a key part of President Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050.

The rule was among four separate measures targeting coal and natural gas plants that the EPA said would provide “regular certainty” to the power industry and encourage them to make investments to transition “to a clean energy economy.” They also include requirements to reduce toxic wastewater pollutants from coal-fired plants and to safely manage so-called coal ash in unlined storage ponds.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
    1·
    6 months ago

    but doesn’t really address any of the kind of underlying issues that cause this to happen.

    The generation of CO2 is the underlying cause of climate change. This action limits CO2 emissions, which will have a net reduction on CO2 creation in the near future. If this doesn’t address the underlying issue, what, in your opinion, would?

    • anonymous@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 months ago

      I was thinking politically rather than chemically. You are right, co2 is the most pressing factor of climate change. I was thinking along the lines of ‘what causes the companies to pollute so much in the first place’.