[email protected] (Brent P) wrote in message news:<O0Lyb.274685$ao4.944751@attbi_s51>...
> In article <[email protected]>, z wrote:
>
> > They are going to move production of CO2 to China? All those
> > inefficient old coal-fired power plants are going to China?
>
> What is better? An old inefficient regulated to be as clean as feasiable
> coal power plant in the USA feeding a factory with electricity or a
> quick-and-dirty-old-tech-soviet-style coal plant in china feeding a
> factory? Which is better for the environment?
>
> And why do we have old coal plants in the USA? Because any new plants
> are opposed on environmental grounds. And new and better means of
> generation are opposed on environmental grounds. So what we get
> is the status quo. The status quo remains because change is not
> possible.
Yeah, the old rightwing fantasy factory rides again. Do you recall the
Clean Air Act? Do you recall that the power companies piteously pled
for and were granted an exemption for their old coal and oil fuelled
plants, since the power companies promised that they were going to be
all mothballed soon anyway and it would be purely wasteful to upgrade
them for the short time they will be in operation? Well, it's thirty
years later now, and here in CT, half the electricity is still being
produced by those old 'soon to be mothballed' plants, known locally as
the Filthy Five. This is not because the utility companies are just
dying to build some expensive clean new plants and the
environmentalists just won't let them. It's purely because it's much
cheaper to run these monstrosities unmodified than it is to build new
plants, despite the environmentalists screaming to trade them for
clean new plants or else update them. The Reagan and Bush I
administrations refused to enforce the part of the Clean Air Act that
requires the companies to install upgraded pollution controls if they
were doing significant expansions to the plants, in contrast to
routine maintenance, allowing the Filthy Five to actually expand their
filthy emissions. The Clinton administration finally starts to enforce
this provision, and what happens? The Bush junta reverses the
enforcement decision. And in response to this boondoggle, the
utilities raise their rates 10%.
According to the utility companies' own reports, the Filthy Five
generate over 66% of the sulfur dioxide and 11% of the nitrogen oxide
produced annually in Connecticut from all sources, including cars. And
in case you have the wrong impression about CT, the EPA rates the air
as "seriously unhealthful" in 97% of CT for at least part of the year.
This is quite literally life and death for people who breathe the air,
as most of us do, versus fattening the bank accounts of those few
lucky enough to be in a position to get an executive bonus for
deciding to harm other people's health.
>
>
> > And do
> > what, export the electricity to the US, or sell the average Chinese
> > more electricity? How's that going to work? After all, the EPA has
> > been on the back of coal-fired powerplants and coal mining for decades
> > as the two biggest sources of pollution in the US currently, and the
> > regulations somehow haven't managed to move them to China yet, why are
> > CO2 regulations going to cause them to move?
>
> Your choice of arguement is patently stupid. You take something that
> isn't feasiable to relocate because of the infastructure required.
> However what is economically feasiable to relocate, factories that
> make products that can be shipped back to the USA, are being relocated.
But it's not the factories that make products that are burning coal,
it's the power plants that you say aren't feasible to relocate. So how
exactly is Kyoto going to move the CO2 production in your mental
picture?
>
> If it became economically feasiable to relocate electric power
> generation, it would get relocated to places with lower levels
> of regulation.
And since it isn't, it won't.
>
>
> > Have you noticed how much manufacturing has moved to the thrid world
> > from the US already? Exactly what energy intensive manufacturers are
> > going to pack up and leave that have not already?
>
> What companies will stay at all if more regulation is heaped on the US
> further tipping the market scales in favor of china?
The ones that involve burning coal and oil to produce electricity, for
one.
>
> > Are the car
> > companies who are now starting to manufacture more in the US, despite
> > more environmental and labor regulation than the third world, going to
> > change their minds and close down again because of CO2 regulations?
>
> Another invalid arguement. The foreign automakers building plants in
> the USA are from Germany and Japan. Other nations with similiar labor
> and environmental regulations. The USA competes on an near equal footing
> with those nations with regards to factory locations. The nature of
> the product demands it be built in a developed nation, and since the
> USA is the largest market for that product, it makes economic sense
> to locate the plant here. But, if china can ever be trusted to build
> cars and the savings were greater than the shipping costs and taxes
> well expect that production to move there too.
And this all hinges on the right to produce energy in a
fuel-inefficient fashion in the US? Gee.
