Smoke rises from the Colstrip Steam Electric Station in Colstrip, Mont., on July 1, 2013. President Obama's climate change plan calls for limits on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants like Colstrip. / Matt Brown, AP

Lawsuits are expected to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal Friday to limit emissions from new power plants, and the main reason is cutting-edge, anti-pollution technology.

The EPA announced Friday morning its proposal to cap the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. Coal-fired plants -- unlike most natural gas facilities -- won't meet the standard without costly technology to capture and store carbon emissions.

There's the rub. No commercial, coal-fired plant worldwide has yet to use this technology, but at least two are now under construction - one in Canada's Saskatchewan Province, and the other in Mississippi's Kemper County, which is scheduled to open in May. Three other U.S. coal plants are planned, two in Texas and one in Illinois.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said Americans have a "moral obligation to the next generation" to protect the environment, and its proposal, updated from an initial one last year, is a "necessary step to address a public health challenge."

Rather than killing the U.S. coal industry, "it sets out a path forward" for it, McCarthy said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.,, adding the standard relies on "home-grown technologies" and is both achievable and flexible.

Critics, including the coal industry, disagree and say it's not legal to require a technology that's not yet proved itself commercially. Supporters, including environmental groups, say the standard will create demand for the technology and spur industry cleanup.

"There's no demand for the technology now," but an EPA rule will change that, says Dan Weiss of the Center for American Progress, a research group that supports the limits. He says there are enough demonstration projects to prove that the technology, often called CCS (carbon capture and sequestration), works.

Not so, says Jeffrey Holmstead, a partner at the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm who was a senior EPA official under President George W. Bush. "CCS has not been adequately demonstrated," says Holmstead, who represents coal-fired plants. "It's not met the standard EPA has used for the last 40 years" that requires new technology also be cost-effective.


"If you had to do it, you could,' he says, but it would be expensive. He say it's costly, because it's new technology, and there's no federal policy requiring it. He says it's simply cheaper now for power plants to release greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

Herzog says power plants can capture up to 90% of their carbon emissions with CCS. The process typically has three phases. Carbon is captured and compressed, then transported (usually by pipeline) to a site where it's stored in deep underground rock formations.

In the Kemper County plant, it works a bit differently. After the carbon is captured, it will be sold to companies for enhanced oil recovery, says Amoi Geter, spokeswoman for Gulfport-based Mississippi Power, which is building the plant. Geter says about 65% of carbon emissions will be captured.


The EPA's proposal, which addresses only new power plants, is a dress rehearsal for a much larger one next year that will limit emissions from existing power plants. President Obama has directed the agency to propose a standard for existing plants by June and finalize it in 2015.


The agency's updated proposal also sets a 1,100-pound standard for small natural gas plants that produce 850 megawatts or less of electricity and a 1,000-pound limit for larger units. Most natural gas plants would meet these caps without CCS technology.

Holmstead says the EPA's carbon rule, which won't be finalized until next year, is "effectively a ban" on new coal-fired power plants. "I'm quite confident there will be a legal challenge," he says. "There's a good chance it will be overturned in court, but that's a few years away."


The coal industry says the EPA's proposed rule, if enacted, will lead to more coal plant closures and higher electric bills. It "would cause consumers' power bills to skyrocket over time and cause more pain at the plug than Americans have experienced at the pump," St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal company, said in a statement.

Geter says Mississippi Power has raised rates 15% this year and plans an additional 3% increase next year to help pay for the new Kemper County plant, whose price tag has risen from an initial $2.4 billion to $3.8 billion, of which at least $270 million is federal funding.

Obama administration officials say greenhouse gas emissions have high hidden costs. They say coal emits not only carbon dioxide, which raises Earth's temperature, but also sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and heavy metals (such as mercury and arsenic) and acid gases (such as hydrogen chloride), which have been linked to acid rain, smog and health issues.


Environmentalists say the rule, though, is a major step toward cleaner air. Julian Boggs of Environment America, an advocacy group, says: "We can kiss goodbye any more dirty power plants."

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Read the original story: EPA proposes strict emission limits on new power plants

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