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Permalink Reply by Frank Walker on June 2, 2014 at 1:49am

Here is my take regarding this ongoing fraud:

They are supposedly countering anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming (AGW), which simply does not even exist except in the fertile minds of radical liberals.  Regardless, their imaginary quest demands reduction of what they call "carbon" (actually oxides of carbon), which they erroneously believe contributes to AGW.

Right now they are vigorously targeting coal-burning power plants, but that's not cause for us natural gas folks to take comfort or feel like winners.  You see, burning of natural gas to produce electric power ALSO causes significant emissions of "carbon", just not as much as with coal.  And liberals are professional incrementalists.  They take what they can get today, then they return in future for still more.  And when it comes to "carbon", they want it ALL!!

So don't be too quick to welcome this attack on coal.  WE ARE HIGHLY LIKELY TO BE NEXT!!

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Permalink Reply by Appalachian on June 2, 2014 at 2:06am

"The transition from coal to natural gas to power our energy plants will have what effect on electric rates?"

Depends on how much LNG we export.  Without a basis...I would speculate that LNG produced power will be cheaper than Coal if exportation levels don't get too crazy.

I have been seeing proposals of exportation of Crude.  Can't fathom this.  Why would we begin exporting Crude Oil, while still importing at the same time?

Cheap energy is the lynch pin of our manufacturing's possible rise from from the ashes.  Export products, not energy.

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Permalink Reply by owner on June 2, 2014 at 2:40am

The EPA has placed the allowable CO2 emissions slightly above  the emissions that a clean natural gas power plant would produce.  Once they have shut down the current coal plants, they will lower this allowable limit where natural gas (methane) plants will not meet their limits.  It is a war on carbon based fuels, not just coal!

 

Electricity produced by coal is the cheapest electricity available.  The current cost of natural gas per BTU is higher than the cost of coal per BTU, the cost for electric will have to go up!!!  We will all pay higher electric bills and the cost of energy will go up. resulting in less jobs for this country!   All for no benefit, the EPA itself states that these new requirements (not regulations) will not have any significant impact on global warming, which in itself is a huge hoax to tax the American public. 

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Permalink Reply by george m vietze on June 2, 2014 at 2:58am

As the use of coal is diminished and replaced by natural gas is the demand for natural gas significant enough to cause the increase in demand for natural gas to incentivise more money

into producting natural gas to meet this demand and do we have the capacity of natural gas to meet this demand?  With political pressure to export natural gas and the demand placed on natural gas to replace "coal" will that raise the price of natural gas and therefore additionally cause electric rates to rise or will natural gas eventually replace some of the demand caused by higher electric rates and switch from electric power to more natural gas generated power?  Eventually the natural gas industry is going to have to produce the technology to crack the "code" of producing the tighter and dryer natural gas areas to meet this demand if lower energy prices are going to be in the future.  Looks to me like all "energy prices" are headed higher, the more government restrictions the higher the costs for everyone.

One side effect of all this activity translates to higher "royalties" for he who owns the commodity

owns the new "gold"!  

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Permalink Reply by george m vietze on June 2, 2014 at 2:40am

Will the loss of jobs in the "coal" industry lead to gain in employment in the natural gas industry in the shift from "coal" to "natural gas?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/chamber-study-predicts-oba...

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Permalink Reply by Ragnars Repo on June 2, 2014 at 2:44am

From the mouth of President Obama, "Under my system of cap and trade, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

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Permalink Reply by Philip Brutz on June 2, 2014 at 10:46am

Coal producers mixed on EPA plan, Walter Energy -6% despite statement
Jun 2 2014, 15:31 ET
Walter Energy (WLT -6.3%) shares aren't helped by the coal producer's statement that new EPA proposals aimed at controlling carbon emissions from U.S. power plants should have no material impact on the company; in fact, WLT is down more than peers: CNX +1.1%, BTU +0.1%, CLD -0.3%, ACI -2.8%, ANR -4.6%.Long-term losers also will include electric companies that burn lots of coal - such as American Electric Power (AEP +0.1%), Duke Energy (DUK -0.3%), Southern Co. (SO -0.3%) and NRG Energy (NRG -0.1%) - but stiff regulations have been expected for some time.Likely winners include companies that pump natural gas and those that use it as their primary fuel, such as Calpine (CPN +0.3%), and companies that operate nuclear plants that generate little carbon but have been expensive to run, such as Exelon (EXC -1%), hope that their aging plants will become more competitive.A reduction in coal-fired capacity would increase utilities' demand for natural gas by 3B-10B cf/day from 22B cf/day now, potential benefiting major natural gas producers like Chesapeake Energy (CHK +2.1%), Cabot Oil & Gas (COG -0.8%) and Range Resources (RRC -0.6%).http://seekingalpha.com/news/1781103-coal-producers-mixed-on-epa-pl...

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