by Annalee Grant
SNL

The U.S. EPA has denied five petitions that sought review of carbon emissions guidelines for new, modified and reconstructed fossil fuel power plants, noting that a troubled Canadian power plant using carbon capture and sequestration is operating just fine.

The new source rule, published in the Federal Register in October 2015, requires newly constructed steam power plants to adhere to standards of performance equivalent to a highly efficient, supercritical pulverized coal-fired boiler using partial carbon capture and sequestration technology. New and modified stationary combustion turbines would have to match the performance of a “well-performing” natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant…

The agency was asked by American Electric Power Co. Inc., Ameren Corp., the state of Wisconsin, the Utility Air Regulatory Group, Energy and Environment Legal Institute and the Biogenic CO2 Coalition to reconsider the final standards of performance that the rule is based on. The EPA denied five of the petitions on April 29, and will defer a decision on the Biogenic CO2 Coalition’s complaint while the agency considers how to account for biomass emissions when co-firing with fossil fuels.

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