The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has passed the first Clean Air Act standard for future power plants.

The rule is a step towards creating cleaner energy and decreasing pollution levels generated by the energy sector.

The new standard is a result of a 2007 Supreme Court decision in the case Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, wherein several states sued the EPA to force the agency to begin regulating air pollution caused by carbon dioxide (CO₂) and greenhouse gases.

The Clean Air Act will only apply to future power plants, but even these can qualify for exemption. According to the EPA, the passed standard will exclude:

• New plants that have permits and plan to begin construction within the next 12 months
• Power plants renewing permits that are already a part of a Department of Energy demonstration project
• Plants that will not burn any fossil fuels
• Any power plants not located in the continental US

The Clean Air Act is a standard based on compromise with the energy sector, allowing for slower change over the long term, if at all, where necessary. The EPA already believes that most of the new natural gas combined cycle units (95% of them) will not need to adjust at all to meet the carbon pollution standard.

Further, any new power plants that plan to employ a carbon capture and storage scheme will not need to meet the pollution cap average each year, as long as the plant’s 30 year average is lower than the proposed standard’s average over the same period of time.

According to ThinkProgress.org, the carbon pollution rule sets the standard at no more than 1,000 pounds of CO₂ per megawatt hour of electricity that is produced. Average natural gas units only emit approximately 800-850 pounds, while coal plants emit over 1,700 pounds of CO₂ per MWh.

While this is well above the EPA’s standard, it does not apply to already existing plants, and new plants have a wider range of technology available to help them meet this standard.

The new Clean Air Act for carbon pollution is a landmark piece of regulation in that it is one of the first federal rules for CO₂ pollution, it will be another 30 years before it can be determined as successful.

In the US, national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) have been established for industries emitting toxic air emissions that require the use of Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) for compliance.

Mercury NESHAP/MACT standards have been published for hazardous and municipal waste incineration, commercial/industrial boilers, chlor-alkali plants, and Portland cement kilns. Strategies for controlling mercury and other toxic air pollutants include pollution prevention measures, including product substitution, process modification, work-practice standards and materials separation; coal cleaning (relevant to mercury control); flue gas treatment technologies; and others.

More than 20 years after Congress passed the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on December 21, 2011, issued the first national standards for mercury pollution from power plants ̶ the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).

The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments required the stricter standards on power plants in an effort to reduce toxic emissions across the country. These new rules finalize standards to reduce air pollution from coal and oil-fired power plants under sections 111 (new source performance standards) and 112 (toxics program) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.

Power plants are the largest source of air pollution from mercury, arsenic and cyanide, and are responsible for half the mercury and over 75 percent of the acid gas emissions in the United States.

Mercury has been shown to harm the nervous system of children exposed in the womb, thereby causing impaired thinking, learning and early development. According to the EPA, the standards will prevent 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and about 6,300 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children each year.

Today, more than half of all coal-fired power plants already use pollution control technologies that will help them meet these standards. Once finalized, these standards will ensure the remaining plants – about 40 percent of all coal-fired power plants – take similar steps to decrease these hazardous pollutants.

In addition to reducing emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants, the controls needed to meet the standards will result in reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide and fine particles, which will lower airborne soot levels throughout the United States.

Under these standards, the EPA is providing the standard three years for compliance, but is also encouraging permitting authorities to make a fourth year available for technology installations. If still more time is needed, they will provide a pathway to address any localized electric reliability problems, should they arise.

Among the improvements that will result, it is estimated there will be approximately 540,000 missed work or “sick” days avoided each year, enhancing productivity and lowering health care costs, and 3,200,000 fewer Restricted Activity days.

People exposed to toxic air pollutants at sufficient concentrations and durations may have an increased chance of getting cancer or experiencing other serious adverse health effects. These health effects can include disruption to the immune system, as well as neurological, reproductive, developmental, respiratory and other health problems. In addition to exposure from breathing air toxics, some toxic air pollutants such as mercury can deposit onto soils or surface waters. They are then taken up by plants and ingested by animals and are eventually magnified up through the food chain.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, combined with the final Cross State Air Pollution Rule issued in 2011, are estimated to prevent up to 46,000 premature deaths, 540,000 asthma attacks among children, and 24,500 emergency room visits and hospital admissions. The two programs are estimated to provide a total of up to $380 billion in return to American families in the form of longer, healthier lives and reduced health care costs.

This week’s post was written by Dr. Ken Ferguson, an independent consultant evaluating project risk and risk mitigation related to new nuclear reactor projects. He has a PhD in Nuclear Science and Engineering from Carnegie – Mellon University and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Michigan.

The recent events in Japan underscore the role that natural events, site selection, and site suitability have on the safety of nuclear power reactors. The developed world addresses the concept of nuclear safety as an integrated effect of the specific design proposed for power generation coupled with the specific site for which the nuclear reactor is being deployed. Many years ago, as a young engineer with nuclear engineering degrees, I made a decision to get the full view of nuclear power projects by accepting my first nuclear position as part of a licensing organization. I soon became involved in a rapid learning curve, appreciation, and incorporation of the “…ologies” into my safety and regulatory interfacing duties. Site characterizations regarding hydrology, geology, seismology, and meteorology are examples of critical information that is collected and transmitted in documents to regulatory reviewers. This information also provides key inputs to the duty cycles imposed on nuclear plant systems and components, as well as the related engineering and safety analyses and evaluations that are performed by nuclear design companies and independently by regulatory staff. In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) creates a series of regulatory guides for power plant applicants to utilize in generating and utilizing site suitability and related plant evaluations. Regulations are promulgated regarding acceptance parameters such as radiological exposure limits for the public and workers for normal operations as well as accident scenarios.

Regulators are the referees, not the champions of the nuclear technologies in which they are involved. One key value performed is determining the safety of the reactor designs proposed by others for deployment. An historical, coincident question and challenge is “how safe is safe enough?”  For nuclear accidents, keeping the reactor sufficiently cooled to prevent fuel damage is an overriding concern. Operating plants utilize electrical powered pumps to deliver such cooling.

The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan is expected to have compliance and regulatory implications for nuclear power plants world wide. The United States NRC, for example, has already become involved in an action for additional seismic risk evaluations of nuclear plants currently in operation. Other related actions can be expected to occur; including updates to the regulatory process and details to assure that a proper level of safety risk is involved in utilizing specific reactor designs at selected locations. Ramifications could involve rulemaking, public hearings, regulatory guide development and reviews, calls for additional analyses and testing, etc. aimed to assess current adequacy or to establish effective enhancement.

Some of the characteristics of the progression of these reviews and implications for the nuclear regulatory process may include the following:

1. Expect the United States NRC and its staff to be out in front regarding such actions and to be a standard for actions and attentions taken globally.
2. There has been recent attention in “Regulatory Harmonizing” globally regarding coordination and effective and proper consistency among countries. Expect future regulatory enhancement directions to ultimately reflect such harmony to an increasing degree.
3. Expect the attention to be focused on operating units (over one hundred in the US, over 400 globally), followed by new large reactors not constructed (perhaps 60 worldwide) and finally new concepts for small reactors, expected to be applied for next year in the United States.
4. Expect this action to include a necessary involvement of the dozens of emerging nations having a serious interest in nuclear power but not yet ordering plants. Many are working through the establishment of a nuclear regulatory structure as part of a supportive national nuclear infrastructure.
5. An interactive involvement of nuclear design companies, utilities, and regulatory staff as changes are drafted and reviewed internally and externally.
6. Effective implementation of finalized changes to any regulatory process must involve an “early and often” interfacing with regulators to assure that the body of work undertaken and documentation delivered achieves the compliance that the regulations and regulators require.

Do you think that these industry and regulatory actions make a nuclear plant “safe enough?” Tell us your thoughts on this matter.