In obscure, blue-collar towns across Appalachia -- places that most Americans have never seen -- generations of coal miners have toiled away at back-breaking labor to power American homes and industry. Now, as many as 200,000 of them who dig, process, transport and burn America's most abundant fuel are threatened by EPA's latest coal rule.
It imposes a standard for emissions that is all but impossible for many plants to meet. It requires coal-fired plants to release no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour.
The only means for many older plants to attain that standard is to install what is known as carbon capture and storage technology. But that's expensive and not commercially available.
"At the end of the day, we just couldn't justify it based upon what that cost would be," says Mark Durbin of First Energy, which owns the Willow Island Power Station in Albright, W.Va., "It would be astronomical to try and retrofit some of older units that really are not as efficient as they should be."
Environmentalists are praising the new rule as a vital defense against climate change.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/10/coal-industry-warns-proposed-epa-rule-could-force-fourth-plants-to-close/?intcmp=trending#ixzz1uYWSmcG8
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