(Photo: Flickr)

The Sierra Club recently won a huge legal victory in the Bonanza coal plant permitting case (PDF, 701 KB) at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Appeals Board. The ruling stated that because a previous Supreme Court ruling, Mass. v EPA, said carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, new coal-fired power plants must implement “Best Available Control Technology” (BACT) for CO₂. It appears that this decision will stop all new coal plant permitting for at least a year as President-elect Obama’s EPA decides what BACT means for CO₂. In the meantime, 30 permits for new coal-fired power plants in the seven states directly regulated by the EPA, plus projects on all Indian Reservations will immediately die because of this ruling. Other states that do their own permitting will have to start their permitting processes over from scratch.

BACT for CO₂ is unlikely to mean carbon capture and storage yet, since it is not readily available, but it will probably mean some combination of co-generation, efficiency improvements, and fuel switching or co-firing with biomass.

The ruling seems to make investment in coal less desirable and it could bring to light issues like mountain top removal and cause the public to question the coal industry’s avid claims that it is a clean technology.

• Read background: “Huge Legal Ruling Blocks All U.S. Coal Development” (Cleanenergy.org, 11/13/08)
• Related: “Nevada Coal Power More Costly Than Renewable Power, Study Finds” (Power Plug, 1/16/08)