Cutting coal could benefit Texas
Currently around 40% of electricity generated in the US is produced from coal, however, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to reduce the country's reliance to 25% by 2030. Texas has 18 coal fired power plants and despite protests from the State Attorney General, Ken Paxton, vowing to fight the EPA's plans in federal court, Texas remains the top generator of wind energy in the US. The Houston Chronicle explains that the only limitation to increasing wind power capacity in Texas is a lack of transmission lines. However, as wind energy prices are already competitive with coal, Texas should invest money into wind power, where it is already profiting, instead of spending millions fighting the EPA's rules.
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Do you want your children one day working in a coal mine? Or how about a job washing and pulverizing coal? Or maybe operating the machinery that feeds coal into boilers?

These jobs pay a decent wage, but we all know what coal dust does to a person's lungs. None of us really wants our children spending their lives with coal-smudged faces, yet someone's kids will have to work the mines if we don't eliminate our reliance on the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

We need to finally admit that burning coal is an obsolete technology when we have natural gas, renewable energy and nuclear power. The time has come to abandon coal with the same fervor that we pursue the newest smartphone.

The Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan would likely cut by half our reliance on coal to generate electricity in 2030 when compared with 2005. About 40 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. today comes from coal, and the EPA plan is expected to reduce our reliance to 25 percent. We're a fifth of the way there already, and the new mandates aren't even in force yet.

Won't stop warming

The cuts in coal power may sound dramatic, but they're far short of reducing carbon pollution enough to slow global warming, according to leading climate scientists. Nevertheless, environmentalists are celebrating this effort to reduce carbon from existing power plants, even as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has promised to fight the plan in federal court.

"The good news is the Lone Star State is already on track to comply with the new standards, with relatively minor improvements in state policy, as long as our leaders don't stand in the way of progress," said Jim Marston, the Austin-based vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund. "The worst thing our public officials and decision makers could do is deny the clean energy facts and fight the plan."

'Vast power'

And yet, they probably will, taking advice from conservatives who claim the plan puts the U.S. economy and American liberty itself in mortal danger.

The rule "seizes sweeping power to overhaul and centrally control our nation's entire system of electric power," Kathleen Hartnett White, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said. "This vast power over the economy and our personal lives was never envisioned nor authorized by Congress in the Clean Air Act."

The 2,500-page Clean Power Plan is neither the answer to environmentalists' prayers nor a socialist takeover of the economy. It actually empowers states to develop their own plans to limit the amount of carbon dioxide produced per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated.

"There is no one-size-fits-all option," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said Monday. "It's up to states to mix and match to meet their goals."

The policy is simply a healthy step in the evolution of energy use.

For most of human history, people burned wood to cook food and heat shelters. In the 19th century, Americans used whale oil for lighting until we developed kerosene. We once shoveled coal into home furnaces for heat. Poor people in other countries still burn dung to cook and use butter lamps for light.

All of those practices ended due to health and environmental concerns. Wood smoke choked villages and deforested countrysides. Hunting whales nearly drove them to extinction. Kerosene ruined indoor air quality, and burning coal left entire cities covered with an oily soot.

Environmentalists today are working hard to electrify rural villages because burning dung hurts human health, and the number of children disfigured by burning butter is shocking.

A time to profit

Rather than spend millions fighting human progress, Texas business could be profiting.

Texas produces a ridiculous amount of natural gas these days, thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Natural gas is cheaper and cleaner than coal, and producers need more customers.

Texas is already the No. 1 generator of wind energy in the United States, and the only limitation to further expansion is the lack of transmission lines. Wind energy prices are already competitive with coal.

A resource that Texans should tap further is solar power. Panel prices are still high, but they are coming down fast. Every energy expert I've spoken to over the last six months predicts a boom in solar energy in the state beginning next year, particularly in residential installations.

The South Texas Project nuclear plant in Matagorda County also has plans to build two reactors that were shelved over low electricity rates. Researchers at Texas A&M University are also working on liquid fluoride thorium reactors, which are safer and cheaper than existing uranium reactors.

A key question

The added monthly cost of the plan to the average electricity bill will be about the price of a gallon of milk, McCarthy said. So why would a Texan defend burning Wyoming coal when the state has such a great energy mix?

Entrenched special interests.

Texas has 18 coal-fired power plants, some built as recently as the 1990s and early 2000s despite public protests. There are thousands of people who earn their money working on the coal supply chain, and they want to keep it going.

The problem is that once the coal is burned, the emissions don't just hurt coal workers, they spread across the planet and impact all of us. That's why the federal government needs to nudge power companies to adopt new technologies.

Our children's future depends on it.