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Ameren Missouri Criticizes EPA Clean Power Plan

The Callaway Plant is one of 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. and 429 nuclear plants in the world.
Ameren Missouri
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Photo courtesy of Ameren Missouri
The Callaway Plant is one of 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. and 429 nuclear plants in the world.

A Missouri utility company remains firm in their opposition to a new EPA plan. Ameren Missouri has been vocal about their concerns with the Clean Power Plan, proposed by the EPA last summer. The plan aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by the year 2030, but Ameren, along with other companies in the industry, are concerned with the timeline and interim targets the plan contains, along with the looming issue of power reliability.

Joe Power, Ameren Vice President of Federal and Legislative Regulatory Affairs, says that the company is supportive of reducing harmful gas emissions, but wants to do it in a different, more cost-effective manner than what this plan is mandating.

“The EPA has, in its rule, a 2030 goal that you are to get to on CO2 emissions, but that’s not the end of the story. They also have interim targets that begin in 2020. For Ameren, we have to meet 62 percent of our 2030 goal by 2020 in Missouri so it really front loads the amount that you have to do in terms of reduction,” Power said.

According to Power, these interim targets will drive costs up significantly. The company has a plan to reduce emissions by 2030 without those targets, which will reportedly save them $4 billion, because they could slowly transition their facilities and resources.

In addition to the cost issue, Ameren is apprehensive about how the interim targets will force companies to make big changes too quickly and will cause power reliability to decrease significantly. The other companies are largely in agreement with Ameren and over 3.5 million comments on the Clean Power Plan were submitted to the EPA for review.

The Analysis Group, a consultant agency, was hired by The Energy Foundation to investigate the concerns regarding power reliability. The group analyzed the comments the EPA received, cross-examined them with the plan, and researched the concerns to determine if power reliability would be an issue. Ultimately, the group of analysts concluded that there would be no problem. Sue Tierney, Senior Analyst for The Analysis Group, said that she and her co-authors determined that there is flexibility in the plan for parties to customize it to their own needs.

“Between now and the time when people will have to act and given the flexibility that’s been proposed in this rule, we think that the industry will absolutely be able to respond,” Tierney said. “As long as the whole system has a cleaner number of emissions, then one plant can stay online to avoid a reliability problem.”

Power and Ameren remain strong in their stance regarding the current Clean Power Plan despite the results of the study. Ameren brought in their own people to look at the plan who they think are more credible to be commenting on the topic than environmental agencies that do not deal with this issue daily.

“When we look at reliability, we look to the people whose actual job it is to keep the lights on,” Power said. “They’re telling, writing comments to the EPA saying ‘You need to do something different. This is a problem.’ So, when we look at reliability, we’re listening to them, because we think they have the accountability and the expertise that exceeds any consulting group’s ability to comment on this.”

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