EPA BESERK ---global warming A Hoax-- China builds 3 or 4 Coal fired power plants/ mo.

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced a proposal that if enacted would outlaw the construction of new coal-fired power plants on the grounds that these plants contribute to global warming.

But the ban would have nearly no effect at all on global carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report.

The EPA’s proposed rule, announced in March, would cap the amount of CO2 that new fossil-fueled electricity generation units can emit at 1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour. Coal-fired units emit about 1,800 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour and therefore could not be approved for construction.

The EPA claims it has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act and doesn’t need congressional approval to impose the ban, which will likely be enacted in the coming months.

“But those concerned about CO2 emissions and climate change should realize that the administration’s attack on coal is little more than a token gesture,” says Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment at the Manhattan Institute.

“The rest of the world will continue to burn coal, and lots of it. Reducing the domestic use of coal may force Americans to pay higher prices for electricity, but it will have nearly no effect on global emissions.”

The administration, Bryce argues, is responding to environmentalist groups like the Sierra Club, which pushes for a total ban on coal-fired electricity production, and climate scientists like James Hansen, who has called coal “the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.”

But the fact is, while American coal consumption fell 5 percent over the last decade, global coal consumption soared nearly 50 percent and now accounts for 40 percent of global electricity generation.

And coal consumption will continue to rise. In China alone, which has about 650,000 megawatts of coal-fired electricity generation compared to America’s 317,000 megawatts, plans are already on the books for an increase of 273,000 megawatts of capacity. By 2035, global coal consumption will rise by about 38 percent.

“Coal is helping meet the world’s electrical demands for a simple reason: It’s cheap, thanks to the fact that deposits are abundant, widely dispersed, easily mined, and not controlled by any OPEC-like cartels,” Bryce observes.

The United States has relied on its abundant supplies of coal to sustain economic growth and “there’s no natural reason for that dependence to end,” he concludes.

“The only obstacle is the EPA.

“In fact, the EPA’s rule simply encourages domestic coal producers to ship more of their product to overseas electricity producers, who will happily burn