A time for energy... a time for coal

While coal remains to be the cheapest way to generate electricity, many companies shy away from it because of the expense of complying with environmental regulations. Some of the proposed legislation which would have the biggest impact on coal fired plants are directives for and investment of $2 billion from the Department of Energy over the next decade for Clean Coal Technology and research, the Environmental Protection Agency to develop multi-pollutant regulation and to report to the president on NSR regulations and a directive for the Secretary of the Treasury to extend tax credits for electricity which is produced by biomass co-fired with coal. The proposed amount of plant construction to be built in the first decade of 2000 is only half of what was built in the 1950s, potentially increasing the amount of coal burning capacity 10% to 110 million tons of coal each year.