Blackouts Ahead

Coal-burning utilities predict blackouts from Obama climate pact Nov 13 2014, By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

• Chief execs of the top U.S. coal-burning utilities predict blackouts and rising power bills if they are not given more time to achieve greenhouse gas emission cuts described in the new climate agreement with China.
• A proposed timeline for cutting pollution from power plants threatens to shutter coal-fired plants before enough new generation can be built to replace lost supplies, say CEOs of Southern Co. (NYSE:SO) and American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP).
• The challenges go beyond the cost and time it would take to build new plants to replace coal units forced into retirement, Southern's Thomas Fanning and AEP's Nick Akins say; there’s not enough pipeline capacity to carry the natural gas that would be needed by all the newly built gas-fired power plants spawned by the EPA's proposals.
• Southern would have to retire more than 9K mw of coal-fueled generators and add ~5,400 mw of natural gas plants by 2020 under plans envisioned by EPA, Fanning says. Source:http://seekingalpha.com/news/2125245-coal-burning-utilities-predict-blackouts-from-obama-climate-pact?uprof=