Slashdot Mirror


Apple Tells the EPA Why Cutting the Clean Power Plan Is a Bad Move (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple is pushing back against the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan. The company filed a public comment with the EPA today arguing that scrapping the policy, which calls for cutting power plant pollution, would dull the United States' competitive edge in the clean energy economy. The Clean Power Plan (or CPP) was finalized by the Obama administration, and it takes aim at power plants -- the number one carbon polluters in the U.S., according to the Obama-era EPA website. Had the CPP ever taken effect, it would have given power plants until the year 2030 to curb their carbon emissions by about 30 percent, a move that the Obama administration said could protect the environment, public health, and consumer's pocketbooks.

Apple's comment cites the economic advantages of supporting clean energy, including that it provides "corporate electricity buyers with a hedge against fuel price fluctuation." The price of solar and wind don't change like the price of oil, Apple's filing says. (It also notes that China is currently beating the U.S. in clean energy investments.) The company also says that regulating the grid's carbon emissions "power plant by power plant" won't work. It references its own experiences operating with 100 percent renewable energy here in the U.S. and the work of its subsidiary, Apple Energy LLC, which sells the excess electricity the company generates back to the grid. The electricity system is far too interconnected, the filing says, so "regulation should consider the dynamic and interconnected nature of how power is generated, sold and consumed." That's why it supports the clean power plan, which it says provides a nationwide framework for regulating electricity generation: "It is both needed and the smart thing to do."

1 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. This couldn't possibly matter less by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Informative

    half the reason Trump got elected was desperate coal miners. This is an utterly impotent gesture on Apple's part. He's got to do something to appease them or they're not going to come out to vote for him next election.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/