Book ID: CBB204091874

Pollution, politics, and power: The struggle for sustainable electricity (2019)

unapi

McGarity, Thomas O. (Author)


Harvard University Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 540
Language: English

Pollution, Politics, and Power tells the story of the remarkable transformation of the electric power industry that has taken place over the last four decades. Electric power companies have morphed from polluting, regulated monopolies into cleaner deregulated generators, transmitters, and distributors of electrical power in a far more competitive economic environment. Companies are investing heavily in natural gas and utility-scale renewable resources, and they have quit building new coal-fired plants. The distribution side of the business has become a facilitator of end-use efficiency and a purchaser of excess electricity produced by rooftop solar panels and backyard wind turbines. Meanwhile, the once-powerful coal industry teeters on the edge of bankruptcy as electric power companies throughout the country shutter coal-fired power plants and reduced demand for coal causes mines to close throughout Appalachia and communities throughout the region suffer from high unemployment, reduced resources, and a spiraling opioid epidemic. Environmental regulation has played a major role in this transformation. The Environmental Protection Agency and its counterparts in the states have insisted that new power plants install the best available technology to control air pollution and that existing power plants limit their emissions and solid wastes. Market forces resulting from increased competition, increased supplies of natural gas and inexpensive wind and solar power have also played prominent roles. And the Trump administration's efforts to revive the coal industry by scaling back environmental controls and reregulating electricity prices have had little effect on the industry's decline. (Publisher)

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Reviewed By

Review William Boyd (January 2021) Review of "Pollution, politics, and power: The struggle for sustainable electricity". Technology and Culture (pp. 265-267). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB204091874/

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Authors & Contributors
Hirsh, Richard F.
Waide, Robert
Gray Fitzsimons
Agustin Irizarry-Rivera
Efrain O'Neill-Carrill
Isaac Jordan
Concepts
Public policy
Electric utilities
Environmental policy
Renewable Energy Sources
Electric power industry
Energy resources and technologies
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
Places
United States
California (U.S.)
Great Britain
Virgin Islands (U.S.)
New Delhi, India
Pacific Northwest (North America)
Institutions
New Deal (1933-1939)
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Partial Test Ban Treaty; Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)
United States Navy
Great Britain. Royal Navy
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