It will be interesting to see how this will affect the Colstrip Generating Station, which is partly owned by PSE, and is the nation's 8th largest greenhouse gas emitter.

Actually, building and retrofitting power plants creates lots of local jobs and reduces energy costs to business at the same time.

But that's Economics

@1 PSE is a Canadian company. Washington regulations will not necessarily come into play for their plants in Montana. At least Montana is downwind.

"carbon limits enjoy the support of 70 percent of the public, across party lines."

Something tells me that this carbon emission cut is going to increase the price of electricity, and that 70% approval rating is going to fall fast.

Washington State's grid is mostly fueled by hydropower.

It's bizarre they would then choose to add one of the worst coal fired plants in the nation.

It's like someone said...life's too good to you.

I want to say, as a climate scientist, that yes indeed we are committed to quite a bit of climate change. Barring removal of significant quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere and ocean, we're stuck with what's already there. But I don't think this is the time to be defeatist. There is still A LOT we can do to avoid even worse outcomes.

72% by 16 years from now. 16 years. By then the poles will have melted.

@3: There is no downwind for CO2.

@5:

Washington State's grid is mostly fueled by hydropower.

It's bizarre they would then choose to add one of the worst coal fired plants in the nation.

It isn't bizarre. It would only be bizarre if they decided to build coal plants and not use hydro or if they decided to use hydro and buy electricity created from coal out of state. Washington really can't add any more hydropower. The choice to have the grid based on hydropower decades ago wasn't out of some environmental concern. Hydropower was available, it was cheap, and so those types of power plants were built. If it wasn't then Washington would be like the rest of the country with coal and natural gas power plants.

hopefully the other major emitters get at their local nat gas endowments and join our bourgeois disavowal of harmful CO2

Global Warming is already upon us. We're pretty much fucked at this point. Don't have kids.

@3, in what sense is PSE a Canadian company? You could argue that they're Australian, since they're owned by Macquarie, but not Canadian. And they are still regulated by the state of Washington, where they operate.

@5, Seattle's grid is powered by hydro. Washington state's is not. PSE's power is only 33% hydro, 36% coal. If you live in Bellevue or Kent the largest source of your electricity is coal.

#4: True, but to be honest, who cares if it's popular? Yes, politically, it's important because we don't want the new rule reversed. But at some point we need to prioritize the survival of the species over the short-term concerns of some voters, and pay more for what we use. Did you think our lifestyle of endless energy consumption was going to go on forever?

@15 yup. and Seattle only "buys" the electricity from hydro - so we locally "look" good.

what's eff'd up about all this is that we, ol' pat-ourselves-on-the-back "boldly climate neutral by 2050" Seattle, are so lucky to be hydro - something that is available to only a fraction of the U.S.

we in our smugness, and snail's pace climate action, can only do this with a massive head start and a lot of phony accounting.

Seattle generates about 50% of their own electrical supply from the seven City Light owned dams, the balance is purchased from Bonneville, which is overwhelmingly hydro, but there is some nuclear and coal in the fuel mix. City Light buys RECS to offset the small amount of coal, and to account for the CO2 produced by operations (trucks, etc). It's the nation's first and only Carbon Neutral utility - something that was accomplished while keeping rates low and offering an incredibly generous discount for low-income residents.

And it should be noted, Fnarf dear, that Washington's grid is very diverse. PSE is 36% coal, and Avista is 26% coal (and both have natural gas generation, which is just as bad) but a big chunk of that state is either Municipal Utilities (such as Tacoma, Seattle, and Centralia) or Public Utility Districts (such as Snohomish, Chelan and Grant Counties)

And we should pat ourselves - or at least our fore-bearers - on the back for making wise investments in public/hydro power.

Look if you can't do much about your provider you can still buy solar yourself or buy solar units at the Woodland Park Zoo

We're doomed. We should be doing everything we can to make contact with aliens and get them to help us, because we cannot get ourselves out of this mess. We don't have the brains to and time is running out, hell our time ran out a little while ago. Otherwise what we're looking at is mass extinction and ecocide. I really don't think most people understand how bad this is going to get, and how quickly (exponentially) total fucking chaos is going to ensue.

I really don't understand how this still hasn't become our #1 priority, to tackle this problem the best we can, if possible. We've known for a long time how serious this problem is. The power elite of big oil is responsible for the 6th mass extinction of this planet, how unbelievably horrifying.

According to Guy McPherson, the last 40yrs worth of emissions haven't even registered yet in 'the climate'. And even if we completely halt industrial civilization (which ironically will also bump up global avg temp), all the emissions since the freakin' 70s are going to sink in and we're going to see some real chaos. And it's already a runaway problem.

So, let's get to work, get our act together, and flag down some aliens to save this planet from this mass extinction event coming our way. They likely won't want to help us if we continue to show how irresponsible, stupid and violent we all are.
And maybe reconsider having kids, because the future is not looking good