CO2 Controls for Power Plants Now? A Good Idea?

As you may know, one of the immediate issues being discussed and litigated in the area of climate change is the imposition of CO2 controls on the Desert Rock power plant in New Mexico simply by interpreting the existing Clean Air Act to include CO2 as a PSD “regulated pollutant”.  For those of you who may be dealing with this issue now or in the future, I suggest a few considerations. 

First, while increasing the cost of gasoline may be good for the development of renewable energy sources and alternatives like the electric car to power the transportation system, roughly doubling the cost of new electricity by imposing carbon emission controls or carbon capture and sequestration may not be such a good idea right now.  In my view, there are two important considerations.  The first is how much benefit CO2 controls imposed now will have.  Using IPCC models (from one of the IPCC foremost modelers) and data, even full compliance with the Kyoto protocol and then continuing to maintain those reduced, 1990 levels of CO2 over the next 100 years would only lower the temperature increase by 0.1 degree Fahrenheit ("F") by 2050, and by 0.3 degrees F by 2100, out of a total 4.7 degrees F (the IPCC's "standard" predicted increase in temperature by the year 2100).