Two Of US' Biggest Coal Plants Closed This Month: Navajo (AZ - 2.25 GW) Mansfield (PA - 2.7 GW)

[hatrack]

First the dirtiest ones began shutting down. Then it was the old ones. Now it’s some of the biggest. America’s coal plants are turning off the boilers, facing brutal economics and customers fleeing for natural gas and renewable energy.

This week, Arizona’s 2.25-GW Navajo Generating Station burned its last load of coal after no buyers turned up during a two-year search. Trade publication Utility Dive reports that the fate of the financially ailing plant was sealed after a bid to force an Arizona water agency to buy its electricity failed. The Navajo station emitted about 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, equivalent to 3.3 million cars. It’s one of the biggest retirements in a year of massive shutdowns.

The second is Pennsylvania’s 2.7-GW Bruce Mansfield unit. The plant’s bankrupt owner began shutdown on Nov. 7, almost two years ahead of schedule. It was the state’s largest coal-fired plant, operating for 40 years. Together, the two retirements equal all the emission reductions from coal plant shut-downs in 2015, a record year when 15 GW of mostly smaller and older units were shuttered, reports Scientific American. Last year, 14 GW were mothballed. In 2020, more are on the way, including Kentucky’s Paradise plant.

It’s not climate regulations. It’s economics. “Once you’ve cleared out all the old inefficient stuff, it’s logical the next wave would be bigger and have more implications for the climate,” John Larsen, who leads power-sector analysis at the economic consulting firm Rhodium Group, told Scientific American. As recently as 2007, MIT published research such as The Future of Coal (pdf) suggesting that “coal use will increase under any foreseeable scenario because it is cheap and abundant.” But the cost is no longer so low. Today, natural gas is cheaper than Appalachian coal (although still higher than some western US coal fields) while renewables such as solar and wind are cheaper than anyone had expected.

EDIT

https://qz.com/1749023/two-of-americas-biggest-coal-plants-closed-this-month/

[Mike 03]

1. Good riddance to the Navajo Generating Station

[Botany]

2. Good

Gas is cheaper, cleaner, and much easier on the equipment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-coal-miners-celebrate-resurgence-in-west-virginia_2630286.html

[beachbumbob]

3. In Illinois Excelon is threatening closure of all their nuclear plants if they don;t get

more subsidies from the state. Another attempt of blackmail and extortion. So far our Gov Pritzker comment is basically don;t let the door hit you in the ass.

We could have a problem in Illinois years out as those nuke plants provide well over 50% of our power consumption. on the otherhand, record number of wind farms going up in Illinois.

The bigger losers will be the local taxing districts that derive an unfair windfall of taxes from the nuclear plants. They will be in big trouble, but karma is a bitch as they derived an unfair advantage of the tax revenue that went to them and especially true for the school districts