Energy-Geek: 106 U.S. Coal Plant Retirements Because 2010

Final Wednesday was a large milestone for men and women who care about public wellness and a livable climate. Two utilities announced the planned closure of nine coal plants in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, bringing total retirements (executed and planned) given that January 2010 past the one hundred mark to 106.

Two plants in Chicago owned by Midwest Generation, the Fisk Plant and the Crawford Plant, had been a important target for nearby activist groups. These two plants have been in operation given that the early 1900′s and were final up to date in the late 50′s and 60′s. Along with violating“grandfathered” (i.e. lax) air quality standards and causing hundreds of emergency area visitseach year, the two plants represented the biggest supply of regional greenhouse gasoline emissions in 2010.

Neighborhood and national activists groups, along with the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, place intense stress on Midwest Generation to shut the plants down.

The 2nd set of plant closures come from the wholesale power provider GenOn Energy, which mentioned it will near three,140 MW of aging plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. All of the plants are coal, except for a single that is oil-fired. GenOn said new air top quality regulations would make it challenging for the organization to maintain the plants operating.

A confluence of aspects is creating it extremely challenging for owners of coal plants — particularly old coal plants — to compete. A blend of large domestic coal charges, reduced organic gasoline charges, new air top quality regulations, coordinated activist stress, and price-aggressive renewables are making coal an increasingly bad option for several energy plant operators. Along with the 106 announced closures, 166 new plants have been defeated given that 2002.

So just how a lot of an impact have these elements had on coal closures? Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club’s Past Coal campaign sent along these numbers:

Present COAL (ANNOUNCED/RETIRED Considering that JAN 1 2010)

106 coal plants, 319 units

42,895 MW (13% of fleet)

150 million MWh (eight% of fleet)

162 million tons/year of CO2 (9% of fleet)

921,417 tons/year of SO2 (16% of fleet)

Typical age: 55 years old

(For plants with accessible information – Information from Clean Air Job Force): 2,042 pre-mature deaths, three,229 heart attacks and 33,053 asthma attacks prevented each and every year (about 15% of total wellbeing impacts from fleet). All together these plants retiring will conserve about $ 15.6 billion in well being care charges.

So what’s going to occur to the lights when all that coal gets phased out? According to a group of forward-thinking energy companies, there’s already enough unused mixed cycle all-natural fuel capacity installed to make up for above 100 GW of closures.

Of course, with queries about the lifestyle-cycle emissions of natural fuel even now unanswered, it remains to be observed how environmentally powerful all that gasoline will be. But with record amounts of investment pouring into renewables and efficiency, and progressive utilities calling increasingly price-competitive solar “the next large point in the sector,” the forces are coming together to near the gap.

This write-up was initially published on Climate Progress and has been reposted with permission.

Coal energy plant via shutterstock