6 power plants closed

joemd11 · Jan 28, 2012

I heard about these plant closings from my nephew who is a lineman for a power company. Seems they are older, coal fired plants that can't pass new EPA pollution regs. The plants are in Pa, Oh, and Md. This can't be good for electric power rates. Might need to stock up on candles

FirstEnergy closing 6 coal-fired power plants

JMR2900 · Jan 28, 2012

...And EPA regs don't kill jobs

joemd11 · Jan 28, 2012

Ok, some technical trouble. That link didn't work but you can google it.

Egon · Jan 28, 2012

Coal fired plants can have other age symtons other than emissions.

Pirate · Jan 28, 2012

JMR2900 said:
...And EPA regs don't kill jobs

EPA regs are to protect us, otherwise our country will end up as polluted and toxic as China. Company owners want you to believe it's only about jobs but it could be just as easy as some cheap bastards don't want to cut in to their huge profit margins to upgrade their equipment.

RoyJackson · Jan 28, 2012

Pirate said:
EPA regs are to protect us, otherwise our country will end up as polluted and toxic as China. Company owners want you to believe it's only about jobs but it could be just as easy as some cheap bastards don't want to cut in to their huge profit margins to upgrade their equipment.

Yeah, but the EPA also has a habit of picking nits without considering the consequences. Our air is vastly cleaner then it was a few decades ago...but getting that last few .0001% can be the most costly, with little value.
In this case, I think it's more the EPA justifying their budget then cleaning the environment.

Here's a link that works:
http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/mandates-pollution-FirstEnergy-closing/2012/01/27/id/425707

joemd11 · Jan 28, 2012

Thanks for link Roy. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm an analog man trapped in a digital world!

dmccarty · Jan 28, 2012

There are two power plants near us. One is coal fired and the other is a nuke. The coal plant will shut down soon because of the EPA regulations. The greenies used to protest in town about the nuke plant but I have not seen them in a year or two. If they close down the nuke plant we won't have any locally generated power.

Raleigh is spending money for a study to see if they can produce "green" power from a lake. The little bit of information that was already provided makes the idea sound like a waste of money. Gas fired plants are all the rage since they are cleaner and gas prices are low. We went through this a decade or two back and then the gas prices went back up.

Sad thing is that it did not sound like the workers at coal plant were going to have jobs else where in the company.

Later,
Dan

SPIKER · Jan 28, 2012

many reasons behind the closures I'm sure. The EPA is a major one though. Costs to upgrade old plants makes it not worth wile as rates are down cost to upgrade a 40+ year old plant are also a major factor. While they probably would continue to run it if it was not for EPA mandated upgrades that makes the plant a cost loss or not worth wile to keep them running millions will need put into the plant that is basically at or past its life span.

The EPA will not let any new coal power plants or Nuclear power plants be built, even building or upgrading existing plants is so costly and so many regulations mandated by the EPA that they are almost better off going out of business as to attempt to keep em going. This will cause the cost of power to end users to go up as supply is reduced and when peak power requirements let them bump up end user costs and profit increases. this is the point of pretty much all companies to make $ they most part they are for profit not non-profit ones.

EPA also wont let any more Oil Refiners be built even when they are operating at close to 90% rate or above for many years. this is a reason gas costs a lot worldwide there are less plants doing more work and they have to keep the up time operating at near 100% all the time. When one is closed for updating cleaning or whatnot there is a spike in gas prices as demand stays the same but millions of gallons of gas are lost out of the system and prices jump due to supply & demand.

Mark