Posted on 01/26/2012 11:02:11 AM PST by EBH
Akron, Ohio, January 26, 2012 FirstEnergy Corp. generation subsidiaries will retire six older coal-fired power plants located in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland by September 1, 2012.
The decision to close the power plants is based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which were recently finalized, and other environmental regulations.
The total capacity of the competitive plants that will be retired is 2,689 MW. Recently, these plants served mostly as peaking or intermediate facilities, generating, on average, about 10 percent of the electricity produced by the company over the past three years.
The following plants will be retired: Bay Shore Plant, Units 2-4, Oregon, Ohio; Eastlake Plant, Eastlake, Ohio; Ashtabula Plant, Ashtabula, Ohio; Lake Shore Plant, Cleveland, Ohio; Armstrong Power Station, Adrian, Pa.; and R. Paul Smith Power Station, Williamsport, Md.
In total, 529 employees will be directly affected. Existing severance benefits will apply to eligible, affected employees. However, the final number of affected employees could be less as some are considered for open positions at other FirstEnergy facilities and work locations, and eligible employees take advantage of a retirement benefit being offered to those 55 years and older.
The plant retirements are subject to review for reliability impacts, if any, by PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that controls the area where they are located.
FirstEnergy is finalizing MATS compliance plans for its remaining coal-fired units. Since the Clean Air Act became law in 1970, FirstEnergy and its predecessor companies have invested more than $10 billion in environmental protection efforts.
Since 1990, FirstEnergy has reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides by more than 76 percent, sulfur dioxide by more than 86 percent and mercury by about 56 percent. When the six coal-fired plants are removed from FirstEnergy's competitive generating fleet, more than 96 percent of the power provided will come from resources that are non- or low-emitting, including nuclear, hydro, pumped-storage hydro, natural gas and scrubbed coal units.
FirstEnergy has a total generating capacity of nearly 23,000 MW.
OK...need to just get off the grid...and not by supporting some green energy initiative!
Ping!
Eastlake, Ashtabula plants to close!
And you WONDER why railcar loadings dropped off the cliff after the first of the year?
If not for FRACKING SAND, the numbers would be far, FAR worse right now.
Lake Shore Plant, Cleveland, Ohio
isn’t that the one Kucinich fought to save so many years ago?
Good.....F 'em! Hope it isn't below freezing when you go out to vote for Hope and Change 06 NOV 2012!
Obama and his people have been planning and executing this strategy for years now. It is to destroy the American economy and to turn our country into a backward, third world dictatorship.
Well, Obama has kept one 2008 campaign promise. He said he’d make it too expensive to run coal-fired electric plants. May all the nuts that voted for him have their electricity cut off and freeze this winter.
You probably won’t notice these closing since they are likely peak operating plants. You WILL notice when it’s really really hot or really really cold and you either have brownouts and your bill goes sky high, as it necessarily must.
“need to just get off the grid”
In Northern Ohio? No Sun, little wind. Now if I could generate electricity with rain, I might have a chance!
“Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland?”
It is not just Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Well this rag head president is fulfilling at least one campaign promise that being to make energy prices skyrocket.
It is a twofer for this feral maggot feces of a president as he can help in the collapse of the USA by cutting off our energy supply and simultaneously making sure he rag head brethren get more money for their oil.
For those who are curious, this exceeds 1.21 Gigawatts.
You can do it with wood and organic material if you have a gasifier...
How many unanswered megawatts is this that are no longer being produced?
The corporation proposes a joint venture between the bordering states and the federal government to locally construct one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world,
Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse Covered In Ice
I don't think that windfarm in the lake is going to keep us warm at night...
I’m sure you understand as well as anyone here that the goal is not “clean” or “alternative” energy,
the goal is
NO
energy.... at least for the likes of us.
Anybody want to let them know there is no such thing as manmade Global Warming?
Pray for AMerica
Perhaps voters will take notice of Obama's failed energy policies after spending the summer sweltering in their darkened homes and workplaces and watching the price of gasoline push over $4'gallon
They are planning to shut down perfectly good coal-fired generators. Coal fired generators have a huge amount of equipment just to get the coal into the burners and handle the ash and the pollutants. If you can't run a coal-fired operation, all that coal/ash handling equipment is junk. Write it off as a loss, fine.
But what would it actually cost to pipe in cheap natural gas and convert the boilers to run on that? Seems like you could actually save money by doing the conversion, now that natural gas is a glut on the market . . .
Hundreds protest fracking outside Statehouse
http://www.hudsonhubtimes.com/news/article/5146188
There will be no natural gas glut in Ohio.
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