Posted on 03/02/2012 11:31:59 PM PST by matt04
Two utility companies announced the closure of 10 aging U.S. power plants Wednesday, a move environmental groups hailed as a major victory even as critics warned it could raise the price of electricity.
Pedro Pizarro, president of Midwest Generation’s parent company, Edison Mission Group, issued a statement saying that in light of environmental rules being phased in over the next three years, “unfortunately, conditions in the wholesale power market simply do not give us a path for continuing to invest in further retrofits at these two facilities.”
...
GenOn Energy, meanwhile, cited the same reason as it announced it will deactivate eight power plants — seven fired by coal and one by natural gas — between June 2012 and May 2015.
In its announcement, GenOn outlined a schedule for closing 3,140 megawatts of generation capacity in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey “because forecasted returns on investments necessary to comply with environmental regulations are insufficient.”
...
The closing of the Fisk and Crawford plants, in operation since 1968 and 1958, respectively, marks a major win for anti-coal activists and their allies in elected office. Last week, Emanuel warned Midwest Generation that it had a week to broker a deal on curbing pollution from the plants or face the prospect of a city council ordinance that would force the company to shut them down within two years.
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, called the closures “a giant leap in our work to move America beyond coal.”
“This agreement means a cleaner, healthier environment for the communities around these coal plants,” said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous. “For too long, Fisk and Crawford have been literally choking some of Chicago’s most diverse neighborhoods, and some of its poorest.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Looking out the window now, it is dark and not windy, meaning 100% of the power being consumed now is most likely from nuclear, natural gas or coal.
How will the environmentalists charge their Volts overnight without nuclear, coal or natural gas?
More unemployed leading up to the election...good.
Gee, I wonder why those plants would need these further, unprofitable retro-fits?
After a few blackouts and the subsequent rioting, looting, burning and killing, will the left reconsider? No, of course not, but some of them will die.
When they say, “Utilities announce closure of 10 aging power plants in Midwest, East,”
they mean, “Unhinged Environmental Radicals Shutdown 10 Power Plants, Electricity Rates to Soar.”
Unicorn poop and fairy dust.
Obviously.
that’s exactly correct, Jacquerie. The EPA is chock full of environazis, and hasn’t done anything useful for 20+ years. Once they ran out of legitimate issues to resolve, they started inventing demons in order to keep their cushy jobs. Skyrocketing energy rates and the destruction of heavy industry in the US are the result.
Up here, the wind is gusting to 50 mph, meaning that windmills have probably been shut down. All of our power is coming from conventional sources, too.
Have any of the candidates spoken about this or are they still fixated on rubbers?
The choking you hear is not from these coal plants it’s from the environazis, commies, socialists and marxists tightening the noose around America’s neck
Too bad there is not a power meter for the environmental whackos houses that turns off the power if it does not come from wind or solar. (And maybe catches on fire if the power is from coal.)
We are witnessing industrial American being shut down one power plant at a time.
This is political. Vote Obama and EPA, We turn off your lights.
Just like in Texas a year ago, watch for rolling blackouts in these areas on the first day of peak demand as the windmills cannot keep up. Given the status of our grid those blackouts could be rather widespread and affect large regions of the country. I hope when people are sweltering in their darkened homes and cannot afford $5 gasoline they understand Obama is at fault.
How many acres of solar panels would be needed to replace 105,000 megawatts of steady supply coal fire plants?
“In January 2010, the Sierra Club announced it would work to retire 105,000 megawatts of coal-fired generation, replacing it with renewable energy by 2015; at this point, 106 coal plants, representing 43,000 megawatts of generating capacity, are slated for closure.”
No, the rioting, looting, burning, and killing disproportionately hurt the poor and nonwhite people. That means it's our fault. It's especially Rush Limbaugh's fault. It would be Andrew Breitbart's fault if he were still alive. And it's absolutely going to be Sarah Palin's fault.
And everything is still Bush's fault.
......since I will not be able to afford The electric bill
Re: Fault (cf, Limbaugh, Breitbart, Palin, Bush). Yes, if all of us Neanderthal Republicans and Tea Partiers had not blocked solar and wind for the last 30 years, we would all be living in a renewable energy paradise.
Just as DOJ is adopting “environmental justice” as yet another subversion of true blind justice, we will be found guilty of “power justice” which has disproportionately put the burden of lack of power on the oppressed minorities. Our prescribed penance? Perhaps we will be given rags and buckets and be forced to clean the accumulated dirt and filth off the solar panels.
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