Coal

A fire sparked by a conveyor belt at a coal-fired power plant in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu has killed four workers and seriously injured four others, news media reported on Tuesday.

Moving thousands of tons of coal per hour at high speeds through a complex handling system is a main cause of airborne coal dust in a coal-fired plant. Depending upon the coal’s characteristics, that dust can become explosive when its concentration reaches 80 g/m3 and, hence, a threat to life and property. The best option is to stop the dust from becoming airborne in the first place.

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations affecting the nation’s coal power plants are routinely in the national news. The latest proposed rule focuses on the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With a substantial amount of coal generation expected to be shut down (up to 40 GW to 50 GW in the coming years by some accounts), the new regulations are increasing the likelihood that this lost capacity will not be replaced by new coal generation.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on June 26 unanimously rejected all pending legal challenges against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) interpretation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) that allows the agency to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). What is the EPA’s future strategy in its war on coal?

—Sonal Patel is POWER’s senior writer.

AES Gener recently completed construction of twin coal-fired, 260-MW units in the electricity-starved desert of northern Chile that may serve as models for future hybrid-fossil plant designs. For meeting an aggressive construction schedule, integrating a 20-MW battery energy storage system, embracing desalination, using the first-of-its-kind seawater cooling tower in South America, and employing innovative financing methods, the AES Gener Angamos plant has earned POWER’s 2012 Plant of the Year Award.

Wisconsin Power and Light (WPL) Co. plans to retire three of its oldest and smallest coal-fired generating units and invest $1.4 billion into the company’s generating fleet over the next five years to ensure it will be able to manage "current and emerging environmental regulations," the Alliant Energy Corp. subsidiary announced on Friday.

A lawsuit filed in federal court on Friday by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environment Protection (PDEP) alleges that FirstEnergy’s Little Blue Run Dam coal ash impoundment pond in Beaver County, a facility that stores coal ash from the generator’s 2,470-MW Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Pa., has leached heavy metals in drinking water supplies and surface water. A proposed consent decree could force the generator to shut down the impoundment facility.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday announced it would award $7 million to eight projects to advance the development of transformational oxy-combustion technologies capable of high-efficiency, low-cost carbon dioxide capture from coal-fired power plants. Leveraged with recipient cost-sharing to support about $9.4 million in total projects, the awards are expected to support the development and deployment of “carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS)” by focusing on further improving the efficiency and reducing the costs associated with carbon capture.

Announcements about coal plant retirements have become commonplace. Are new EPA rules completely to blame, or are there other power market pressures at play?