Coal

Courtesy: Dominion Curt Morgan, CEO and president of Brayton Point Energy LLC, announced in a written statement on Oct. 7, 2013, that the Brayton Point Power Station will be closed permanently in 2017. The news comes as a bit of a surprise, since the station was recently purchased by a subsidiary of funds controlled by […]

While many people believe coal is incompatible with meeting the challenge of climate change, the World Coal Association (WCA) disagrees. Together with the Polish Ministry of Economy, the WCA has developed “The Warsaw Communiqué” to address steps that can be taken to tackle climate change and allow coal to continue to play its role as […]

In the past two years, roughly half of U.S. coal production was attributable to the top four coal producers, the result, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), of changes in regional production as well as decades-long trends that have seen the several mergers and acquisitions. Peabody Energy Corp., Arch Coal Inc., Alpha Natural […]

With the recent push for the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants (see “Turning the Heat Up on Carbon Emissions” in the October 2013 issue of POWER), the science behind this action needs to be revisited. The regulation of carbon dioxide emissions will apply to all fossil fuel energy sources; […]

Electric power production from coal is on a steep rise in major developing countries, including China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Vietnam, albeit declining in developed countries such as the United States. Shortfalls in coal production have been reported in some of these countries, but these issues are being addressed by increasing coal production, as […]

A federal court on Monday said it would issue a memorandum opinion by the end of this month on a lawsuit filed by several environmental groups to force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promulgate a final coal ash rule. At least 11 environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Southern Alliance for Clean […]

“Abnormally wet weather” and “lower-than-planned construction labor productivity” have forced Mississippi Power to push back commercial startup of its integrated coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) project in Kemper County, Miss., to later in 2014 from the originally scheduled in-service date of May 2014. The company said in a stock filing on Tuesday that it would […]

A report issued on Friday, Sept. 27 by a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) essentially confirms the conclusions drawn by previous reports that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are largely responsible for climate change. Working Group 1’s “Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: […]

A federation of Germany’s biggest companies last week called for urgent reforms to the country’s renewable energy strategy within the first 100 days of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s newly elected government, including abolishing feed-in-tariffs (FITs) that they say have sent power prices in the country soaring. Key points of the 19-page reform proposal submitted by the […]

Southeast Asia, with an increasingly affluent population of 600 million, must kick investment in the power sector into the next gear to meet expected demand for electricity. Download the report.

Owner/operator: Shenhua Guoneng Energy Group Corp. Ltd. The 4 x 500-MW Shentou Second Power Plant is located in Shuozhou City in the northern Shanxi Province, a region notable for its mining of coal and other

In a noteworthy measure this August, Chinese authorities scrapped proposals for a 2-GW coal-fired power plant, citing—for the first time—concerns about air pollution. And as the authorities in Baguang

Table 1. Change in furnace and air heater temperature as a function of the ratio of coal and gas fuel use in a typical steam plant. If natural gas supply prices fall below the delivered cost of coal, a unit

Owner/operator: Duke Energy Duke Power’s deep roots in North Carolina go especially deep in the Appalachian Mountain range in the western part of the state, where Duke—then Catawba Power Co.—got its

TOP PLANTSOwner/operator: Duke Energy Indiana There will surely be readers who will disagree with our selection of the Edwardsport Generating Station integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) as a POWER

Owner/operator: Tata Power India’s emergence as an economic powerhouse has been tempered by acute power shortages that stem from severe supply side constraints. In August 2012, although the country’s

Owner/operator: Prairie State Generating Co., LLC The Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) is likely the last of the multi-unit coal-fired power plants that will be built in the U.S. in the foreseeable future

American Electric Power (AEP) last week said it would retire the 500-MW coal-fired Unit 4 along with other generating units at its Tanners Creek plant in Lawrenceburg, Ind. AEP subsidiary Indiana Michigan Power had announced its decision to retire Tanners Creek Units 1­–3 (495 MW) by mid-2015 in June 2011. A modified settlement reached this […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday allowed owners of the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Ariz. to consider a third option to curb nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions that was put forth by a coalition of the plant’s stakeholders—and which proposes to keep the plant open until at lest 2020. The 2.3-GW coal-fired power plant […]

Pressures on competitive power markets have fueled substantial declines in plant valuations over the past five years, with coal plants taking the brunt of the damage. That’s the conclusion of a new report from financial services firm Fitch Ratings released on Wednesday. The report, which calculated the net present value of plants across the country […]

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Wednesday that although natural gas use for power generation through the first seven months of 2013 is down 14% from historic highs last year, it remains above the 2009–2011 average across the U.S. The drop is the result of higher gas prices relative to coal compared to 2012. However, […]

Norway’s government on Friday terminated a full-scale project to capture carbon dioxide at the Mongstad refinery on the country’s western coast, citing high risks connected to the facility. It will be replaced with a carbon capture and storage (CCS) program that is designed to “realize” other full-scale CCS projects in the country. Norwegian energy firm […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday issued a revised proposal to curb carbon emissions from new power plants that sets separate standards for new gas-fired and coal-fired power plants. The agency also revealed it is developing new carbon standards for existing power plants. Separate Standards for Coal and Gas and Forthcoming Existing Plant Standards […]

An explosion on Tuesday morning at CPS Energy’s 420-MW Deely 1 power plant that left one worker with minor injuries has damaged the coal-fired unit’s cascade building, the San Antonio municipal utility said. The blast that occurred shortly before 11 a.m. at a 7,500-acre site in southeast Bexar County prompted officials to evacuate the building […]

The revolution that has toppled coal from the top of the generating queue in the U.S. has not reached the rest of the world, according to the “BP Statistical Review of World Energy.” While natural gas may have supplanted coal as king of the hill in the U.S. electric generating mix, the solid mineral—geographically the […]

The state of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E) on Tuesday asked the full 10-judge panel at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review their challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) implementation of a regional haze rule to limit emissions from power plants in the state. The move follows a decision by […]

Duke Energy will retire four coal units and possibly two oil-fired units under terms of a settlement reached between the company and four citizen and environmental groups over outstanding air permits for the company’s Edwardsport Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) project. The agreement resolves a long-standing dispute over air permits for the now-operational IGCC plant […]

  As environmental regulations continue their forward march and gas prices remain low compared to historic rates due to increased domestic supply, the number of power plants changing their primary fuel source to natural gas has increased dramatically. In 2011 and 2012, just more than 5.5 GW of power plant capacity switched to burning primarily […]

Despite frail demand for natural gas in Europe and difficulties in upstream production growth in the Middle East and Africa, the “Golden Age” of natural gas will remain in full swing until at least 2018, recent projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA) show. A medium-term outlook released by the Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization in […]