Coal.
As a nation we are addicted. And while the Green Energy Revolution is undermining the Dirty Rock’s grip on our national grid, we are a long ways from being 100% coal free as a country. ….but as a state? Well, some of us are more addicted then others, and some of us are less.
And that’s important.
Its one thing to watch the market displace coal as solar and wind get cheaper, gas continues to crater energy prices and battery storage looms as the next big game changer at the utility scale. That’s all great. But markets can be very easily distorted and protected by politicians.
So every state that we can get to be coal free is a whole set of state legislators that no longer have a constituent obligation to subsidize and assist coal’s flagging attempts to compete in the 21st century. Its also 2 more Senators and any number of Representatives in DC that can stand up to more coal-oriented giveaways at the Federal level.
One of the most ingenious and effective tactics military contractors use to keep politicians on board is to spread the manufacturing and logistics jobs into every state. The recent hallmark example of this was the infamous F-35 fighter jet project that had direct jobs created in 49 states. Forty Nine.
Now, does anyone think that it makes any sense from a logistical management perspective to spread a project across 49 states? No. Of course it doesn’t. But it makes political sense. It makes a hell of a lot of political sense.
So we need to do the same thing in reverse. Get as many states as we can coal free to create a more even playing field when it comes to regulation and subsidy debates. There will naturally be a team of coal producing, coal burning and all-around coal loving states.
That will be their team.
Now… let’s talk about our team.
First off, we already have a team, albeit a small one.
Here it is: RHODE ISLAND + VERMONT
YAY!!! Literally 0.527% of the US lives in a state that has zero coal plants. That’s it: ½ of 1 percent.
See what I’m saying people? This whole “Death of Coal” thing still has a lot of dying left to go. We have work to do. And yeah, first up: I’m looking at YOU Pacific Northwest.
WASHINGTON
The Evergreen State is a natural first ally in this fight. And they are so close!
Right in Lewis County, just down US 5 from Olympia is the town of Centralia, home of Transalta’s Centralia Big Hanaford Power Plant. This is Washington’s one and only coal burning source of electricity. This used to be fed directly, by truck, from the nearby strip mine but that mine shut down in 2006. Now it is Powder River Basin Coal shipped in via rail. Built in 1972, it has two big 670 MW boilers that are running full-time as part of the baseline grid power.
Now former Governor Chris Gregoire already has an inked agreement requiring that coal burning cease by 2025, but we can do better than that can’t we?
Call your governor. Call you state rep. Call the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC). We need to put some pressure on them to accelerate the retirement of this dinosaur. If this plant was shut down, or converted to another fuel, the percentage of US Citizens living in a coal-free state would increase by 500% to 2.74%
OREGON
If Washington is this close, Oregon can’t be far behind right? RIGHT! Another state with a single coal-burning relic lingering around.
The Boardman Coal Plant in Boardman, OR is Portland General Electric’s one and only dirty rock burner and produces about 15% of its total electricity and has since the mid-seventies with one big 585 MW boiler unit.
Here’s the good news: Its already slated to be shut down! In 2010 PGE got told they needed to spend about $420 million on upgrades to get the emission under control. So they decided this wasn’t worth it and submitted plans to Oregon’s EPA to close it in 2020 and Oregon said “YES!” YAY!!
Now here’s the two pieces of bad news:
Part of that plan was to build a new 440 MW plant right next to it that burns natural gas. Okay. Whatever. Not great, but better than coal. 50% of the CO2. No mercury, sulfur, nitrogen or particulate pollution. And another blow to the coal industry, which is what we’re working on here. Stay focused people!
So they hire a Spanish contractor to build this plant and get it online by mid 2016. Except that last December, said contractor starts turning away workers and stops all work as their parent company (unsuccessfully) tries to stave off bankruptcy. A month later Abengoa, the Spanish company, goes belly up and PGE takes over construction directly. No word about whether or not the new plant is still on schedule, but the old plant can’t get turned off until the new plant is turned on.
Oh, and about that turning off thing….
PGE decided they want to try and retrofit it to burn biomass. Now, no plant this size has EVER gone full biomass and it would take 4 million tons of green biomass to run this thing year round so they are going to halve that and try to run it at 100% but only for six months out of the year to cover the high-demand periods. But that’s still a lot.
To this end they are looking at a specialized breed of giant cane that could grow fast enough with enough energy to feed this behemoth. Its called Arundo donax, can grow 4 inches a day, reach 20ft and be harvested three times per year. Even still, it would take 320 acres of this stuff to run the Boardman plant for a single day. So… good luck with that.
Oh, and local ecologists have pointed out that this thing is known as “Devil Weed” and is a god-awful invasive crop. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatillia Reservation have asked Oregon to ban this weed outright. California is warning against it, pointing out that they’ve already spent $100 million dealing with this and plan on spending $100 million more.
"We are working hard to control our invasive Arundo, and do not want to see Oregon experience similar impacts," said Doug Johnson, executive director of the California Invasive Plant Council.
Some come on Oregonians! Make up your own mind on the Devil Weed burning thing, but stay on your local politicians to make sure (or even accelerate) Boardman shuts down its coal operations and you make the team! VT + RI + WA + OREGON would get us to 4% of Americans!!
IDAHO
Before we leave the Pacific Northwest, I wanted to take a minute to point out Idaho. Technically
Idaho has no coal-based utility generation plants, BUT Idaho apparently makes a shit ton of beet sugar. Idaho, southern Idaho specifically, is the nation’s number two producer of sugarbeets, to the tune of 6,425,000 TONS. Over 18% of all American sugarbeets are grown in southern Idaho. …and you thought all they grew we’re potatoes! (FTR: Minnesota is the #1 producer at 12,270,000 tons)
Why am I telling you this? Because the process to turn these sucrose-laden taproots into commoditized sugar takes energy… A LOT of energy. And so The Amalgamated Sugar Company built and runs two coal plants in Nampa and Twin Falls. In 2014 they converted a third site in Paul, ID to natural gas. There were talks of converting Nampa, but I can’t find any documentation on it being done.
If you live in Idaho, please make some calls about this. If they have converted, send them some love and appreciation. (and let me know, please!) They contribute $1 BILLION to your economy btw! If they haven’t, then get on them, the regulators, your state reps and anyone else you can to put some pressure on them!
VT + RI + WA + OR + IDAHO = 4.5% of Americans.
Hawaii
Aloha! This is a no brainer. Coal is a sedimentary rock formed as carbon life forms fossilize. Hawaii is an atoll of igneous rock formed by volcanic activity and cooled magma. To put it plainly: THERE IS NO COAL IN HAWAII. So why are we shipping it thousands of miles to light it on fire? Who the hell knows…
AES Hawaii operates the state’s single coal plant in the southwest corner of Oahu and is the state’s largest single source of pollutants, period. Its not that big, only 180MW and Hawaiian Electric Co. (which owns the plant) was purchased by Florida’s NextEra Energy last year for $4.3 Billion and the word is that they plan on shutting the site down. They are also floating plans to convert some of it to biomass using local agricultural waste products.
If you live in the Islands, let your representatives know that you’d like to see this plant GONE!
VT + RI + WA + OR + ID + HAWAII would get us to 4.94% of the US Population.
DELAWARE
Near Millsboro, Delaware NRG has an 1170 acre lot on which sits the Indian River Power Station. This is the First State’s lone remaining coal-burner and even it is a fraction of what it once was.
Built in the mid-50’s, originally it had 4 coal burners and cranked out 740 MW of power, but that was then…. In 2007 Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control sued the plant over air-pollution violations and reached an agreement whereby they would shut down Units 1 and 2 permanently. Unit 1 was turned off in 2010, Unit 2 in 2011. Then Unit 3 went dark in 2013 as part of a compliance effort. So now we are down to the single 410 MW Unit 4.
The bad news is that a few years ago NRG spent $360 million to install emission controls and scrubbers so they probably want/need this thing to run for a while to make that money back. But it does sound like there is some activist rumbling to turn this off for good.
Do it Delaware! Join us! VT + RI + WA + OR + ID + HI + DELAWARE = 5.24% of Americans
CONNECTICUT
Do not let Vermont and Rhode Islands show you up in the coal free department! You are very close to joining them, and in fact are already on the way.
Bridgeport Harbor Station, owned by Public Service Enterprise Group is the state’s only coal plant coming in at 383 MW from a single boiler.
This is already a victory story. Here is an article from October 2014:
The operators of Bridgeport's Harbor Station would like to make one point perfectly clear -- the coal-fired power plant in the city's South End is not shutting down any time soon.
and here is another one from February 2016:
Connecticut's last coal-fired power plant, Bridgeport Harbor Station, is scheduled to be closed by 2021 and replaced by a new cleaner-burning natural gas facility, according to the plant's owner, PSEG.
Oh, War on Coal, how do I love thee?
Still, c’mon nutmeggers: 2021? That’s the best you can do? You want to be breathing this schmutz for five more years? Make some calls!
VT + RI + WA + OR + ID + HI + DE + CONNECTICUT = 6.37% of Americans
MAINE
I have to admit, I don’t know what’s going on in Maine. If there are any interested Kossacks up there that could do some research and let me know, I’d appreciate it.
Here’s what I do know:
Maine’s only coal plant is the 85 MW Cogeneration facility at the Rumford Paper mill in Portland. It generates power to run the mill and sells excess back to the grid.
So this year the plant’s owner NewPage was told by DOJ that Rumford was one of the sites they had to sell in order to get antitrust clearance to merge with Verso Paper Corp. So they sold it to the Canadian company Catalyst which has made the business decision to idle the Rumford Mill altogether.
Meanwhile the plant was bought by ReEnergy, which is a player in the biomass fuel sector and wants to use it to run on its collected waste products.
So is it running? Is it using coal? Is it using biomass and industrial waste? Who knows… maybe Maine is already coal free and no one bothered to tell me.
VT + RI + WA + OR + ID + HI + DE + CT + MAINE = 6.78% of the US Population and 18 Senators and 30 Congressional Representatives in DC, and 9 state legislatures that wont be debating coal subsidies.
Which brings us to our largest prize. The Cleanup Hitter of our team.
CALIFORNIA
That’s right. My own Golden State is down to its last Utility scale coal plant! NIRMA, an Indian Chemical and Minerals company specializing in detergents, cosmetics, lab supplies and injectables has a facility in Trona, CA that runs a 57 MW coal cogeneration plant.
And… its already off. That’s right, technically California is already coal-free. But the site is not being decommissioned officially until this month and then we are ON THE TEAM.
If the most populous state can do it, then EVERY state can do it. SO DO IT.
VT + RI + WA + OR + ID + HI + DE + CT + ME + CALIFORNIA = 18.95% Almost 1 in 5 of Americans.
If your state is not on this list, it means you have more than one coal plant** but that doesn’t mean you are off the hook. Michigan just closed SEVEN of theirs! Indiana closed TWO! Work on it people!
Join us and breathe easier
**South Dakota only has one plant, but the company just finished a $356 million retrofit project in January, so there is ZERO CHANCE they are pulling the plug on the Big Stone Plant any time soon. So I left it off this list.