# U.S. Set For Wave of Power Plant Shuts Downs



## Capt Worley PE (Aug 23, 2011)

> Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.
> Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs. The doomsday scenario has alarmed Republicans in the House, who have been scrambling to block the measures. Environmental groups retort that the rules will bring sizeable public health benefits, and that industry groups have been exaggerating the costs of environmental regulations since they were first created.


More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-k...kZ0PJ_blog.html

OK, power guys...is this alarmist propoganda, or something we need to prepare for?


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## Master slacker (Aug 23, 2011)

I'll let the greenies reep what they sow while I enjoy lights staying on due to nuclear and natural gas power in my area.


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## Flyer_PE (Aug 23, 2011)

In my little part of the world, the fossil stations we work with stopped spending money on improvements two years ago. They're planning to shut the stations down in the not-too-distant future. They're old stations and getting them into compliance with the new regulations just isn't worth it. There are five power plants in the Chicago area that we're pretty sure are going away within the next couple of years and they aren't building any new ones around here.


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## Master slacker (Aug 23, 2011)

Flyer_PE said:


> There are five power plants in the Chicago area that we're pretty sure are going away within the next couple of years and they aren't building any new ones around here.


To anyone on this board relying on those plants, I am truly sorry. Otherwise...

:rotflmao: :lmao:

:lmao: :rotflmao:

:rotflmao: :lmao:


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## mizzoueng (Aug 23, 2011)

Based on what I have heard, its all mostly fluff. There are regulations coming, but they are already planning lawsuits


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## Flyer_PE (Aug 23, 2011)

Master slacker said:


> Flyer_PE said:
> 
> 
> > There are five power plants in the Chicago area that we're pretty sure are going away within the next couple of years and they aren't building any new ones around here.
> ...


^How well do you understand rate structures and how power is transmitted in this country? Odds are that that nice big nuke near you is a merchant plant. Even if you live right next door to nice shiny nuke, your rates are going to go up right along with everybody else.


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## snickerd3 (Aug 23, 2011)

we have plenty to spare in springfield...they just built a new coal power plant with natural gas capabilities here...not bringing in the revenue it was supposed to because they didn't sell as much. but we are south of 80 so Chicagoans don't know we exist.


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## Flyer_PE (Aug 23, 2011)

^I know that one is down there. My primary concern up here is voltage control. They had to convert the Zion generator to synchronous capacitor duty here already and Waukegan station is one of the plants that is likely going away.


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## Exception Collection (Aug 23, 2011)

Flyer_PE said:


> ^I know that one is down there. My primary concern up here is voltage control. They had to convert the Zion generator to synchronous capacitor duty here already and Waukegan station is one of the plants that is likely going away.


I'm not too worried; I think my city's primarily hydro/wind/solar powered (Pacific NW). Not really sure where the nearest coal plant is, actually.


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## knight1fox3 (Aug 23, 2011)

Flyer_PE said:


> ^I know that one is down there. My primary concern up here is voltage control. They had to convert the *Zion* generator to synchronous capacitor duty here already and Waukegan station is one of the plants that is likely going away.


My company is assisting Zion with their decon. processes. :true:


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## Wolverine (Aug 23, 2011)

Capt Worley PE said:


> OK, power guys...is this alarmist propoganda, or something we need to prepare for?


It is absolutely true. The only pre-emptive action you can take is to go burn $100 bills each month to help prepare for where your power bill is going.




mizzoueng said:


> Based on what I have heard, its all mostly fluff. There are regulations coming, but they are already planning lawsuits


I disagree in the strongest terms. 
With HAPS/MACTS rules and FERC1000 on the table, the power system is experiencing the first stages of being regulated out of business.

What I think is sadly funny is that we don't believe people when they tell us exactly who they are and what they're going to do; then we are surprised when they do exactly what they said they were going to do. President Obama said he was going to make coal so expensive through regulation that it would become unviable as a power source. Maybe that works out fine for Chicago, New York, and California, but damn foolery for the Southeast, and expensive foolery too.

Prepare for fubarization of the nations power system, followed by nationalization, when the gubm't steps in to fix what it intentionally broke.


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## Wolverine (Aug 23, 2011)

Karen S. P.E. said:


> I'm not too worried; I think my city's primarily hydro/wind/solar powered (Pacific NW). Not really sure where the nearest coal plant is, actually.


 A little research reveals your nearest (and only) coal plant is Boardman, which is scheduled to be shut down to avoid the cost of installing $470 million of pollution regulation controls.
I looked up Oregon's generation profile:

Hydro - 60%

Natural gas - 22%

Wind - 14%

Coal - 4%

It's really cute that you have no worries about shutting down coal in Oregon since you are blessed with mild summers and abundant riverhead, wind, &amp; natural gas resources, but here in the southeast with triple the population and more than double the MW load, we're a little concerned at having 67% of our generation capacity under threat of a $470 million tax times 10.

What's that quote about "...and I was not concerned, until they finally came for me"?

The knuckleheads in Washington have no idea what they're about to do... or maybe they do? :17:


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## Exception Collection (Aug 23, 2011)

Wolverine said:


> Karen S. P.E. said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not too worried; I think my city's primarily hydro/wind/solar powered (Pacific NW). Not really sure where the nearest coal plant is, actually.
> ...


OK, fair enough. I was talking about my consumption in particular, not the general situation. In general, I think we need to build more nuke plants.


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## CbusPaul (Aug 23, 2011)

In Ohio we are in big trouble with an aging coal fleet and strict rules that will shut down many of them prematurely. Cross State rule being finalized in July with an effective date of Jan '12 requiring significant cuts in SOx and NOx will help speed the demise over what HAPs MACT was going to do anyway. Think of what these plant closures will mean to the folks that live in the towns that they operate. Huge loss of good paying jobs and huge loss of a big taxpayer.


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## wilheldp_PE (Aug 23, 2011)

CbusPaul said:


> Huge loss of good paying jobs and huge loss of a big taxpayer.


Yeah, but Obama is going to replace those jobs with high-paying green energy jobs.


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## Supe (Aug 24, 2011)

We've been building combined cycles out the wazoo, and we're also finishing up a 2x600, 2 combined cycles, a supercritical, and an ultrasupercritical as I type this. A lot of the utilities that knew this was coming a) invested money in scrubbers, b ) built new coal plants, and c) planned on the fleet of new coal and/or new nukes to offset the loss of the older plants. First utility I saw do all three rhymes with Puke Schmenergy. In that regard, I'm not particularly concerned about blackouts, etc.

That aside, the regulations are bullshit, the "science" behind it without merit, and the only way we'll get around it is with a regime change. Perhaps those coddling their welfare checks may see the light of day when their allotment of energy assistance dollars still leaves them with one whopper of an electric bill for the month.


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## Capt Worley PE (Aug 24, 2011)

Wolverine said:


> What I think is sadly funny is that we don't believe people when they tell us exactly who they are and what they're going to do; then we are surprised when they do exactly what they said they were going to do. President Obama said he was going to make coal so expensive through regulation that it would become unviable as a power source.


Control the power and you control the sheeple.



Wolverine said:


> Prepare for fubarization of the nations power system, followed by nationalization, when the gubm't steps in to fix what it intentionally broke.


I suspect this is the ultimate goal.

As I said in another thread, the gov wants control of the grid and personally owned vehicles. Control of power and movement.

But, hey, American Idol is on!


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## chaosiscash (Aug 24, 2011)

If any of you power guys that are having to shut down coal plants are interested, TVA has a reactor for sale. 

For Sale


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## Flyer_PE (Aug 24, 2011)

Selling Unit 2 is an interesting idea considering they aren't selling Unit 1 along with it. The logistics of having two separate owners on a two-unit site could be problematic. I've seen what happens when the owner and operator of the facilities are two separate entities and it isn't pretty.


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## Wolverine (Aug 24, 2011)

Supe said:


> That aside, the regulations are bullshit, the "science" behind it without merit, and the only way we'll get around it is with a regime change. Perhaps those coddling their welfare checks may see the light of day when their allotment of energy assistance dollars still leaves them with one whopper of an electric bill for the month.


:appl: :appl: :appl:


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## Capt Worley PE (Aug 24, 2011)

My MIL got a letter from her electric company asking if she'd like a smart meter on her AC to turn it off when peak load occured 'to save you money and keep us from having to build new plants.' They offered to give her a $25 credit per YEAR. I told her the first time the AC cut off for three hours when it was 100+ outside, she wouldn't feel like it was a good deal (she agreed, but had already devided that).


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## Capt Worley PE (Aug 24, 2011)

I just saw this...



> For zero benefit, the Utility MACT is one of the most expensive federal regulations ever. In comments submitted to the EPA, Unions for Jobs and the Environment, an alliance of unions representing more than 3.2 million workers, estimated that this needless regulation would jeopardize 251,000 jobs.
> Then there’s EPA’s out-of-the-blue ruling last month, ordering Texas to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide by 47 percent. This, when the draft version of the Cross State Air Pollution Rule had exempted the state entirely. The excuse for the change? A supposed need to slightly reduce emissions as monitored 500 miles away in Madison County, Ill. -- a locale that meets the EPA air-quality standards in question.
> 
> And the EPA only gave Texas just six months to comply -- when it takes three years to build the necessary controls. Particularly hard-hit will be Luminant, the largest merchant power producer in Texas, which relies on high-sulfur coal: It says “curtailing plant and/or mine operations will be the only option” to meet the EPA’s “unprecedented and impossible compliance timetable.” Jonathan Gardner, a vice president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, warns that the rule directly threatens 1,500 employees at six different power plants across Texas.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedc...J#ixzz1VxGEAD8x


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## CbusPaul (Aug 24, 2011)

EPA's own bloated estimates of benefits from the HAPs rule only come up with $5.9 million dollars a year of benefit related to HAPs. They claim more benefit from the reduction in CO2. The rest comes from reductions in criteria pollutants that are already accounted for in other rulemakings. Reductions that occur in parts of the country that are already attainment for those pollutants meaning the people are already breathing clean air. Any further reductions have no health impacts.


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## chaosiscash (Aug 24, 2011)

Flyer_PE said:


> Selling Unit 2 is an interesting idea considering they aren't selling Unit 1 along with it. The logistics of having two separate owners on a two-unit site could be problematic. I've seen what happens when the owner and operator of the facilities are two separate entities and it isn't pretty.


My guess is that in a lease-back arrangement, TVA will still be the operator. Of course, no one in town believes Unit 2 will be complete by 2013 anyway, so this plan of theirs will very likely go in the ditch.


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## knight1fox3 (Aug 24, 2011)

chaosiscash said:


> Flyer_PE said:
> 
> 
> > Selling Unit 2 is an interesting idea considering they aren't selling Unit 1 along with it. The logistics of having two separate owners on a two-unit site could be problematic. I've seen what happens when the owner and operator of the facilities are two separate entities and it isn't pretty.
> ...


My company also does a lot of work for TVA for spent nuclear fuel-handling.


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## Dexman PE PMP (Sep 2, 2011)

I guess Obama decided to hold off for a while on some of these new regs...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44372992/ns/us_news-environment/


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## Capt Worley PE (Sep 2, 2011)

^Good news!


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## mizzoueng (Sep 2, 2011)

> For zero benefit, the Utility MACT is one of the most expensive federal regulations ever. In comments submitted to the EPA, Unions for Jobs and the Environment, an alliance of unions representing more than 3.2 million workers, estimated that this needless regulation would jeopardize 251,000 jobs.


Hold up there. Sure MACT does not immediately provide union jobs, but the engineering sector sees benefits from it. My company is doing a lot of these MACT studies. MACT studies eventually lead to project, which usually require skilled labor the last I checked.


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## Dexman PE PMP (Sep 2, 2011)

^^^ but that assumes there is funding for said studies, projects, and jobs. I think the point made earlier by others is that several of these plants would rather close than to go through the update process to meet the new standards, thus eliminating jobs.


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## Dexman PE PMP (Sep 8, 2011)

The following was included in my latest ebill pdf from our local electricity provider (please forgive any typo's as I had to re-type this since the pdf was password and copy/paste protected):



> WHOLESALE POWER COSTS TO RISEIREA [intermountain Rural Electric Assoc.] obtains its power supply from three sources: The Western Area Power Administraion, a federal agency that provides hydropower, Comanche Unit 3, the new supercritical pulverized coal plant in Pueblo owned jointly by IREA, Xcel Energy and Holy Cross Energy; and Xcel Energy, which sells power to IREA under a wholesale rate tariff. This year IREA expects to purchase more than 40% of its power from Xcel. The cost of that power is going up.
> 
> In 2010 the Colorado General Assembly approved the so-called "Clean Air Clean Jobs Act," legislation that was written behind closed doors in a collaborative effort by the gas industry, Xcel, the administration of former Governor Ritter, and other interests including even members of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. The legislation was rushed through the General Assembly in only seventeen days, with little debate and no ammendments permitted. The Act established the framework for the retirement of existing, low-cost generation plants and their replacement with new gas generation plants. As called for by the Act, the PUC set up a "fast track" process and in December 2010 approved an Xcel plan to implement the Act. The plan calls for the retirement of five coal generation plants, conversion of two coal plants to gas plants, construction of a new gas plant, the conversion of two shut-down plants to synchronous condensers (needed to maintain transmission voltage support upon retirement of some of the plants), and installation of emissions controls at three coal plants.
> 
> ...


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## Wolverine (Sep 8, 2011)

Dexman PE said:


> "Needless to say, this plan will be expensive. Xcel estimated it would cost over one billion dollars, and it appears that estimate may be too low."


Yeah, my first thought was "Only 1 billion? Consider yourselves lucky."


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