Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Virginia May Kill Two West Virginia Coal-Fired Power Plants

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

The John E. Amos coal-fired power plant near Winfield, W.V. Photo credit: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/TNS

by Bill Tracy

Kentucky may have already killed one West Virginia coal plant, and according to a recent article by West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission may well shoot down two more.

Apparently, by 2028, many U.S. coal-fired power plants face costly EPA mandates to upgrade their wastewater treatment and coal ash disposal procedures. Without the upgrades, the plants must shut down.

Several of the WV coal plants in question are owned by subsidiaries of American Electric Power. AEP supplies some of the power, generated in West Virginia, to customers in Kentucky and Virginia. Thus, somewhat awkwardly politically, AEP needs approval from Virginia and Kentucky to spend hundreds of millions of rate-payers dollars on the needed coal plant upgrades. It is almost a no-brainer for Kentucky and Virginia to refuse funding projects that would support jobs in West Virginia, given the current pro-instate-electrification mania.

Indeed I was surprised how far away geographically the effected plants are from Virginia.

I have family residing in Hurricane, W,Va, so I know about the huge 3000-MW John Amos Power Plant visible from Interstate 64, almost all the way out to old Kentucky. But I never knew the billowing white clouds of steam represented some electrons owned by Virginia. Additionally the Mountaineer Power Plant on the Ohio River is another AEP plant with an “electrical connection” to Virginia.

Are they kidding me? Does AEP really expect Virginia Cavaliers in good faith to support a West Virginia Mountaineer power plant? We know we can spend that money in Virginia, and we will all become wealthy due to the near-zero cost of home grown, renewable energy. Wishful thinking abounds these days, of course.

In all honesty, I have for decades been a vocal critic of coal power in the dirty manner as typically implemented in the USA. I would like to see West Virginia migrate to cleaner natural gas and/or possibly clean coal technologies. But I am out-voted, given the obvious culture war against all U.S. use of fossil fuels.

West Virginia’s predicament funding these power plants may illustrate a generic weakness of the quasi-state-owned utility monopoly system. Elected officials view utilities as state-run profit centers that they can control to create jobs within the state. Creating jobs in West Virginia is just not a priority in Virginia.

West Virginia wants to keep these coal-fired power plants running. We’ll have to stay tuned to see if the Mountaineers can find a way to finance the upgrades, presumably without help from us Cavs (or in my case, the Nittany Lions).

Bill Tracy, a retired engineer, lives in Northern Virginia.

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29 responses to “Virginia May Kill Two West Virginia Coal-Fired Power Plants”

  1. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Cheer up Baconites! More lumps available for your stockings.

  2. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Virginia Mercury, the well-financed communications control center for the War on Fossil Fuels (WOFF), has had some stories about various cases dealing with utility efforts to keep coal plants going. Also WOFF Twitter. Not sure if there is a SCC docket on this issue but don’t have time to go find it. Too many stories, too little time. I don’t like to dive in without looking for some details and sharing the case files.

    Consumer cost and economic rationality are my touchstones. Saving some or even any of these plants raises the same economic issues as all the other generation choices we have to make. Coal certainly built our economy but we usually have far better choices now.

  3. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I surely do not understand it all but if coal-generated electricity can be sent to Virginia then why not frack-gas burned in WVA instead of building pipelines to Va?

    So why not replace coal plants in WVA with gas plants?

    Is it because coal provides more “jobs” than gas?

    So we’re deciding pollution and energy policy based not on pollution and energy, but net jobs provided?

    If true, it sounds like an old mentality that never really served our best interests to start with.

    And new wastewater restrictions will hurt coal plants? Does that mean that coal plants are actually discharging pollution into waterways? I thought they held all wastewater on site and/or treated it to reasonable standards already?

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      That would take a book to deal with those issues. And hey, all the green plants are sold on “jobs created”. Watch it play out with wind. Dominion filled the VCEA with that nonsense. Fair is fair. (Or, BS engenders more BS.)

    2. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      That would take a book to deal with those issues. But hey, all the green plants are sold on “jobs created”. Watch it play out with wind. Dominion filled the VCEA with that nonsense. Fair is fair. (Or, BS engenders more BS.)

      Bill, utilities have one set of boundaries and states have another. If AEP wants to bill Virginia ratepayers for plant-related costs, it needs to run that by the SCC. Dominion has to deal with both our SCC and North Carolina’s regulators, and its rates in NC can be lower as a result. When NC regulators say “no,” our bills can go up.

      In fact our GA has put that in the bill at times, forcing the SCC to impose the NC share of the cost onto Virginia ratepayers, subsidizing NC. Our GA just loves anything Dom wants to do, and I suspect not one incumbent will lose for doing their bidding….

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        I think jobs that are based on LESS pollution are better than the argument that any job, no matter how much pollution, trumps the environment.

        We’ve spent the last 50 years or so cleaning our air and water ,our waterways are cleaner and our air quality is better and jobs to create cleaner cars and more wastewater plants are real jobs also.

        We just screw up when we make everything about cost of a product basically subsidized by environmental degradation.

        There is no such thing as zero pollution – but there surely is such a thing as ordinary substances that are not toxic – like phosphorous and nitrogen being too concentrated. We seem to understand this for SOME substances even as we don’t believe it for others… until – after the fact – ergo – Save the Bay – when we actually should have known from the get go that we were polluting even as we asserted that phosphorus and nitrogen were not pollutants.

        1. Stephen Haner Avatar
          Stephen Haner

          Water quality is the forgotten issue as we fight the climate crisis phantom….

      2. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Like health care, transportation, energy and electricity are “complicated” and very few folks really understand it well enough to explain it chapter and verse. It’s more like some know parts of the elephant but not the whole elephant.

        The reason we have an EPA is because it became painfully apparent that individual state approaches to air and water quality was deeply flawed and really just did not work.

        1. William Cover Avatar
          William Cover

          The formation of the EPA goes back to time the Federal courts were over run with environmental cases. Water is polluted in one state and flows down river into another state. The factory pollution vs the clean water for the cows controversy. Same with air pollution, dumping toxic waste across state lines, etc. The EPA has evolved into a dictatorship as other administrative agencies created to reduce the probability of Federal court overloads.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            interesting perspective. I remember when the Potomac was virtually an open sewer and the air quality was terrible and threatening the health of many – who really had no recourse in the courts as individuals up against corporations.

            We had things like lead and PCBs and Dioxin and other deadly things loose in the environment, harming kids and pregnant women. etc.

            Way more than just about cows…

            And even today, we still have not addressed all the health threats we still face at least IMHO.

            Right now today, the TMDL approach to waterway cleanup is still hotly opposed by some who have no real alternatives other than don’t regulate. We have CSO problems in most major cities. Storm runoff in other places, etc.

          2. Stephen Haner Avatar
            Stephen Haner

            Again, nobody cares about that with all the energy going to fight the mythical monster that actually doesn’t pose a threat.

          3. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            my bet is that there has been/continues to be a correlation between climate skeptics and virus skeptics, science and government.

            And some are changing their mind gradually but we are suffering damage, some of it irreversible.

            And it’s perverse in that most Conservatives on most issues are “conservative” – i.e. if you’re not sure, you mitigate risks.

            Better safe than sorry. Out the door these days.

          4. William Cover Avatar
            William Cover

            Thanks for your reply. Of course new technology can solve many pollution problems. I just put a solar roof on my house. I hope it works!

      3. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
        energyNOW_Fan

        I know. I mean I am advocating more low cost onshore wind for Virginia. Unfortunately the most productive onshore wind corridor is located on the Eastern Continental Divide mountain ridge that runs down PA, MD, and WVa. That’s why super costly offshore wind is the preference for us, but DC went with Pa. wind I believe. We are talking ourselves unnecessarily into mega high costs, which is what states like to do. The bigger, the better money flow.

    3. James Kiser Avatar
      James Kiser

      Because not everybody uses electric heat.

  4. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
    energyNOW_Fan

    Interesting thought:
    the John Amos coal plant at 3000 MW (picture) might generate about the same net amount of power as Virginia’s offshore wind project rated at over 5000MW, but I presume that is peak power, not the average amount of power expected. Now imagine converting the Amos plant to a tiny size, low cost but clean 3000 MW nat gas plant with say air cooling and high thermal efficiency, and for extra credit, carbon capture. Now remind me why massive offshore wind is more eco-friendly.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      We’re not going to transition to all renewable energy anytime soon. Gas will be the bridge fuel until we have a breakthrough in storage technology and that may well be 40-50 years but we will be steadily reducing our overall use of gas as we build more renewables.

      But we will still need some amount of gas until or unless we get to a storage breakthrough or find out how to “store” wind/solar into hydrogen cost effectively.

      What we are doing right now is really no different than what Edison or other innovators were doing back when the did their thing. They were dealing with things that many thought impossible or even if possible, not cost-effective.

      But they refused to give up – they kept at it until they got a reasonable solution and yes there were politics involved as well as money.

      Why we’ve given up on that these days is a mystery to me.

      1. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
        energyNOW_Fan

        What is in the water down there?
        Soon McAuliffe says immediate Virginia-gov mandated shift in Virginia. Agreed rest of world and red states will not follow willingly.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          I only see that “immediate shift” coming from Conservatives… and far left folks.

          It’s a goal – like the goal for cleaning up the Bay or similar. It means, when we can and have choices, we move that way just like we did for Acid Rain and CFCs for ozone.

          It’s a surefire boogeyman for the right – always has been and always a few wackadoodles on the far left to prove there are some saying it. But the vast majority of the folks who want the change know it won’t happen overnight and are no more anxious to destroy the economy that reasonable folks on the right.

          1. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            You keep saying it is a goal, so once again I will remind you that the Virginia Clean Economy Act requires Dominion Energy Virginia to be 100% carbon-free by 2045 and Appalachian Power to be 100% carbon-free by 2050. It also requires nearly all coal-fired plants to close by year-end 2024.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            I don’t know the exact words, perhaps take a look but like cleaning up the Bay or standards for clean air in cities and other initiatives – what the law says and what actually plays out is not the same and both you and I KNOW that they’re not going to force gas plants to close and destabilize the grid.

            Portraying the issue as one where we won’t have any choice but to shut down plants and have no electricity is grade A boogeyman politics – IMHO of course.

            And keep in mind – in 20 years or less, we may actually see a breakthrough in storage technology and the phasing out of plants may actually accelerate.

            The point is – just like with the Bay or air quality or acid rain – we want to phase out what is causing harm as fast as we can so instead of saying “as fast as we can”, we say “by 2050” or some such – like we have done in the past and just like in the past when the opponents played boogeyman games like “we’re going to destroy the economy” and other foolishness.

          3. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            I posted the exact words from the law for you last week. Did you not read them?

            Code of Virginia §56-585.5.B.3

  5. kls Avatar
    kls

    We could sell them for a profit to China to add to the 184 coal power plants currently under construction there [over half of the world’s projects]…. what’s three more…

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      yep – but then you have this also:

      At the end of 2020, China’s total installed photovoltaic capacity was 253 GW, accounting for one-third of the world’s total installed photovoltaic capacity (760.4 GW).

      and this: China has 47 operational nuclear power units and 11 nuclear power units under construction.

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      yep – but then you have this also:

      At the end of 2020, China’s total installed photovoltaic capacity was 253 GW, accounting for one-third of the world’s total installed photovoltaic capacity (760.4 GW).

      and this: China has 47 operational nuclear power units and 11 nuclear power units under construction.

      but they do still rely on coal.

      1. kls Avatar
        kls

        A study from Sun Yat-sen University in China found that more than half of the world’s urban greenhouse gas emissions are generated in only 25 big cities, and 23 of them are located in China.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Yes. There are 1.4 billion people in China and they are in the process of industrializing and electrifying their country. Even so , the per capita amount of electricity use in China is less than half what we use. Per capita income is also about half.

          If they are trying to gain parity with us – and they’re gonna use coal – I agree… and yes if you look at the air quality in most Chinese cities, it’s terrible.

  6. James Kiser Avatar
    James Kiser

    People are going to miss reliable power for A/C and needs.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      When I hear that they’re gonna close the gas plants and replace them with wind/solar and PJM is opposed, I’ll get worried.

      We still have the same grid, sans some older coal plants. We can replace SOME of the fossil-fuel emissions WHEN wind/solar is available and is used to supplant the gas. The more wind/solar we build and use, the less gas we’ll have to burn.

      When wind/solar drop, we fire up the same gas plants that are there now.

      When I see plans to close the gas plants, I’ll take notice and reconsider my view.

      Until then, I just have to chalk this up as yet another boogeyman narrative from conservatives, skeptics and deniers.

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