Despite Trump and Rick Perry's Best Efforts, Another Coal Plant Eats the Dust in Texas

[TexasTowelie]

Chalk this one up as another loss for the White House.

Last month, American Electric Power (AEP) announced that it would close its 650-megawatt power plant in Vernon, a rural community of 11,000 just south of the Texas-Oklahoma line, by September 2020. The closure of the Oklaunion Power Station is the latest in a string of shuttered coal-fired power plants across the state: Since 2011, at least six have been mothballed, scheduled for retirement or closed altogether, casualties of cheap natural gas and a booming renewables sector.

While it’s not shocking that another Texas coal plant has succumbed to market headwinds, it is somewhat surprising that Oklaunion was the latest casualty. At only 31 years old, it’s more than two decades away from the typical retirement age of 54. The plant was also running relatively efficiently until 2013, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Plant efficiency has dropped in the years since, however, sapping profits and forcing AEP to pull the plug. The impending closure maps a tough road ahead for Texas’ aging fleet of coal plants, some of which also face the prospect of installing expensive new pollution controls to comply with Obama-era environmental regulations (Oklaunion itself is among the state’s top 10 emitters of nitrogen oxide, according to the Sierra Club).

Not only are coal plants prone to spewing greenhouse gases and smog-producing chemical compounds, many facilities nationwide have grown inefficient and costly to operate as they’ve aged. Electric utilities are looking for cheaper, more efficient power sources such as natural gas and wind. For the state’s power generators, the writing is on the wall: There’s little room for coal in Texas’ future.

Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/despite-trump-and-rick-perrys-best-efforts-another-coal-plant-eats-the-dust-in-texas/

[pretzel4gore]

1. What about heat?

Something doesn't. seem right. Why can't. heat be used to make steam run. turbines to make electricity? Global warming should be opportunity. ...too cheap to meter electricity!
Since the hot already is, there no nuke waste or ppm carbon. ..

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Sketch out your plan

Back of a napkin will do. Engineers & scientists have been waiting a couple hundred years for this!

[pretzel4gore]

5. Heat is energy

You don't need to burn coal/oil. or crack atoms etc (all these things do is create heat)...i have a suspicion that 'mr pig' aka harpy capitalist/ greedy bugger knows the mechanisms to solve ALL PROBLEMS are easily done- their trick is to avoid fixing problems by tying mankind up in chaotic knots re conflicts, disagreements and politics thus by controlling the narrative they pretend snafu! An example is the trillion $ defense budget passed by elected reps in dark/night while NO MONEY for education health or cleaning up pollution. ..and this is multi generations

[duforsure]

2. While trump

Will claim he's winning , when he knows its not the truth. The most dishonest and most unethical politician this country has ever seen, or a crook. People need to remember that when voting this Nov. . You want child abusers in your government? Do you want serial liars in your government , and do you want sexual predators in your government or installed onto the highest court we have? I don't. Vote, while we still can.

[efhmc]

4. People who push coal say it can be stored in a way

nothing else can. Heard this theory on NPR and think it stinks. Why not just cut down all the trees and use firewood. (Of course this tree hugger would be chained to a live oak somewhere.)