As President Donald Trump signed a slew of government orders Tuesday aimed toward maintaining coal energy alive in the US, he repeatedly blamed his predecessor, Democrats, and environmental laws for the trade’s dramatic contraction over the previous 20 years.
However throughout the nation, state and native officers and electrical grid operators have been confronting a consider coal’s demise that isn’t simply addressed with the stroke of a pen: its price.
For instance, Maryland’s solely remaining coal producing station, Talen Power’s 1.3-gigawatt Brandon Shores plant, might be staying open past its beforehand deliberate June 1 shutdown, beneath a deal that regional grid operator PJM brokered earlier this 12 months with the corporate, state officers, and the Sierra Membership.
Talen had determined to shut the plant two years in the past as a result of it decided that operating the plant was uneconomical. However PJM stated the plant was crucial to keep up the reliability of the grid. To maintain Brandon Shores open whereas additional transmission is constructed to bolster the grid, Maryland ratepayers might be compelled to pay near $1 billion.
“There’s some individuals who say that Brandon Shores was retiring due to Maryland’s local weather coverage,” says David Lapp, who leads the Maryland Workplace of Folks’s Counsel, which fought the deal on behalf of ratepayers. “But it surely was purely a choice made by a technology firm that’s working in a free market.”
Cheaper energy from pure gasoline and renewable power has been driving down use of coal throughout the US for roughly 20 years. Coal vegetation now present about 15 p.c of the nation’s electrical energy, down from greater than 50 p.c in 2000.
In some instances, state and native officers have raised considerations over whether or not the lack of coal vegetation will make the grid extra weak to blackouts. In Utah, for instance, the Intermountain Energy Company’s 1,800-megawatt coal energy facility in Utah’s West Desert is the biggest US coal plant that was scheduled to close down this 12 months, based on the US Power Info Administration. IPA goes ahead with its plan to change to pure gasoline vegetation that may be made cleaner-operating through the use of hydrogen gas. However beneath a brand new legislation, IPA will shut down the coal vegetation in a state the place it may be simply restarted, stated IPA spokesman John Ward. The Utah legislature voted final month in favor of a brand new course of by which the state of Utah will search for new prospects and presumably a brand new operator to maintain the coal plant operating.
