coal plant

The last coal plant in Britain

October 31, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Industrial Revolution, which basically got underway in the mid-19th century, was largely enabled by coal, which fueled iron manufacturing, railroads, steam engines, and more. Most of these things got their start in Britain, which inspired the rest of the world to follow suit.

The world’s first coal-burning power plant began producing electricity at the Holborn Viaduct in London in 1882. This September, Britain – the birthplace of coal power – shut down its last coal-burning power station when the 2,000-megawatt Ratcliffe-on-Soar facility ceased operations. Uniper, the company that operated the plant, will be converting the 750-acre site to a low-carbon energy hub.

Shutting down coal plants is not a simple matter, as they are the lifeblood of entire towns and regions where they are located. Finding fair transitions for workers is an uphill battle that has to take place in many locations.

Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, producing more greenhouse gas than others, but historically was the cheapest and most abundant source of power in many countries. In recent decades, it has been replaced by gas, nuclear power, and most recently, renewables like wind and solar.

The coal era has ended in much of the world. The United States still gets 16% of its electricity from coal, but that number keeps getting smaller. Unfortunately, the great majority of coal use is in the world’s two most populous countries: India and China. Both are adding renewable energy sources, but both have rapidly climbing energy demand. China’s coal consumption is expected to peak this year and flatten out. But there is still work to be done to bring an end to coal power.

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Britain Shuts Down Last Coal Plant, ‘Turning Its Back on Coal Forever’

Photo, posted March 13, 2016, courtesy of Arran Bee via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Carbon Capture In Wyoming | Earth Wise

January 25, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Wyoming produces about 40% of our country’s coal and many towns in the state were built because of and make their living from it. With coal’s plummeting share in the nation’s electricity, there is a great deal of anxiety among residents of those towns.

As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to climb, there is a growing sense that cutting emissions will not happen quickly enough and it will be necessary to pull the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. The current long-term government climate strategy assumes that carbon removal will account for 6 to 8 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas reductions by 2050.

The Inflation Reduction Act passed in August provides $3.5 billion to help build “direct air capture hubs” around the country, with an emphasis on fossil fuel-dependent communities such as many in Wyoming.

The town of Rock Springs, Wyoming is home to the Jim Bridger Coal Plant. A company called CarbonCapture, Inc., is launching Project Bison, which will build a direct air capture facility outside of town that is set to begin operations next year. It will initially capture 10,000 metric tons of CO2 per year but plans to expand that to 5 million tons a year by 2030.

That would be far more than any current carbon capture plant can do. The largest plant in the world, located in Iceland, pulls in only about 4,000 metric tons a year.

There are many problems associated with carbon capture. It uses up very large amounts of energy, possibly presents environmental problems, and is very expensive. In short, the technology has a long way to go before becoming viable. However, this may ultimately be another example where necessity is the mother of invention.

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Carbon Removal Is Coming to Fossil Fuel Country. Can It Bring Jobs and Climate Action?

Photo, posted July 22, 2012, courtesy of Max Phillips via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Concrete Production And Diminishing Coal Burning | Earth Wise

June 5, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Coal burning is still one of the primary means of generating electricity in the United States, but its use is diminishing and doing so fairly rapidly. The coal burning process produces residual, incombustible materials. One of them is fly ash, which is composed of fine, glassy, rounded particles rich in silicon, aluminum, calcium, and iron oxides. Fly ash is captured from coal plant flue gas by precipitators and bag filters. It turns out that two-thirds of this fly ash is not dumped into landfills or impoundments, but rather is put to use.

Because of its chemical and physical characteristics, fly ash can substitute for a portion of portland cement in concrete. Using this byproduct material in making cement actually reduces its cost. Beyond cost, the addition of fly ash as a so-called supplementary cementitious material or SCM improves concrete’s long-term strength and reduces porosity and permeability. It reduces the risk of thermal cracking and provides good long-term mechanical properties.

The amount of fly ash used in concrete products increased by 5% between 2011 and 2017 while the amount produced dropped by 36%. Concrete production continues to increase steadily while fly ash production is steadily dropping.

Therefore, the concrete industry is looking for alternative sources of SCM. The most obvious is the approximately 1/3 of fly ash that hasn’t been used to make concrete. Much of that is landfilled or ponded onsite at power plants. So, opportunities exist for excavating or dredging and recovering these materials.

As coal burning goes away, concrete manufacturing needs to make some changes.

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What Does the Changing Face of Electricity Production Mean for Concrete?

Photo, posted February 16, 2017, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Last New York Coal Plant Closing | Earth Wise

April 13, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The last coal-fired power plant in New York State is closing. The plant, located in Barker, about an hour’s drive from Buffalo, employs 44 people. The plant’s closure is an early test of New York’s new climate law, which is one of the most ambitious in the country. The law is supposed to transform the state’s energy grid to carbon-free by 2040.

Coal plants across the country are going offline, priced out by natural gas and targeted by regulations and incentives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Coal plant closures bring common challenges: lost tax revenues and jobs as well as efforts to retrain workers and clean up sites. Every plant has a specific place in a community, and each community has its own story.

The new climate law is supposed to create thousands of new jobs, including high-paying union jobs like the ones the employees in Barker are losing. But jobs are scarce in the northwest corner of the state where Barker is located.

The state government has recently issued rules that would make it easier to get permission to build renewable energy sites, including wind turbines and solar farms, allowing applicants to bypass zoning rules and other local regulations. But residents of rural towns have environmental and aesthetic concerns about these potential new energy plants.

In 2010, the United States had 580 coal-fired power plants providing 45% of the country’s electricity. By March 2018, there were fewer than 350 plants and coal’s market share had dropped to 30%. At this point, there are about 224 plants producing 18% of the country’s power. The writing is on the wall for coal power.

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New York’s Last Coal-Fired Power Plant Is Closing

Photo, posted March 13, 2018, courtesy of Joed Viera via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

From Coal Plant To Solar Farm

June 5, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Nanticoke Generating Station in Ontario, Canada was the largest coal-fired power plant in North America. It was commissioned in 1972 and was capable of providing nearly 4,000 megawatts of electrical power into the southern Ontario power grid. At peak, the plant consumed nearly 40,000 tons of coal per day.

The government of Ontario eventually decided to phase out all of its coal plants about ten years ago but the decommissioning was delayed for a time because of the lack of replacement sources of energy. The plant began to shut down its individual generating units starting in 2010. By the end of 2013, the Nanticoke plant was shut down for good.

In 2016, a 44 MW solar power station was contracted for the site and construction began last year. The plant opened at the beginning of April coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the demolition of Nanticoke’s smokestacks, which once stood 650 feet tall.

The new solar farm has 192,431 solar panels spread across 260 acres. The facility, situated on the shores of Lake Erie in Ontario, will generate enough electricity to power more than 7,200 homes.

The idea to use part of the retired coal plant’s property for a new solar farm was spearheaded and paid for by Ontario Power Generation, the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

The Chief of the Mississaugas called the solar project an important economic development in the region and for tribal nations that sets the stage for future mutually-beneficial partnerships between Ontario Power Generation and others.

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Canadian Coal-Fired Power Plant Transformed into Solar Farm

Photo, posted July 26, 2009, courtesy of Jason Paris via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.