Giant new plant shows coal power isn't going away

McClatchy DC ^ | 3/1/2012 | Renee Schoof

[blueplum]

WASHINGTON — The Prairie State power plant, set amid farm fields and woods in southwestern Illinois, will start producing power soon, beginning a life of burning local coal that's expected to last until at least the 2040s.

Prairie State is the largest coal-fired power plant built in the United States in the last 30 years.

-snip-

What sets Prairie State apart from most other U.S. power plants is that it sits next to its own coal mine. The company figures it has enough coal to run the plant for 30 years, providing electricity for 2.5 million households.

Peabody Energy, the world's largest private coal company, financed the plant, creating a customer for its Illinois coal.

"That's part of the genius. Our owners already own their fuel," spokeswoman Ashlie Kuehn said. "We're not subject to the market volatility of coal, or the transportation costs of bringing that in."

Peabody later sold 95 percent of the project to eight Midwestern public power agencies.

The nearly $5 billion cost included $1 billion in pollution controls

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/01/140544/giant-new-plant-shows-coal-power.html#storylink=omni_popular#storylink=cpy

[blueplum]

25% of the cost was for pollution controls - amazing.

[TweetEBird007]

20%

[Ken522]

It’s still a lot of money .... D

[zeestephen]

Interesting post.

I had no idea new USA coal plants were being constructed.

All I read about is old plants being shut down, and permits for new plants being denied.

[alloysteel]

But-but-but....it still produces CARBON DIOXIDE!!

Won’t that make most of southern Illinois burst into a huge sheet of flame? And won’t the flame burn all the way to the little children playing in playgrounds and back yards?

(Oh, dammit, do I STILL have to use the “sarcasm” tag?)

[Gaffer]

You’re assuming that the onerous government regulations with regard to functionality of a power plant are integral.

If you assume the cost to build the plant is $4 billion, a $1 billion dollar addition of questionable efficiency government mandated emissions paraphenalia would be a 25% increase.

[TweetEBird007]

25

25%increase, 20% of total cost.

[VaRepublican]

Illinois??? coincidence?

[BobL]

“25% of the cost was for pollution controls - amazing. “

Actually more than that. The entire plant is designed around controlling pollution, due to the many old laws. This extra billion dollars was just for the new crap from the EPA.

[ogen hal]

What?!!! Didn’t nobama, the great leader, say there would be no more coal-fired plants? How they dare they! Surely, this is satire.

[bert]

——Won’t that make most of southern Illinois burst into a huge sheet of flame? -——

No, it will help the corn and beans grow better. The ethanol produced from the CO2 growth enhanced corn will provide more BTU’s per gallon when burned than ordinary, say Iowa, corn

[Venturer]

Sounds a lot like the cost of your new car.

[BobL]

“What?!!! Didn’t nobama, the great leader, say there would be no more coal-fired plants? How they dare they! Surely, this is satire.”

Don’t get your hopes too high. No doubt that this plant squeaked in before Obama.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Illinois bituminous coal is high in sulfur and is usually not the fuel of choice. Western low-sulfur subbituminous coals are preferred, but, as the article points out, they require huge transportation costs. This is the biggest new "greenfield mine-mouth" coal-fired plant built in the US in the last 20 years.

It doesn't sound like the plant has mercury scrubbers -- rather surprising.

How in the world did Obama not get around to bankrupting this project and Peabody coal? That's another campaign promise broken.

Video of the plant on Bechtel's website at www.bechtel.com. Just look at all the construction workers building the plant! Real jobs, not bogus "green jobs."

[USS Alaska]

25%increase, 20% of total cost.

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

A Freeper that knows basic math, I love it.

Maybe I could get your help in making Rush understand the employment vs unemployment numbers and the way that changing the divisor effects the answer.

Regardless of how you state it [and when I was selling, I always knew the impact of how you said it} a billion additional dollars, to comply with EPA regs, means that all consumers will pay more for their electrical power {but not as much as if were powered by the "free" wind power}.

[DUMBGRUNT]

The Department of Energy sees coal remaining the dominant source of power for electricity generation for decades, even though it predicts that its use will drop from 45%...

The DOE has amazing powers of prognostication!

Just look at their long list of successful selections!

The ROI,oh it's good to be king!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

• 1,600-MW Prairie State Energy Campus has two 800 MW supercritical boilers by Babcock & Wilcox (my alma mater!)
• On-site coal mine with 200 million tons of recoverable coal. Approximately 35 square miles of an 8-foot-thick coal seam located directly beneath the plant and the surrounding area.
• 4,000 people involved in constructing the plant, including <1,000 Boilermakers. Boilermakers put in five million man-hours.
• The campus covers over 2,400 acres of surface. Five hundred acres are fenced at the plant and 200 at the mine.
• Emission controls systems comprise >50 percent of the plan area of the power block and include nitrous oxide scrubbers, selective catalytic reduction, limestone scrubbers, and wet and dry electrostatic precipitators.
• 50 months from full-notice-to-proceed to commercial operation of Unit 1. (compare this to WTC!!)
• 19 months from first pressure part erection to hydrotest (water-testing boiler components for leaks).
• 70,000 tube welds; 32,000 field welds without a leak. Weld rejection rate for the project is 1.15 percent. (amazing!)
• 5.3 million man-hours worked (by all crafts) without a lost-time accident

I spent five years starting up power plants like this world-wide. It is great to see American can-do is still alive when the damn government finally gets accommodated enough to step aside and let things get built.

Note construction crew cars and trucks in foreground parking lot!!

[Ben Ficklin]

You're both wrong.

In a 25% mark up you multiply by 25 percent and add that number(in this case one million) to the original number( in this case 4 million) which gives you 5 million

In business you use what is called a true mark up. In a true 25% mark up you divide by 0.25 and add that number(in this case 1.6 million) to the original number(in this case 4 million) which gives you 5.6 million.

[Gaffer]

In a 25% mark up you multiply by 25 percent and add that number(in this case one million) to the original number( in this case 4 million) which gives you 5 million

Which is what I said. In business you use what is called a true mark up. In a true 25% mark up you divide by 0.25 and add that number(in this case 1.6 million) to the original number(in this case 4 million) which gives you 5.6 million.

There you go, acting all 'like this is a free market business' or something. The article said nothing of true markup. It spoke of 'COSTS' and the 'cost' for the regulatory stuff was ONE MILLION. Mention of 'true markup' isn't applicable here.

[Ben Ficklin]

You are right and you are wrong.

It is applicable but it is not germaine to the issue.

The issue is that after the SCOTUS decision on New Source Review in 2007, and even tho Bush punted it to next prez, some generators moved forward and are in conformance. Whether that be by adding pollution control and abatement equipment on the coal plants, switching to nat gas, wind/solar.

Who do you reward/punish, those that moved forward or those that have not.