Thanks Barack… 3 West Virginia Coal Plants to Close

Gateway Pundit ^ | February 11,2012 | Jim Hoft

[Hojczyk]

Three West Virginia coal plants just announced they will close this year. Metro News reported:

Ohio based FirstEnergy Corporation announces it will close three coal fired power plants in West Virginia by this fall. The closings come directly from the impact of new federal EPA regulations.

The plants to close are Albright Power Station, Willow Island Power Station, and the Rivesville Power Station. The company says 105 employees will be directly impacted.

The three plants produce 660 megawatts and about 3-percent of FirstEnergy’s total generation. In recent years, the plants served as “peaking facilities” and generated power during times of peak demand for power.

The plants operated under subsidiary Monongahela Power. Mon Power recently finished a study of unscrubbed coal fired plants in the system to determine the potential impact of the most recent environmental regulations from EPA. Company officials determined the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) made it unfeasible to retrofit or continue operating the three plants.

“The high cost to implement MATS and other environmental rules is the reason these Mon Power plants are being retired,” said James R. Haney, regional president of Mon Power and president of West Virginia Operations for FirstEnergy.

[Steve Van Doorn]

"Americans are running out of coal powered energy plants and should be running out of patience with Obama."

Socialists are like Antelopes. The Antelope can be in the desert for months without water when it rains they are only bothered by the rain drops hitting their face. When it rains for a while the water starts to puddle up and make some small bodies of water only then do the Antelope realize and get excited that they are not going to die of thrust.

Socialists are not bothered by plants shutting down it will only bother them when the lights go out.

[meyer]

FirstEnergy closing 6 coal-fired power plants

As a former FirstEnergy employee, I can tell you that this is definitely NOT good. Search at www.cleveland.com (the Cleveland Plain Dealer) and you will see that they're closing the Eastlake plant (Eastlake, OH), the Lakeshore plant (Cleveland, OH), the Ashtabula plant (Ashtabula, OH), and part of the Bay Shore plant in Toledo, OH. That will create a significant deficit of power generation along Lake Erie. Absent replacement generation in that area, this will cause problems.

I'm going to speculate here that Ohio just went Republican in a big way because of this.

Just a side note, TVA, a federal agency, is doing the same sort of thing. They're idling coal-fired generators in favor of temporarily-cheap natural gas, nuclear, and the intermittent wind resource. It's a political decision, not an economic decision. Thanks, Obama, you worthless communist POS wannabe dictator moron.

[Reily]

Its more complicated then that. Speaking as a former Mountain Stater, West Virginians like their “government cheese” period! My brother and parents sill live there and I travel into the state from time to time on business. Try explaining to the average West Virginian “free market “ many (probably a majority!) believe that all jobs come from the government in some fashion. Even private sector jobs are due to the largess of some politician (meaning Rat politician!) I have had these types of discussions time & time again, it's painful listening to the blithering economic ignorance I sometimes hear. You want to just jump up and say ‘Look around you has Rat socialism worked?’. However I don't I remain polite. I use the joke with the few fellow GOP'ers that I knew that the wv gop was too poor and incompetent to use capital letters.

[Whenifhow]

The purpose of posting the article about 6 coal plants (4 plants in OH, 1 in MD, and 1 in PA according to the article) closing was to add to the discussion about those 3 in WVa in the article. (Trying to keep a running tab on this)

Ohio has a republican governor - Kasich

I also found this article about AEP coal plants.

EPA Regulation Closes 5 Coal Plants

http://lonelyconservative.com/2011/06/epa-regulation-closes-5-coal-plants/

The latest proposed regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will force the closing of five American Electric Power (AEP) coal-fired power plants – THAT’S FIVE POWER PLANTS. The only option to closing is spending at least $8 BILLION renovating the plants to meet the newest guidelines. The legislation that Obama cannot get through Congress, is instead, being foisted on us through EPA regulations.

[meyer]

I understand your purpose, but I was pointing out the potential consequences of that particular instance. I know FirstEnergy’s system well - closing those particular plants is electrically a bad decision.

I will point out that Ohio did go for Obama in 2008, though they seem to have shifted back to reality with the 2010 election of the respectable Governor Kasich (R).

[Whenifhow]

I agree - there are potential consequences for closing those plants and possibly diminishing electricity for millions of people and increasing rates are likely as well.

Davis Besse has a crack and Perry Nuclear plant had trouble a little while ago. But I am not sure of their current status.

[LookingUp]

I was playing the part of the brain dead ppl out here who still think the libs don’t get it. They absolutely know what they are doing and we are at war with those who want to hold the fist over the ppl in the USA. One ring to rule them all.