• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance June 29, 2022
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Demand & Distribution Batteries / Storage

New Decade Opens with Cascade of U.S. Coal Plant Closures

January 27, 2020
Reading time: 5 minutes
Primary Author: Compiled by The Energy Mix staff

pxhere

pxhere

5
SHARES
 

The new decade is opening with a mounting cascade of plant closures in the United States coal industry, with investors abandoning ship, revenue being driven down by record-low gas and renewable energy prices, and communities asking increasingly tough questions about the economic, environmental, and health impacts of the coal-fired generating stations in their midst.

“Global capital flight from thermal coal and the coal-fired power sector is already at a canter in 2020,” the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis commented last week, after investment giant BlackRock’s unexpected announcement that it would divest its coal assets. “At the same time, asset manager Aegon has announced a new, enhanced coal divestment program. In total, 116 globally significant banks and insurers have now put in place increasingly stringent coal policies to move towards alignment with the Paris Agreement.”

The conclusion IEEFA reaches: With 2020 opening on a catastrophic example of the impacts of unrestrained climate change, “corporate greenwash is moving to polices of substance.”

The momentum in the U.S. was already well established in 2019, with coal closures hitting 15.1 gigawatts (that would be 15.1 billion watts of generating capacity). “U.S. coal-fired power plants shut down at the second-fastest pace on record in 2019,” despite Donald Trump’s efforts to “prop up the industry,” Reuters reports. The year’s coal retirements, just second to the 19,500 GW shuttered by President Barack Obama in 2015, were enough to power about 15 million American homes.

All told, the U.S. has dropped 39 GW of coal capacity since Putin Trump took over the White House in 2017.

Similar to the price challenges facing North American oil and gas, Reuters analyst John Kemp says coal is “facing the perfect storm, with a mild winter and slumping natural gas prices adding to their long-term problems with competitiveness and pushing more towards retirement.”  The warm season has cut into electricity demand, “while ultra-low gas prices mean more of the demand that remains will be satisfied by gas-fired units rather than coal plants.” Over the last year or two, as well, much of the price competition has come from solar and wind—including some unsubsidized projects undercutting both coal and gas based on price.

The broader trends have been playing out this month in more than a dozen U.S. states.

In Arizona, utility APS promised to ditch coal by 2031, and Oregon-based PacifiCorp announced plans to shutter its 395-megawatt Cholla 4 coal plant in northern Arizona in 2020, 15 years early. Also in Arizona, where the mammoth, 2,250-megawatt Navajo coal plant shut down last year, developer Daybreak Power is now pitching a US$3.6-billion, 2.2-gigawatt pumped storage facility that would use transmission lines from the Navajo site to deliver solar- and wind-generated power to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

“We’re talking about soaking up huge volumes of renewable energy out in the Southwest, and then releasing it basically through the night,” said Daybreak CEO Jim Day. “There’s a lot of good applications for lithium-ion batteries, but that really big, bulk storage over pretty long durations is…not a good fit.”

Arkansas utility regulators approved an agreement between the U.S. Sierra Club and Southwestern Electric Power Company to shut down the 650-MW Dolet Hills coal plant in Louisiana, and the Iowa Utility Board asked for a study that could pave the way to earlier coal retirements. 

Coal-heavy Indiana saw a flurry of activity, with Hoosier Energy committing to shut down its 1,070-MW Merom generating station in 2023, Indianapolis Power & Light promising in December to close two coal plants totalling 630 MW in 2021 and 2023, and coal miner Sunrise Coal announcing 90 layoffs last week. Around mid-month, Indiana state legislator Ed Soliday introduced a bill that would prevent state regulators from shutting down coal plants prematurely without instructions from a federal authority other than the Environmental Protection Agency, or a determination of public necessity within the state.

Hays, Kansas-based Sunflower Electric Power abandoned plans to spend $2.2 billion building a new coal plant in the state, while demand from corporate customers pushed two utilities in coal-dependent Kentucky to plan a 100-megawatt solar purchase. The Public Service Company of Oklahoma finalized plans to shut its 650-MW Oklaunion coal plant in October. 

Minnesota ratepayers stood to gain $30 million from Xcel Energy’s plans to idle two coal plants for six months of each year and cut millions of tons of carbon pollution along the way. The announcement prompted questions about whether Wisconsin utilities could do the same, even as the state’s Dairyland Power Cooperative said it would close its Genoa coal plant by the end of next year, and analysts in Michigan pointed to millions of dollars that ratepayers could save by dumping uneconomic coal plants.

Across the board, analysts with Morgan Stanley and Moody’s Investors Service expected utility customers to save $8 billion per year in the shift from coal to renewables.

In the southwest, “Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, increasingly under pressure from its members and renewable energy advocates for its reliance on coal, plans to close two of its coal-fired power plants and a coal mine in Colorado and New Mexico,” the Denver Post reports. And water scarcity was one of the motivators behind Xcel Energy’s decision to shut down its 1,067-MW Tolk coal station, which serves New Mexico and Texas, a decade early in 2032.

News coverage also brought out the local environmental impacts of coal-fired generation, with the Georgia community that welcomed the country’s biggest coal plant now worried that it’s polluting the town water supply, and a water permit fight in Illinois raising concerns that Midwestern U.S. coal mines are “trying to cut regulations and to cut corners” as they struggle to survive.



in Batteries / Storage, Clean Electricity Grid, Coal, Community Climate Finance, Ending Emissions, Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics, Energy Subsidies, Shale & Fracking, Solar, United States, Water, Wind

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Keith Hirsche
Jobs & Training

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
422
London Eye UK England
Cities & Communities

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
131
Number 10/flickr
International Agencies & Studies

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
152

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

June 29, 2022
227
Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
422
Danielle Scott/flickr

Advocate Urges Ottawa to Intervene Before Ontario Builds Highway 413

June 29, 2022
130
David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1.2k
Number 10/flickr

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
152
London Eye UK England

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
131

Recent Posts

AJEL / Pixabay

Windfall Tax on Food, Fossil, Pharma Giants Would Raise $490B to Solve ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis: Oxfam

June 29, 2022
58
futureatlas.com/flickr

Ottawa Demands Deeper Fuel Emissions Cuts, Offers Fossils a Double-Dip on Tax Breaks

June 29, 2022
78
Province of B.C./flickr

Comox Joins Municipalities Seeking Ban on New Gas Stations

June 29, 2022
78
/Piqsels

Refocus Agriculture Spending to Cut Emissions, Boost Productivity, OECD Urges Governments

June 29, 2022
29
Jimmy Emerson, DVM/flickr

Public Vigilance Key to Protecting Greenbelts for Climate Resilience, Report Finds

June 29, 2022
36
Miguel V/Wikimedia Commons

Forests Fall Short of Full Carbon Storage Potential, Study Finds

June 29, 2022
64
Next Post
Bellingham Washington

Bellingham, Washington Considers Natural Gas Heating Ban

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}