Coal Plant Construction:
pathsoflight.us
US coal plants under construction
Some energy sources are built with big public attention (nuclear and solar come to mind), while others appear to be ignored. With all those coal power plants stopped in Texas and elsewhere, how many coal power plants are being built?
From Reuters, the US is building 7.6 gigawatts (GW) in coal power plants, about 7.5 of today’s nuclear power plants, about 5 of the new ones.
Location Size (MW) Completion
Arkansas 665 2010
Colorado 750 2009
Iowa 790 2007
Nebraska 660 2009
Nevada 200 2008
S. Carolina 640 (2) 2007, 2009
Texas 600, 750 2009, 2010
Wisconsin 600 (2), 500 2009, 2010, 2008
Wyoming 90 2008
Near construction are 400 MW in Arizona, 30 MW in Colorado, 1,500 MW in Illinois, 2,100 MW in Kansas, 600 MW in Ohio, 950 MW in Oklahoma, and 660 MW in W. Virginia. About 140 plants are in the permitting process.
Coal plant near Omaha
From the Washington Post
From the top of a new coal-fired power plant with its 550-foot exhaust stack poking up from the flat western Iowa landscape, MidAmerican Energy Holdings chief executive David L. Sokol peered down at a train looping around a sizable mound of coal.
At this bend in the Missouri River, with Omaha visible in the distance, the new MidAmerican plant is the leading edge of what many people are calling the “coal rush.” Due to start up this spring, it will probably be the next coal-fired generating station to come online in the United States. A dozen more are under construction, and about 40 others are likely to start up within five years — the biggest wave of coal plant construction since the 1970s.
The coal rush in America’s heartland is on a collision course with Congress. While lawmakers are drawing up ways to cap and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, the Energy Department says as many as 150 new coal-fired plants could be built by 2030, adding volumes to the nation’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent of half a dozen greenhouse gases scientists blame for global warming….
Sokol says that until new technologies become commercial or nuclear power becomes more accepted, coal is the way to meet that demand.
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