Power Plants To Close In Pa. And Life Gets Harder — Put this in the life gets harder file: Houston-based GenOn Energy Inc. will be closing five power plants in Pennsylvania which are in Portland, Shawville, Titus, New Castle and Elrama.
The plants provide 3,140 megawatts of electricity. They are fired by coal, however, and that is why they are closing. New environmental rules make them unprofitable for them to operate.
GenOn is also closing two coal-plants in Ohio and one in New Jersey.
Now there is nothing wrong with trying to wean ourselves off of coal for electricity and on to something else, but if that something else is windmills or solar panels just expect our lives to get harder unless of course you are one of the privileged few in government who will find ways to exempt themselves from the suffering they cause.
The combined megawatts from the plants to be close is about what a larger nuclear plant would generate.
Of course, nobody is talking about building one of them in Pennsylvania.
As a 30 year vet of the Power Industry, I could not agree more. In the late 80s I did telecom engineering projects at a substation near a large windfarms in California. In the early 90s I came back to do more telecommunications work at the same substation and many of the mills had fallen down and were strewn all over the place. They had lost their subsidy! The same is true today. The only way wind power and so many other green techs are feasible is either for energy to be super expensive or for the govt to subsidize–both very bad for the country. Thanks for the blog!