20 Comments - Alan Medsker - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:36 pm: Not entirely unreasonable postion to take. I would love to take coal off line as much as possible but you gotta replace it with something, and you need to take care of the people that get displaced. It does not seem to me that the CEJA crowd has really thought that through very well, especially given their lack of interest in preserving the (huge) nuclear contribution to the mix, and their avowed opposition to any new nuclear, anywhere. It’s almost like they’re rooting for gas… - Blue Dog - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:36 pm: Solar and wind are intermittent energy sources. Lithium storage batteries are hardly an option. What will replace these two coal burners? Nukes? Out of state electric probably produced from coal? - Southern Skeptic - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:43 pm: CWLP is a poorly run utility that fleeces its customers by running uneconomic coal plants. Prairie State is a boondoggle that charges as much as double the wholesale market. It is literally cheaper to shut them down, pay the bonds and buy power on the wholesale market than it is to continue to run them. Oh yea, and there is the horrid pollution - Sox, Nox and particulate matter - even from Prairie States. - illinoyed - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:46 pm: The plants in question are losing money and overcharging customers every year. Plus cooking the planet. - Central Illinoid - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:59 pm: CWLP has traditionally had one of the lowest electric rates in the state and is NOT a big polluter. The old commonwealth plant in Kincaid is a different story, but it is scheduled to be closed within the next few years. - Ducky LaMoore - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:59 pm: @Blue Dog Although I disagree that battery storage is hardly an option, I will nevertheless answer your question… natural gas. Not a perfect solution. But it’s better than coal. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:05 pm: ===CWLP has traditionally had one of the lowest electric rates in the state=== Not any longer, bub. - JLW - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:07 pm: CWLP can’t close all coal plants without building something else. The lights will literally go out. Check it out if you don’t believe me. - DuPage - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:08 pm: Somehow, I think we are missing something here. Why can’t these coal burning plants be converted to natural gas instead of being closed down? Natural gas is much cleaner then coal and much lower in carbon emissions. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:10 pm: ===CWLP can’t close all coal plants without building something else=== They can convert them or buy on the open market. - Ok - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:11 pm: Prairie State is not a not-for-profit. Its bondholders and hostage contract holders are primarily municipal and co-op utilities, but it is run by Prairie State Generating Company, LLC. - DuPage - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:15 pm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq28Zrtd-QI&t=46s Interesting. They are building a new nuke to replace an existing coal plant. - Blue Dog - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:25 pm: Ducky. Indeed natural gas is much cleaner than coal, but estimates have 2/3 of our gas comes from fracking. As we ramp up to an almost all electric fleet, fracking will have to slow down. As for storing the renewables, I believe any sort of sizable capacity that is eco-friendly is decades away. I wish this country would invest in many nukes to fill the gap. If not, the transition to renewables is going to have to proceed cautiously. - Candy Dogood - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:46 pm: === before the end of their useful life, warning such a move would raise utility bills on consumers, eliminate jobs, place new financial burdens on communities === This seems like a really stupid reason to threaten the survival of our species by insisting on continuing to dumb CO2 pollution into our atmosphere rather than just sucking it up and move along. Public officials that continue to beat this drum should be ridiculed and removed from office. We spent the last 40 years doing nothing to address climate change. It’s time to grow up and be responsible adults and actually try to leave a habitable planet for our great grandchildren. - TNR - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:55 pm: Seems like there’s a reasonable fix here. Close the for-profit coal plants owned by Vistra and others (almost all of them are going to shut down on there own long before that 2035 date.) Figure something out for the two publicly owned plants using sequestration. Durbin and Duckworth announced a $50 million federal grant for sequestration projects not long ago. If that works, let Prairie State and Springfield operate beyond ‘35 at near zero emissions, but just until the municipal contracts are all paid off. - Asteroid of Caution - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 4:15 pm: TNR, the enviro groups demand purity - TNR - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 4:45 pm: == the enviro groups demand purity == Legit point. As evident in the Pembroke situation this session — lots of woke greens doing their best to keep a poor Black community from the early-20th century luxury of heating their homes. - JM - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 8:34 pm: Folks…this is not some crazy out of the blue thing. The International Energy Agency put out a report last month making clear we should not be investing in new fossil fuel plays or infrastructure if we want to avoid the worst of climate change. Wind and solar are cheaper than coal and will not cook the planet. Those costs will continue to shrink as these plants close over the next 14 years: https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050 - Give Us Barabbas - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 8:37 pm: I’m a strong believer in Municipally owned and operated utilities. That said, CWLP has had a run of bad decisions for a while now. And clinging to coal is one of them. Time to get serious and maybe put a solar farm or, if possible, a wind farm on the Lake II land. Convert one of the Dallman plants to all gas. Explore going in with Clinton on buying up the plant from Exelon and creating a nuclear based co-op, if Exelon can’t administrate it. I’d like to know if Lake Springfield could be made to work as a hydro- battery, where they pump water into it at night when rates are lower, then tap it in the daytime with water turbine generation. It’s a technique used elsewhere and sometimes called a “gravity battery”. The unused Pillsbury land could also be used for gravity battery storage, using a system based on railcars on a grade. No emissions. Lots of ideas to explore, we should get busy investigating them. - DuPage - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 8:41 pm: @- TNR - Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 4:45 pm: == the enviro groups demand purity == ===Legit point. As evident in the Pembroke situation this session — lots of woke greens doing their best to keep a poor Black community from the early-20th century luxury of heating their homes.=== They weren’t without heat. Oil furnaces, LP gas, and electric heat has been in use for a long time, and still is in many areas. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.