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Coal’s last stand

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Illinois

* Senate President Don Harmon yesterday after the kerfuffle over the Exelon deal meltdown…

We also stand with the governor on de-carbonization targets that need to be in a final deal.

Those targets mean the closure of coal-fired plants in 2035, including two municipally owned plants (CWLP and Prairie State Energy Campus) - the reason the Senate President refused to sign off on the Exelon deal on May 31. Harmon has clearly backed off that position, however.

* Media advisory…

A bipartisan coalition of labor, lawmakers and municipal officials is united in opposition to a plan under consideration in the General Assembly to prematurely close not-for-profit coal-fired power plants 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 forced to find replacement sources of power and threaten reliability.

WHO: Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield
Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield
Rep. Charles Meier, R-Okawville
Doug Brown, Chief Utility Engineer, City Water Light & Power
Aaron Gurnsey, Business Manager and Financial Secretary at Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 137
Totsie Bailey, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Southwestern Illinois Building Trades Council
Mayor Jim Langfelder, City of Springfield

WHAT: The coalition is asking not-for-profit plants operated by City Water, Light & Power in Springfield and the Prairie State Energy Campus in Marissa to be exempted from premature closures proposed in energy legislation being debated by the General Assembly. This will allow for a more responsible transition to a cleaner energy future that gives communities time to put in place new power sources, train and develop workers, keep utility costs stable and protect grid reliability.

WHEN: Friday, June 4
10 a.m.

WHERE: Steamfitters & Plumbers Local 137
2880 E Cook St
Springfield, IL 62704

* Related…

* My Hometown’s Coal Plant Remorse

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:24 pm

Comments

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…

Comment by Alan Medsker 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?

Comment by Blue Dog Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:36 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.

Comment by Southern Skeptic Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:43 pm
The plants in question are losing money and overcharging customers every year. Plus cooking the planet.

Comment by illinoyed Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:46 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.

Comment by Central Illinoid 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.

Comment by Ducky LaMoore Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 2:59 pm
===CWLP has traditionally had one of the lowest electric rates in the state===

Not any longer, bub.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:05 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.

Comment by JLW Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:07 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.

Comment by DuPage Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:08 pm
===CWLP can’t close all coal plants without building something else===

They can convert them or buy on the open market.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:10 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.

Comment by Ok Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:11 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq28Zrtd-QI&t=46s

Interesting. They are building a new nuke to replace an existing coal plant.

Comment by DuPage Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:15 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.

Comment by Blue Dog Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:25 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.

Comment by Candy Dogood Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:46 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.

Comment by TNR Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 3:55 pm
TNR, the enviro groups demand purity

Comment by Asteroid of Caution Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 4:15 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.

Comment by TNR Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 4:45 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

Comment by JM Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 8:34 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.

Comment by Give Us Barabbas Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 8:37 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.

Comment by DuPage Thursday, Jun 3, 21 @ 8:41 pm