“Closed” signs are a symbol of Lisa Jackson’s success in destroying the fossil fuel industry.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson must be as pleased as punch. Her monster agency and its irrational rules are having their intended impact on the fossil fuel industry. Jackson and Obama have made it clear that they want to destroy the coal industry, and they’re being wildly successful at it.
The latest to fall victim to EPA regulations is FirstEnergy, a company that operates coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Jackson must be giddy over this – six more coal-fired plants killed off.
A press release issued by FirstEnergy today states:
FirstEnergy Corp. announced today that its generation subsidiaries will retire six older coal-fired power plants located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland by September 1, 2012. The decision to close the plants is based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which were recently finalized, and other environmental regulations.
The total capacity of the competitive plants that will be retired is 2,689 megawatts (MW). Recently, these plants served mostly as peaking or intermediate facilities, generating on average approximately 10 percent of the electricity produced by the company over the past three years.
The following plants will be retired: Bay Shore Plant, Units 2-4, Oregon, Ohio; Eastlake Plant, Eastlake, Ohio; Ashtabula Plant, Ashtabula, Ohio; Lake Shore Plant, Cleveland, Ohio; Armstrong Power Station, Adrian, Pa.; and R. Paul Smith Power Station, Williamsport, Md.
In total, 529 employees will be directly affected. Existing severance benefits will apply to eligible, affected employees. However, the final number of affected employees could be less as some are considered for open positions at other FirstEnergy facilities and work locations, and eligible employees take advantage of a retirement benefit being offered to those 55 years and older.
“This decision is not in any way a reflection of the fine work done by the employees at the affected plants, but is related to the impact of new environmental rules,” said James H. Lash, president, FirstEnergy Generation and chief nuclear officer. “We recently completed a comprehensive review of our coal-fired generating plants and determined that additional investments to implement MATS and other environmental rules would make these older plants even less likely to be dispatched under market rules. As a result, it was necessary to retire the plants rather than continue operations.”
The plant retirements are subject to review for reliability impacts, if any, by PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that controls the area where they are located.
FirstEnergy is finalizing MATS compliance plans for its remaining coal-fired units. Since the Clean Air Act became law in 1970, FirstEnergy and its predecessor companies have invested more than $10 billion in environmental protection efforts.
Since 1990, FirstEnergy has reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides by more than 76 percent, sulfur dioxide by more than 86 percent, and mercury by about 56 percent. When the six coal-fired plants are removed from FirstEnergy’s competitive generating fleet, more than 96 percent of the power provided will come from resources that are non- or low-emitting, including nuclear, hydro, pumped-storage hydro, natural gas and scrubbed coal units.
FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies comprise the nation’s largest investor-owned electric system. Its diverse generating fleet features non-emitting nuclear, scrubbed coal, natural gas, and pumped-storage hydro and other renewables, and has a total generating capacity of nearly 23,000 megawatts.
I suspect Lisa Jackson and her anti-fossil fuel buddies are high-fiving each other this morning over this news – as America’s energy industry is being euthanized by the EPA.
Read More and Comment: FirstEnergy To Close Six Coal-Fired Plants Due To EPA Regulations
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Too bad they don’t close the plant that supplies power to the black house, the capitol bldg. and the neighborhood where the boy’s personal “Home” is in Chicago
Did Lisa Jackson take into the account of the people who lost their jobs from these coal fired power plants or the Billions of dollars these coal fired power plants spent on reaching the demands of the EPA over the years, No she did not. The EPA should be paying for the cost of emmployment of these now unemployed plant workers and reimburse the cost of the billions of dollars the power plants spent on reaching the demands of air quality that the EPA has imposed. As she and the Agency she runs caused these power plants to close, She is the cause of these people 529 workers being unemployed now.
Get rid of 529 people at the EPA and replace them with the laid-off workers in the Coal Fired Plants. But let them stay at home and write letters to the EPA and Congress.