The St. Louis Post-Disptach reports:
Workers at the state’s coal-fired power plants are all worried about the same thing: whether they will lose their jobs.
Collectively, the 13 plants employ about 2,000 people and contribute more than a billion dollars to the Illinois economy in the form of their payrolls as well as the taxes they pay and the purchases they make from suppliers. The impact on local economies where the plants are located could be significant because they often are major employers.
Billy McDaniel, mayor of the city of Metropolis — which facetiously bills itself as the home of Superman — said closing the nearby Joppa plant would be devastating for the southern Illinois city of 6,500. The plant employs 125 people, according to a company filing…
Owners of the plants have been squeezed by regulations forcing expensive pollution control upgrades at the same time cheaper sources of fuel have rendered the plants unprofitable. In the next two years, legal decisions affecting roughly two-thirds of the state’s coal-fired power plants are expected to determine whether those plants have any future…
Howdy mpe
Perhaps a coal seam can be converted to a methane source, too. If we can get the energy we need in economically useful ways, I am for whatever does that.
You’re right that calling a coal-seam-to-methane program a “green, renewable” resource would probably get you Solyndra-class money. Until someone figured out that it actually works.
Methane is cheaper than coal, at least in some places, for reasons both good and ill.
In which case it might make sense to either build a replacement power plant fueled by methane or convert a coal plant to run on methane.
So long as you can make the case that methane is “green”, “renewable” (and unreliable) there might even be government subsidy available 🙂 Maybe paint windmills and solar arrays on the buildings…
MT Geoff is right: “The grids (we do not have one grid) are fragile as it is; taking production off-line seems like working the wrong direction.”
But that is the real purpose–to create havoc and crises, so that O and friends can use it as an excuse to gain even more power and control. To “solve” the problems they create.
Illinois went overwhelmingly for Obama both times. He is doing what he said he would do. They are getting what they voted for and really have no basis for complaint.
Methane is cheaper than coal, at least in some places, for reasons both good and ill. The environmental war on coal is a poor reason to make coal more expensive.
The article goes on at great length about taxes, payrolls and purchases. What about, you know, electricity? The purpose of the plants? The grids (we do not have one grid) are fragile as it is; taking production off-line seems like working the wrong direction.