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Eastern Railroad Discussion > Georgia Power coal news


Date: 01/31/25 14:29
Georgia Power coal news
Author: ts1457

Good for NS and CSX.

Appears Georgia Power plans on keeping the coal units going at Plant Scherer near Macon (NS) and Plant Bowen CSX) near Cartersville going at least through 2034:

Georgia Power Files 2025 IRP Plan to Meet Energy Needs



Date: 01/31/25 15:25
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: MEKoch

Good!    now the greenie-weenies will wet their pants.



Date: 01/31/25 15:53
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: pdt

Im not sure who the greenie wienies are...I believe that climate change from pollutants is real, but I'm not  crazy omg the sky is falling about it..

Im fine with coal powered power plants with good scrubbing.  Slow and steady wins the race.    The big rush to omg, everything has to be electric asap...has been so overdone.  imho



Date: 01/31/25 16:44
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: Lackawanna484

Plant Scherer is a big facility.  3.5 million kilowatts in a 1980s plant.  With the surge in data center plans, I doubt anyone will be closing modern coal plants for a while.

You can see the coal trains entering / leaving the plant on the Juliette railcam.  BNSF has recently had the long haul coal contract.



Date: 01/31/25 16:46
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: ctillnc

Same story in North Carolina, where a few large coal plants that have received the best-available mitigation equipment will remain in use until 2034 or so. Only 10% of electricity here comes from coal, down from 50% not that long ago. I expect it will be 0% by 2040 if not sooner. No greenie-weenie here but I won't be sorry to see coal go. Storing the ashes has become a real problem. 



Date: 01/31/25 16:50
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: ts1457

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Plant Scherer is a big facility.  3.5 million
> kilowatts in a 1980s plant.  With the surge in
> data center plans, I doubt anyone will be closing
> modern coal plants for a while.
>
> You can see the coal trains entering / leaving the
> plant on the Juliette railcam.  BNSF has recently
> had the long haul coal contract.

Most of the units at Scherer and Bowen had already been converted to natural gas. The remaining units had been expected to be converted soon, but the data centers being built have given the coal units a reprieve.



Date: 01/31/25 17:00
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: timz

> The remaining units had been expected to be
> converted soon, but the data centers being built
> have given the coal units a reprieve.

You mean gas units are fewer megawatts?



Date: 01/31/25 17:06
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: ts1457

timz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You mean gas units are fewer megawatts?

I don't know, but I there is an expense in converting and some market uncertainty as to where the cost of NG is going.

At least this is my uninformed assessment.



Date: 02/01/25 05:34
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: dan7366

Somewhere online, (I don't remember where and it's been years since I read it) there is a report done on conversion of coal fired boilers for power generation to natural gas.  In the boilers that were analyzed (yes, that could just be cherry picked data), the converted units were less thermally efficient with NG than with coal.  Substantially more BTU equivalent of NG were required vs coal for the same output.  It was possible to rectify this but required much more expensive and extensive modifications to the facility. This certainly makes sense that systems work better on the fuel they're designed for.

From my view, the primary advantages of converting a coal fired unit to NG would be that the steam system is designed to run as a baseload for a long duration and the infrastructure for the plant already exists, vs a new construction combustion turbine or combined cycle plant.  Those plants typically have limits of about 108 days of operation before they're supposed to be shut down for maintenance which is typically listed as about a two week outage.

Besides the increase in demand, utilities may be considering keeping coal fired plants around longer due to their resilience to fuel supply interruptions.  Coal plants typically keep a month worth of coal on site.  Very few if any natural gas fired plants have a reserve on site.

Dan



Date: 02/01/25 06:41
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: Lackawanna484

Converting an older coal plant from coal to natural gas is more complicated in many places than building a brand new natural gas plant.  The benefit of conversion is that the plant is already tied into the grid. Getting permits, neighbors etc to agree to new grid connections and links is very difficult.

Until recently, there's been a good market for buying older nuclear and gas plants, and putting them into the independent power producer networks.  Constellation Energy Group (CEG),  Talen Energy, Holtec and others have inventories of formerly unwanted plants.  Now, companies are sitting on the nuke plants to see what happens.



Date: 02/01/25 07:13
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: bnsf6606

Yep...and you old coots will be able to cough more from the pollutants in GA getting into to your lungs and killing you!  Georgia's air pollution has increased rten-fold in the past five years.  Have a good life!

MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good!    now the greenie-weenies will wet their
> pants.



Date: 02/01/25 07:19
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: ts1457

bnsf6606 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yep...and you old coots will be able to cough more
> from the pollutants in GA getting into to your
> lungs and killing you!  Georgia's air pollution
> has increased rten-fold in the past five years.
>  Have a good life!

I live fairly close to one of the plants and I am not having a problem. The plants are well scrubbed.

If Georgia's pollution has increased that much in the past few years, the remaining coal plants are not a factor. It's not like we are burning more coal in Georgia.

Please cite your source about Georgia's air pollution. 
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/25 07:38 by ts1457.



Date: 02/01/25 07:44
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: NSDTK

Scherer is coal and renewable. No natural gas is used there


ts1457 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Plant Scherer is a big facility.  3.5 million
> > kilowatts in a 1980s plant.  With the surge in
> > data center plans, I doubt anyone will be
> closing
> > modern coal plants for a while.
> >
> > You can see the coal trains entering / leaving
> the
> > plant on the Juliette railcam.  BNSF has
> recently
> > had the long haul coal contract.
>
> Most of the units at Scherer and Bowen had already
> been converted to natural gas. The remaining units
> had been expected to be converted soon, but the
> data centers being built have given the coal units
> a reprieve.



Date: 02/01/25 08:05
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: ts1457

NSDTK Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Scherer is coal and renewable. No natural gas is
> used there

Thanks for the correction.

Georgia Power had decommissioned one of the four coal burning units. I cannot find anything about renewable energy at the plant.



Date: 02/01/25 10:04
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: Lackawanna484

Data center and bitcoin mining has upended the whole electric demand curve in the US.

Posted from Android



Date: 02/02/25 05:47
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: ns1000

bnsf6606 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yep...and you old coots will be able to cough more
> from the pollutants in GA getting into to your
> lungs and killing you!  Georgia's air pollution
> has increased rten-fold in the past five years.
>  Have a good life!

Oh good....here we go again. I guess you forgot OTHER countries still burn coal?!?!

Posted from Android



Date: 02/02/25 07:25
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: ctillnc

On a global basis, the big increase in coal consumption has been in Asia which, aside from Japan, hasn't had enough electricity. As you might expect, the countries mainly responsible for the increase are China and India. Although the carbon dioxide from their power plants diffuses throughout the atmosphere, the sulfur dioxide tends to remain on or near the Asian continent because it dissolves in rain. (Too bad for their forests, exposed metals, etc.) Similar story for nitrogen dioxide released from Asia; it tends to stay there, partly as acid rain, partly as nitrate particulates. The ash, of course, remains on the Asia continent. 

I've traveled extensively in China and India on business. You'd have to see the air pollution to believe it. Worse than Pittsburgh or Birmingham ever were. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/25 07:26 by ctillnc.



Date: 02/02/25 09:19
Re: Georgia Power coal news
Author: Lackawanna484

The pollution in parts of India and China has disrupted these countries' efforts for solar power.

The CCP shut down many industries prior to the Beijing Olympics to help clear the air. Didn't work very well.

Posted from Android



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