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More of America's Coal-Fired Power Plants Cease Operations (newhampshirebulletin.com) 117

Posted by EditorDavid from the old-king-coal dept.
New England's last coal-fired power plant "has ceased operations three years ahead of its planned retirement date," reports the New Hampshire Bulletin.

"The closure of the New Hampshire facility paves the way for its owner to press ahead with an initiative to transform the site into a clean energy complex including solar panels and battery storage systems." "The end of coal is real, and it is here," said Catherine Corkery, chapter director for Sierra Club New Hampshire. "We're really excited about the next chapter...." The closure in New Hampshire — so far undisputed by the federal government — demonstrates that prolonging operations at some facilities just doesn't make economic sense for their owners. "Coal has been incredibly challenged in the New England market for over adecade," said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association.

Merrimack Station, a 438-megawatt power plant, came online in the1960s and provided baseload power to the New England region for decades. Gradually, though, natural gas — which is cheaper and more efficient — took over the regional market... Additionally, solar power production accelerated from 2010 on, lowering demand on the grid during the day and creating more evening peaks. Coal plants take longer to ramp up production than other sources, and are therefore less economical for these shorter bursts of demand, Dolan said. In recent years, Merrimack operated only a few weeks annually. In 2024, the plant generated just0.22% of the region's electricity. It wasn't making enough money to justify continued operations, observers said.

The closure "is emblematic of the transition that has been occurring in the generation fleet in New England for many years," Dolan said. "The combination of all those factors has meant that coal facilities are no longer economic in this market."
Meanwhile Los Angeles — America's second-largest city — confirmed that the last coal-fired power plant supplying its electricity stopped operations just before Thanksgiving, reports the Utah News Dispatch: Advocates from the Sierra Club highlighted in a news release that shutting down the units had no impact on customers, and questioned who should "shoulder the cost of keeping an obsolete coal facility on standby...." Before ceasing operations, the coal units had been working at low capacities for several years because the agency's users hadn't been calling on the power [said John Ward, spokesperson for Intermountain Power Agency].
The coal-powered units "had a combined capacity of around 1,800 megawatts when fully operational," notes Electrek, "and as recently as 2024, they still supplied around 11% of LA's electricity. The plant sits in Utah's Great Basin region and powered Southern California for decades." Now, for the first time, none of California's power comes from coal. There's a political hiccup with IPP, though: the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature blocked the Intermountain Power Agency from fully retiring the coal units this year, ordering that they can't be disconnected or decommissioned. But despite that mandate, no buyers have stepped forward to keep the outdated coal units online. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is transitioning to newly built, hydrogen-capable generating units at the same IPP location, part of a modernization effort called IPP Renewed. These new units currently run on natural gas, but they're designed to burn a blend of natural gas and up to 30% green hydrogen, and eventually100% green hydrogen. LADWP plans to start adding green hydrogen to the fuel mix in 2026.
"With the plant now idled but legally required to remain connected, serious questions remain about who will shoulder the cost of keeping an obsolete coal facility on standby," says the Sierra Club.

One of the natural gas units started commerical operations last Octoboer, with the second starting later this month, IPP spokesperson John Ward told Agency].
the Utah News Dispatch.
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More of America's Coal-Fired Power Plants Cease Operations More

More of America's Coal-Fired Power Plants Cease Operations

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  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Saturday December 13, 2025 @12:41PM (#65855889) Homepage

    Good. Coal combines the worst features of all the power technologies. It is an awful, dirty fuel, with a cost reckoned not merely in dollars but in lives.

    They're retiring the coal plants because it's not cost-effective to run them, but all the other problems with coal are enough to make me cheer.

    • They're retiring the coal plants because it's not cost-effective to run them,

      Exactly, and this is the "natural" way these plants go away over time, as the market and economics make the most sense. It is inevitable, and it is happening, and they will all be gone in our lifetimes.

      That's in contrast to making this into a political football and costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in forced incentives and grants to try to speed the process along by a mere handful of years, and in the process riling up voters to fight against it. Like Hillary Clinton did in 2016 saying s

    • Coal ... is an awful, dirty fuel, ...

      What about all that "beautiful, clean coal" I keep hearing about from someone? Maybe they should try that. /s :-)

    • What if they switched to clean coal? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Wouldn't clean coal be better than something like wind turbines that cause cancer, or solar power which scrambles your brain?

    • Most of those coal-fired power plants are so old that it's cheaper to dismantle them than upgrade them to meet current EPA emissions standards. The likely exception are power plants that use cleaner-burning Powder River Basin coal, and most of those are in central states in the country (Texas is a major consumer of this coal).

      With modern fracking technology, most powerplants are now burning compressed natural gas instead of coal, natural gas from multiple sites all over the USA.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Whats increasingly happening is that with natural gas being so cheap, coal fired power stations are replacing the coal going into their boilers with natural gas instead and using that as the source of heat to generate the steam.

  • Meanwhile in Michigan... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Things aren't so rosy. Our favorite dictator in chief wants beautiful coal forever [apnews.com]. Don't put it beyond him to do the same to these other states

    • The above writeup mentioned New England, Los Angeles and Utah. The first two are both exclusively Democrat run, and Utah is more purple these days. Nothing to stop your queen from putting the kibosh on coal plants in your state. Also, the bulk of coal plants are in states like WV, VA, KY,.... and there was no mention of plants there closing down
      • What?? VA gets only ~1.5% of its power from coal [wikipedia.org].

        And it can be argued that VA is a "purple" state moving very blue, as it's gradually becoming a suburb of DC, especially Northern Virginia.

        From the WP article --

        In 2022, Virginia had a total summer capacity of 29,169 MW through all of its power plants, and a net generation of 89,477 GWh.[2] In 2023, the electrical energy generation mix was 56% natural gas, 32.3% nuclear, 5.8% solar, 3.5% biomass, 1.5% coal, 0.2% petroleum, 0.1% hydroelectric, 0.1% w

      • The above writeup mentioned New England, Los Angeles and Utah. The first two are both exclusively Democrat run, and Utah is more purple these days.

        It specifically mentioned New Hampshire, which has a very strong libertarian streak in comparison to it's New England neighbors and certainly isn't "exclusively Democrat run"

  • isn't all that revolutionary now that ng is relatively cheap.

    These new units currently run on natural gas, but they're designed to burn a blend of natural gas and up to 30% green hydrogen, and eventually 100% green hydrogen. LADWP plans to start adding green hydrogen to the fuel mix in 2026.

    and green hydrogen is still something of a mythical beast... where they're going to get it and how much it'll cost...
    https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]

    And that's on top of how inefficient it is to generate electricity by burning any type of hydrogen. CA people will cry even more about our electricity bills.

    • Makes no sense to build natural gas generators which aren't 100% hydrogen ready though. Costs very little extra and if there is some breakthrough in low cost electrolysis, it can come in handy to use intermittent power in the future.

      • Correct. Future proofing is worth the effort.

        • I disagree, whether we're talking about software future proofing, or generator future proofing.

          The problem with future proofing, is that the future is really hard to predict. Sure, build those generators to be hydrogen-ready. But when hydrogen technology does get to the point where it's "production-ready" we'll find out that the future-proofing missed the mark, and will require a complete rebuild anyway. Then that extra money will be completely wasted.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rta ( 559125 )

        Makes no sense to build natural gas generators which aren't 100% hydrogen ready though. Costs very little extra and if there is some breakthrough in low cost electrolysis, it can come in handy to use intermittent power in the future.

        right so the capability is nearly fluff...
        like flex fuel vehicles, remember those?

        burning green hydrogen is even less cost effective than our seldom mentioned E85 push from like 20 years ago.
        I'm still eagerly awaiting that enzymatic ethanol from grass that was right around the corner. instead of distilling corn.
        (and of course holographic solid state memory with thousands year stability).

        the issue with these power guys is that they're committing to pay for this hydrogen starting next year. not "when it's

  • can we just put all coal miners on disability so they get healthcare?

  • ...No, they take the coal, the clean it......

  • You can hear them getting ready to call the White House to tell the President, like Mortimer told the president of the exchange:

    "Turn those machines back on! TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON!!!"

    • They won't even bother with keeping the plants online. The government will just direct deposit subsidy payments into the coal industry's bank accounts, Trump will proclaim that he saved some absurd number of jobs, and all the plant workers and miners will still get laid off and left to die with no health care.

      • Kinda like when Obama administration declared Public Transit bus drivers were workers with Green Jobs, then declared every public bus driver that drove a diesel bus as a *new* green energy job they created?

        But, honestly, the Inflation Reduction Act (AKA Green New Deal 2.0) was the legislation that paid power companies (incentivized them) to shut down coal plant at an accelerated pace DESPITE having no alternative to pick-up the loss in generation.

  • BS (Score:2)

    by kenh ( 9056 )

    Additionally, solar power production accelerated from 2010 on, lowering demand on the grid during the day and creating more evening peaks.

    HOW does increased solar power production "(lower) demand on the grid"?

    Do people use less A/C? Fewer lights? How? HOW?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      people use their own solar you colossal imbecile

  • Is a misnomer, because they are eliminating base load and adding more reactive elements power prices are increasing.

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