Power plant becomes a model for cleaner operation

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140528/us-dirtiest-power-plant-1fcfdf11aa.html

By DINA CAPPIELLO and KEVIN BEGOS

HOMER CITY, Pa. (AP) — A massive coal-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania is turning from one of the worst polluters in the country to a model for how such a facility can clean up its act.

Homer City Generating Station is expected to make the transformation in a few years. When it does, it will end four decades of nearly limitless pollution from two of its units that had long escaped regulation.


This photo taken May 5, 2014 shows the stacks of the Homer City Generating Station in Homer City, Pa. Three years ago, the operators of one of the nation{2019}s dirtiest coal-fired power plants warned of {201c}immediate and devastating{201d} consequences from the Obama administration{2019}s push to clean up pollution from coal. Faced with cutting sulfur dioxide pollution blowing into downwind states by 80 percent in less than a year, lawyers for EME Homer City Generation L.P. sued the Environmental Protection Agency to block the rule, saying it would cause a painful spike in electricity bills and grave harm to power producers like itself. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)


Three years ago the plant was the first to sue the Obama administration over a rule to force it to reduce its sulfur dioxide pollution, arguing it would spike electricity prices and cause "immediate and devastating" consequences. None of those dire predictions came to pass, and the Supreme Court has upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's rule in the case initiated by the plant.

The story of the Homer City plant reflects the precarious position of older coal-fired plants these days, squeezed between cheap and plentiful natural gas and a string of environmental rules the Obama administration has targeted at coal, which supplies about 40 percent of the nation's electricity.

FULL story at link.