Despite Shitstain's Pronouncements, Coal's Future Increasingly Bleak In United States
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In August 2017, plans for building an 895 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant at an existing power station in southwest Kansas took a turn for the dire. In an SEC filing, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which partnered on the project with Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, described the chance that they’ll actually construct the plant as “remote.” Hmm. Instead, Tri-State claimed as a loss more than $93 million in its previous investments in the project, known as the Holcomb Expansion. The move came despite a favorable state supreme court ruling months earlier on an air permit, which required construction to start in 18 months. While Tri-State reported that “a final decision has not been made by our Board on whether to proceed,” that sure sounds like a coal plant without a future.
The rest of the proposed U.S. coal plants that in some cases technically remain on the books according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration appear dead on arrival. A decade ago, Power4Georgians LLC launched an effort to build an 850 MW coal power station called Plant Washington in Washington County, Georgia. But progress stalled and it kept missing deadlines, allegedly because of regulatory uncertainty over greenhouse gas emissions (which doesn’t seem like much of an issue these days). In a ClimateWire story published on Scientific American August 21, 2017, Power4Georgians spokesman Dean Alford said the company remains in a waiting phase but is “encouraged” by the Trump administration’s embrace of coal.
However, according to state records, only three days later, on August 24, the company dissolved. Today, its website is full of spam. And Power4Georgians’ dream of a new coal plant is full of ash. That’s not even the worst fate for proposed coal plants in the U.S.
Last year, Summit Power’s plans to build a 400 MW coal plant in Texas with carbon capture and storage technology, questionably dubbed the “Texas Clean Energy Project,” became the latest “clean coal” project to collapse (see also Southern Company’s Kemper plant). The Department of Energy pulled $450 million in funding for Summit’s project over delays, a lack of private funding, and concerns over potentially improper use of federal funds. And in October 2017, Summit filed for bankruptcy.
EDIT
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/06/despite-trump-more-signs-coal-power-plants-us-decline
