WV coal power plant to shut down--190 jobs lost

[DINGO Joe]

https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/firstenergy-will-deactivate-pleasants-power-station-if-no-buyer-is/article_be513a39-27b5-55dc-b916-eaf1e99364ca.html

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Somebody could still buy the plant but that's unlikely.  Maybe, Trump could buy it, but that might crimp his hooker hush money cash flow. 

Once upon a time WV and Appalachian coal in general exported excess electricity to points eastward.  The profits from doing that subsidize WV consumers electric rates and kept them low.  But the advent of the Marcellus and Utica natural gas plays changed everything.  Points East decided they could get cheaper electricity by building NG plants and it's worked.  They drank WV milkshake.  Too bad.

[DINGO Joe]

This has been going on for several years, though Ohio is getting in on the act now.  Pretty much everybody but WV has built new NG plants.  Too bad.

[DINGO Joe]

It appears that FERC's earlier rejection wasn't because the plant was coal-powered but because the application was based on a narrowly-tailored RFP for generating capacity that only the Pleasants plant could meet, thereby by justifying a sweetheart-deal between the subsidiaries.

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/business/ferc-denies-pleasants-power-station-transfer/article_d5139806-9584-55e9-b6fd-755af0d0a951.html

That First Energy waited to announce the closure until the WVPSC required the proposed deal be altered to get approval suggests that if the WVPSC had approved it, then First Energy would have tried submitting a revised RFP to the FERC.

In any case, the rejection by both agencies wasn't because of coal, at least not directly, but because the deal had some financial shenanigans that would have hurt consumers.

It's because Appalachian coal can't compete with Appalachian gas when there are modern NGCC plants in place.

[DINGO Joe]

Perhaps eventually these people will get it through their heads that there was never a "War on Coal."

Coal is failing on its own.

I'm gonna say they'll keep thumping their chest and yelling Coal! to the end of their days.

[DINGO Joe]

The sad thing is that politicians will still be talking about coal in WV 20 years from now. An endless cycle of pandering and gullible voters.

I mean one does have empathy no? People still talk about the coalfields in the North of England after Thatcher and Major took them out; and understandably so.

What do they talk about?

[DINGO Joe]

Interesting to see the almost complete lack of blue avatars in this thread.

Now that you mention it, it is quite sad that none came by to offer their thoughts and prayers to the coal man.