Zobel said:

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I don't think that narrative holds up. There are coal plants in operation, making money, all over the country -- including some still in Texas. What made coal unprofitable is the widespread installation of wind in Texas, combined with cheap natural gas, and the market structure ERCOT runs.

Wind cuts into baseload and also increases variability. In both cases that hurts coal plants, as they can't cycle rapidly. Modern combined cycle gas turbine power plants have very high efficiency, high turndown, and can ramp rapidly relative to a coal plant. That plus the stable low price of natural gas in Texas makes them a direct competitor to coal for baseload, as well as able to pair with wind to meet variability.

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I was close to the process in shuttering two relatively new coal fire plants. I do not think it can be understated that government regulation and environmental pressure plays a role in these plants getting shuttered. The regulation that requires $800 million in new scrubbers and bag houses (the plants already had scrubbers and bag houses) makes them unprofitable and the environmental pressure makes them politically less palatable.

Those two plants (1500MW combined) would still be running today at a profit if not for those two circumstances that are completely outside the market.

If you don't mind, why did a relatively new plant have to make such a large investment? It's strange because then you have plants like WA Parish, not new, but still running. What's the difference?

Zobel said:

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If you don't mind, why did a relatively new plant have to make such a large investment? It's strange because then you have plants like WA Parish, not new, but still running. What's the difference?

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By relatively new, I mean a plant that went commercial in 1994-1995 and a plant that went commercial in in 2006. The big cost was for the '94 plant that was incredibly efficient, but also a not small $$ requirement for the 2006 plant. The requirements were imposed by our friends at the EPA/TECQ. Environmental activism took care of the rest.

Depending on the state, they can be subject to a host of regs that have come out since Obama was in office. A big one for my facilities is emissions. I manage 3 coal fire power plants. We are closing in 2027 and 2028, but I will be long gone before then. Our closure is based on a lot of factors such as profitability, CO's push to rid of coal, the company's goals and others.

BurnetAggie99 said:

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Unlike some utilities Austin Energy actually owns and operates our own generation on the grid. We have Gas, Coal, Nuclear plants that produce 4,600MW. Then additionally we have 3 big Chiller Stations, 1.5MW battery storage, & 2,900MW of solar & biomass. So AE is actually one of the utilities that helps the grid with our generation capabilities.

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They along with some other municpal owned utilities were exempted from the forced divestment of generation under the deregulation legislation.

Unit 5 at Sandow came online in 2009 if I remember correctly and was one of the newest units in the country and still got shut down in 2018.

I still don't understand how some comparatively ancient coal plants are still running.

I have become a little skeptical about people crying foul on emissions requirements since watching the recent spat between Cheniere and the EPA. They basically made a business decision to take a risk on not installing dry low NOx hardware when they built their plant, knowing that there was existing regulations on the books that they wouldn't be complying with. EPA finally got around to enforcing the regs, and they acted like it was new.

I know that there were new regulations put in place for emissions and water so it probably isn't apples to apples, but you still have to wonder how an older plant which has to have significantly more maintenance requirements and lower efficiency manages to stay running while newer ones don't. Is it just location? I'm sure there is an explanation, I just don't know what it is.

At any rate, like most things the grid and energy is a lot more complicated than it first appears and gets more complicated as you dig deeper. The main problem we have right now in Texas - if we do have a problem at all - is that the way our market is structured does not reward generators to avoid shortages at a politically acceptable rate. There is an intentional periodic targeted shortage in ERCOT's model.

But, the average price paid by consumers is effectively set by the base price and tight days. Having fewer tight days, or fewer shortages, makes average consumer pricing go up. It has to, economically. Nobody wants to pay more on average for electricity.

Jbob04 said:

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Unit 5 at Sandow came online in 2009 if I remember correctly and was one of the newest units in the country and still got shut down in 2018.

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Yep, it defies logic. You have dirt burners like San Miguel which is South of me that just keep on chugging. I think that thing has been around since the late 70's - early 80's and is held together with duct tape and bailing wire.

(I realize that San Miguel produces its own fuel on site which makes it more cost effective, but the strip mining for that fuel is a blight on some pretty good deer hunting country)

ChemEAg08 said:

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Cromagnum said:

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Naming cold fronts is a weather channel thing they started doing for about 10 years now. It's completely absurd.

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Just a method to try to scare people more into watching them (and also push their climate change narrative).

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It worked great on my mom. She'll ask if it was bad over here because of (whatever cold front name) and my reply is always "Huh?" Sorry, I don't leave The Weather Channel on just to make noise and whatever name they stick on things doesn't matter at all. If there's something tropical going on within a few hundred miles I just look at what NOAA has to say about it.

JB!98 said:

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Jbob04 said:

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Unit 5 at Sandow came online in 2009 if I remember correctly and was one of the newest units in the country and still got shut down in 2018.

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Yep, it defies logic. You have dirt burners like San Miguel which is South of me that just keep on chugging. I think that thing has been around since the late 70's - early 80's and is held together with duct tape and bailing wire.

(I realize that San Miguel produces its own fuel on site which makes it more cost effective, but the strip mining for that fuel is a blight on some pretty good deer hunting country)

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Owned by San Miguel Electric Coop and sells to South Texas EC and Brazos EC. Public power doesn't feel decarbonization pain like investor-owned generation. For instance, the last large portfolio of ERCOT generation that changed hands included a good-sized coal plant in south Texas - the bank that ran the sale process had it valued as an executive hunting camp rather than generation, knowing full well that it would be shut down by the buyer post-close.

Is there good hunting at Coleto and how does one get an invite - asking for a friend of course

gonemaroon said:

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Is there good hunting at Coleto and how does one get an invite - asking for a friend of course

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IYKYK

TX04Aggie said:

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Nice, yeah hated to see those two shut down and jobs lost, but they had been starving them for years. They were going to put in a new unit and had the stack etc in a lay down yard for years then they ended up shutting down. MPHS or Chapel Hill? MV here.

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100% agree, I remember driving by the staging area for Unit 4 one time - It was right off of 127 I believe - and just thinking about all of that money spent for everything to sit on the ground wasting away. HS.