Off switch hit for 8 high pollution emitting power plants (5 in PA)

[PA Democrat]

GenOn Energy Inc. will shut down eight power plants over the next three years, three of them old, coal-burning power plants in Western Pennsylvania: at Elrama in northern Washington County, Shawville in Clearfield County and near New Castle in Lawrence County.

The Houston-based power company announced the power plant deactivations Wednesday as part of its 2011 earnings report, blaming economics and federal environmental regulations requiring installation of pollution control equipment.

Total annual health costs caused by 2009 pollution emission levels at Elrama, New Castle and Shawville are $836,000,000, based on a pollution-to-health-effects formula in a 2009 study by Harvard University researchers led by Jonathan Levy.

The Sierra Club hailed the closures as a "victory for clean air" and, citing data from the Clean Air Task Force, a national environmental advocacy organization, said pollution emissions reductions because of the plant closures will prevent more than 179 premature deaths, 300 heart attacks and 2,800 asthma attacks.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12061/1213668-455-2.stm#ixzz1nsCguwmm


The 8 plants scheduled to closed are :

Elrama, Pa. June 2012
Niles, Ohio June 2012
Portland, Pa. January 2015
Avon Lake, Ohio April 2015
New Castle, Pa. April 2015
Shawville, Pa. April 2015
Birdsboro, Pa. April 2015
H Glen Gardner, N.J. May 2015

[Justice wanted]

1. I live in New Castle. Know where that plant is. This shut down is a good think BUT it is going

to be hell on our economy.

[HopeHoops]

2. It is more a surprise that they agreed to shut them down than that it would happen eventually.

It's a really tough call. Obviously it is excellent news for the environment, but it is also no shock that they're located in relatively remote areas (NIMBY rules). That's got to be tragic news for those areas. When the steel mill shut down in Steelton, it went from a fairly nice area to one of the places you don't want to go at night. They've done a lot of work to revitalize the downtown and there is some production coming back to the area, but it is just a shadow of its former self.