AEP Will Shutter 1,100 MW Coal-Burning Facility In Heart Of KY Coal Country - NYT
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American Electric Power, or A.E.P., the nation’s biggest consumer of coal, announced that it would shut its coal-burning boilers at the Big Sandy electric power plant near Louisa, Ky., a 1,100-megawatt facility that since the early 1960s has been burning coal that was mined locally.
Big Sandy this year became a symbol of the plight of the coal industry nationwide. Strict new environmental regulations are forcing large utilities to spend billions of dollars to retrofit old coal-burning plants or shut them down, replacing them in most cases with equipment that uses cleaner-burning natural gas.
A.E.P., which is based in Ohio, has repeatedly changed its mind over what to do with Big Sandy, a big employer in eastern Kentucky, both at the 120-employee plant itself and in the Appalachian-area coal mines that feed it 2.5 million tons of coal each year.
In May, the power company withdrew a plan to spent $1 billion to retrofit Big Sandy so that it could continue to operate. But that would have required a 31 percent increase in electricity rates for eastern Kentucky residents.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/business/energy-environment/aep-has-plan-to-close-kentuckys-big-sandy-power-plant.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1356188115-CrGd5PkZ2sMK9MJsWoz9Gg