The Impact Of The President's Successful War On Coal

For all those folks freezing in the midwest who support Obama's goal to kill the coal industry:

American Electric Power (AEP) during the recent cold weather was running about 89pc of the coal generation it has scheduled to retire in 2015, leading the company today to question the reliability impacts of federal environmental rules.

Across its system, Columbus, Ohio-based AEP has 5,573MW of coal generation due for retirement in 2015 because of the Environmental Protection Agency's mercury and air toxics standard.

About 71% of the company's total generating capacity of 37,600MW is coal-fired or about 26,700MW. Three years ago coal formed 82% of its generation mix.

“What it should make everyone think about is, what are we going to when that generation is not available?” AEP told Argus today. “We need to be thinking about reliability and resilience in extreme times, not just the status quo.”

During the cold weather, disruptions in natural gas supplies led to a sharp ramp-up of coal generation in the PJM Interconnection's 13-state mid-Atlantic and northeastern territory.

PJM confirmed that all of its coal capacity was called upon during the cold weather, which is expected to continue.

But I'm preaching to the choir. I doubt if any folks who support Obama's goal to kill the coal industry actually read this blog. Pity. 

A reader sent that to me. It was from ArgusMedia.