It’s lights out for coal in Asheville as Duke Energy announces natural gas power plant

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It’s lights out for coal in Asheville as Duke Energy announces natural gas power plant
Jason Sandford | May 19, 2015

Duke Energy officials on Tuesday announced plans to shut down its coal-fired power plant in south Asheville within five years. A new natural gas plant will replace the coal plant. A solar farm will also be a part of the new natural gas plant, they said. The new plant must be built and running before the coal-fired plant is shut down, and that all should happen by about 2020, the officials said.

Duke Energy will tear down most of the existing coal plant structure, officials said, including its imposing smoke stack, which can be seen for miles around. Air pollution will decrease, and the plant will stop pumping hot water into adjacent Lake Julian, the officials said. Duke’s Asheville plant is “the largest electric generating facility in Western North Carolina, and began commercial operation in 1964, with additions in 1971, 1999 and 2000,” according to its website. The company has invested millions of dollars in recent years to cut air emissions.

Last week, Duke Energy pleased guilty to criminal violations of the federal Clean Water Act for the discharge of coal ash into the Dan River in North Carolina. From the New York Times:

Duke Energy, the nation’s largest utility corporation, pleaded guilty on Thursday to criminal violations of the federal Clean Water Act for the discharge of coal ash, a potentially toxic waste product, and for a failure to properly maintain equipment at a number of power plants in its home state of North Carolina. The company also agreed to pay $102 million in fines and environmental fees.

Four of the nine criminal violations stemmed from a massive coal-ash spill on Feb. 2, 2014, at the Charlotte-based company’s Dan River Steam Station in Eden, N.C. The spill sent up to 39,000 tons of coal ash and millions of gallons of coal-ash wastewater into the Dan River, spreading 62 miles to the Virginia border, according to court records.

Coal ash, a waste product generated by coal-fired electric power plants, contains a number of materials, including arsenic, chromium and mercury, that can be hazardous to people and wildlife.

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