To comply with proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations, American Electric Power (AEP) will spend $6 billion to $8 billion to shut down five aging coal plants, convert at least two to natural gas, and retrofit 12 other plants.- Coal-fired plants account for nearly 25,000 megawatts, or 65 percent, of AEP’s total generation capacity.
- The five plants that will close include units dating back to 1944; the newest of those units is 51 years old.
- AEP chief executive Michael G. Morris predicted higher electricity rates. A Sierra Club official estimates that emissions from the plants to be closed contribute to thousands of premature deaths from asthma and heart attacks and added $62 billion a year to health costs.
- A lawyer from the Environmental Defense Fund clarified that the “EPA regulations do not require any power plants to shut down. Companies like AEP make the decision — either invest in common retrofits like scrubbers to clean up pollution, or close down old and poorly controlled plants and replace them with cleaner, more efficient generation.”
Source: Washington Post
