Boardman Coal Plant

Last updated
The Boardman plant. Boardman Oregon coal plant at Carty Reservoir.jpg
The Boardman plant.
Interior of Boardman Plant showing coal grinding machines. Boardman Coal Grinders.JPG
Interior of Boardman Plant showing coal grinding machines.

The Boardman Coal Plant was a coal-fired power plant located in Boardman, Oregon. The facility had a nameplate capacity of 550 megawatts (MWs) and is owned by Portland General Electric. [1] In 2010, the plant was the only remaining coal powered plant in Oregon and received much attention from regional media due to its being the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state with environmental groups such as the Sierra Club calling for its closing. [2] [3]

Contents

In 2014, PGE built a new $500 million, 450 MW combined cycle natural gas power plant, named Carty Generating Station, next to the coal plant. [4] [5] [6]

In October 2020, Portland General Electric announced that the coal plant has been permanently closed and was demolished in 2022, ending Oregon's legacy of coal-fired power generation. [7] [8]

Background

The Boardman plant was authorized in 1975, just two years before the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments, which would have required the plant to meet stricter emission standards. [9] When it was operating, the plant accounted for 65% of stationary SO2 emissions, and 7% of CO2 emissions in Oregon. [10] [11]

The Boardman plant was one of PGE's largest power stations, producing 15% of the utility's electricity in 2009. [12]

Recent action

Portland General Electric's original plan involved operating the plant until 2040; this would require installing over $500 million of pollution control equipment on the plant by 2017 in order to comply with federal and state clean air standards. In early 2010, however, PGE announced that they were considering an alternative plan for the Boardman plant that would close it in 2020. [13] [14] [15]

In April 2010, PGE decided to close the plant in 2020 to save $470 million in upgrades they would have been required to install had they kept the plant operating until 2040. [16] The decision is contingent upon favorable decisions in a lawsuit and possible federal regulations. [16] In December 2010, the state's environmental protection agency approved the plans for the 2020 closing. [17]

PGE started building a second gas-fired generating station at Boardman (the Carty Generating Plant) in 2014. [4]

The plant was being dismantled in 2021, with the structure being demolished in 2022. [18] [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boardman, Oregon</span> City in Oregon, United States

Boardman is a city in Morrow County, Oregon, United States on the Columbia River and Interstate 84. As of the 2020 census the population was 3,828. It is currently the largest town in Morrow County, Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power station</span> Facility generating electric power

A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GenOn Energy</span> Defunct American corporation

GenOn Energy, Inc., based in Houston, Texas, United States, was an energy company that provided electricity to wholesale customers in the United States. The company was one of the largest independent power producers in the nation with more than 14,000 megawatts of power generation capacity across the United States using natural gas, fuel oil and coal. GenOn Energy is headquartered in the Reliant Energy Plaza in Downtown Houston. The company, formerly known as RRI Energy, acquired Mirant on December 3, 2010. The corporate names and logos of both RRI Energy and Mirant were retired.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portland General Electric</span> Public utility based in Portland, Oregon

Portland General Electric (PGE) is a Fortune 1000 public utility based in Portland, Oregon. It distributes electricity to customers in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Yamhill, Washington, and Polk counties - 44% of the inhabitants of Oregon. Founded in 1888 as the Willamette Falls Electric Company, the company has been an independent company for most of its existence, though was briefly owned by the Houston-based Enron Corporation from 1997 until 2006 when Enron divested itself of PGE during its bankruptcy.

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is an energy utility company based in the U.S. state of Washington that provides electrical power and natural gas to the Puget Sound region. The utility serves electricity to more than 1.1 million customers in Island, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Pierce, Skagit, Thurston, and Whatcom counties, and provides natural gas to 750,000 customers in King, Kittitas, Lewis, Pierce, Snohomish and Thurston counties. The company's electric and natural gas service area spans 6,000 square miles (16,000 km2).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fossil fuel power station</span> Facility that burns fossil fuels to produce electricity

A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy, which then operates an electrical generator. The prime mover may be a steam turbine, a gas turbine or, in small plants, a reciprocating gas engine. All plants use the energy extracted from the expansion of a hot gas, either steam or combustion gases. Although different energy conversion methods exist, all thermal power station conversion methods have their efficiency limited by the Carnot efficiency and therefore produce waste heat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bayswater Power Station</span>

Bayswater Power Station is a bituminous (black) coal-powered thermal power station with four 660 megawatts (890,000 hp) Tokyo Shibaura Electric (Japan) steam driven turbo alternators for a combined capacity of 2,640 megawatts (3,540,000 hp). Commissioned between 1985 and 1986, the station is located 16 kilometres (10 mi) from Muswellbrook, and 28 km (17 mi) from Singleton in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia.

The Keystone Generating Station is a 1.71-gigawatt, coal power plant located on roughly 1,500 acres (610 ha) in Plumcreek Township, southeastern Armstrong County, Pennsylvania near Crooked Creek, just west of Shelocta, Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clifty Creek Power Plant</span>

Clifty Creek Power Plant is a 1,300-MW coal-fired power station located in Madison, Indiana. Clifty Creek is operated by the Indiana Kentucky Electric Corporation. It is named after Clifty Creek, which enters the Ohio River nearby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plant Scherer</span> Coal-fired power station in Georgia, US

The Robert W. Scherer Power Plant is a coal-fired power plant in Juliette, Georgia, just north of Macon, Georgia, in the United States. The plant has four generating units, each capable of producing 930 megawatts, and is the most powerful coal-fired plant in North America. The plant is named after the former chairman and chief executive officer of Georgia Power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monroe Power Plant</span> Coal-fired power station located in Monroe, Michigan

The Monroe Power Plant is a coal-fired power plant located in Monroe, Michigan, on the western shore of Lake Erie. It is owned by the DTE Energy Electric Company, a subsidiary of DTE Energy. The plant was constructed in the early 1970s and began operating in 1971. The plant has 4 generating units, each with an output of 850 megawatts. With all four generating units operating, the plant's total output is 3,300 megawatts. This makes it the eleventh largest electric plant in the United States.

NW Natural, formerly Northwest Natural Gas Company, is an American publicly traded utility headquartered in Portland, Oregon, United States. Primarily a natural gas distributor, the company services residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Western Oregon and Southwest Washington in the Pacific Northwest. NW Natural also owns water utilities. Founded in 1859, the company has approximately 680,000 customers and revenues of nearly one billion in US dollars annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coal power in the United States</span>

Coal generated about 19.5% of the electricity at utility-scale facilities in the United States in 2022, down from 42% in 2014. In 2021, coal supplied 9.5 quadrillion British thermal units (2,800 TWh) of primary energy to electric power plants, which made up 90% of coal's contribution to U.S. energy supply. Utilities buy more than 90% of the coal consumed in the United States. There were over 200 coal powered units across the United States in 2022. Coal plants have been closing since the 2010s due to cheaper and cleaner natural gas and renewables. But environmentalists say that political action is needed to close them faster, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the United States to better limit climate change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biglow Canyon Wind Farm</span>

Biglow Canyon Wind Farm is an electricity generating wind farm facility in Sherman County, Oregon, United States. It is owned by Portland, Oregon-based Portland General Electric and began operations in 2007. With the completion of phase 3 of the project it has a generating capacity of 450 megawatts. It is located roughly five miles (8 km) northeast of Wasco, Oregon, and about ten miles (16 km) southeast of Rufus, Oregon. Biglow Canyon Wind Farm covers 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) in the Columbia River Gorge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chalk Point Generating Station</span> Electricity-generating plant owned by NRG Energy

The Chalk Point Generating Station is an electricity-generating plant, comprising oil and natural gas fired units, owned by NRG Energy, located near the town of Eagle Harbor, Maryland, United States, on the Patuxent River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miami Fort Power Station</span>

The Miami Fort Generating Station is a dual-fuel power generating facility. It is a major coal-fired electrical power station, supplemented with a small oil-fired facility. Miami Fort is located in Miami Township, Hamilton County, immediately east of the tripoint of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. Miami Fort Station is named for the nearby Miami Fort.

The U.S. state of Oregon is the third largest renewable energy producing state in the United States. Hydroelectric power dominates the power market in Oregon, providing nearly two-thirds of the electricity generated in the state, although it accounts for only 38.91% of the total percentage consumed when electricity imported from other states is accounted for. Natural gas is the second largest source of energy consumption in Oregon, that being one third of Oregon's net power generation. This is mostly due to recent reserves of natural gas being found in Coos Bay, OR. As well as persistent extraction from the Mist Field in northwest Oregon, near Astoria.The energy used in Oregon comes mainly from hydroelectric power at 38.91%, coal at 26.47%, natural gas at 21.50%, and wind at 7.01%.

Prairie State Energy Campus is a 1,600 megawatt base load, coal-fired, electrical power station and coal mine near Marissa, Illinois southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) features low levels of regulated emissions compared to other coal-fired power stations, capturing sulfur from high-sulfur coal mined nearby instead of transporting low-sulfur coal from elsewhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Four Corners Generating Station</span>

The Four Corners Generating Station is a 1,540 megawatt coal-fired power plant located near Fruitland, New Mexico, on property located on the Navajo Nation that is leased from the Navajo Nation government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval Weapons Systems Training Facility Boardman</span>

The Naval Weapons Systems Training Facility Boardman, informally known as the Boardman Bombing Range, is a military installation south of Boardman, Oregon in the United States. It is used by NAS Whidbey Island as their principal training grounds for testing EA-18G Growler aircraft and for drone testing. It is located about 70 miles (110 km) south of the Yakima Training Center, which is used by Joint Base Lewis-McChord for training exercises and about 15 miles (24 km) west of the now closed Umatilla Chemical Depot.

References

  1. Oregon Energy Facilities Siting Council (2008-05-17). "Energy Facility Siting - Boardman Coal Plant". Oregon Department of Energy. Archived from the original on 2010-06-06. Retrieved 2010-02-24.
  2. Sickinger, Ted (2009-09-25). "Pressure grows for PGE to shutter Boardman coal plant". The Oregonian . Retrieved 2009-12-12.
  3. Preusch, Matthew (2010-01-31). "Boardman coal-burning power plant may have a future after all: biomass". The Oregonian . Retrieved 2010-07-29.
  4. 1 2 "PGE building Boardman natural-gas fired power plant". The Oregonian. The Associated Press. June 8, 2014. Retrieved 9 June 2014. Portland General Electric has started building a natural gas-fired power plant in Boardman. The plant is next to a coal-fired power plant that is slated to close or be converted to a different fuel source by 2020.
  5. Plaven, George (2015-12-15). "Construction halts on PGE project near Boardman". Tri-City Herald . Construction has come to a halt at Portland General Electric's Carty Generating Station near Boardman as the project contractor teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Workers were turned away Monday at the Carty site next to the Boardman Coal Plant on Tower Road, leaving the 440-megwatt natural gas-fired power plant in a temporary state of limbo. ... The plant could cost up to $514 million when all is said and done.
  6. "Carty Generating Station". Oregon Department of Energy . Archived from the original on 2017-02-11. Retrieved 2021-08-12. The Carty Generating Station is a 450 megawatt, combined-cycle natural gas-fueled electric generating power plant, and includes a not-yet-constructed 50 megawatt solar PV electric power generating unit on 315 acres (0.49 sq. miles). The facility is located within an overall site boundary of approximately 4,997 acres.
  7. "Portland General Electric announces end to coal-fired power generation in Oregon". 2020-10-15. Retrieved 2020-10-16.
  8. 1 2 Banse, Tom (15 September 2022). "Boardman smokestack demolished, marking the end of a coal-fired era in Oregon". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
  9. Learn, Scott (2008-08-14). "Proposal would cut Oregon coal plant's haze-causing pollution". The Oregonian . Retrieved 2009-12-12.
  10. Staff (2006-06-28). "Environmental and Health Effects Caused by PGE Boardman Pollution". Lewis & Clark Law School . Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  11. Staff (June 2010). "PGE Seeks to Eliminate Coal at Boardman" (PDF). Portland General Electric. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-11-28. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
  12. Manning, Rob (2009-01-29). "PGE Considering Fate Of Boardman Coal-Fired Plant". Oregon Public Broadcasting . Retrieved 2010-07-29.
  13. Duin, Steve (2009-10-03). "PGE's Boardman plant: Bad air, worse energy policy". The Oregonian . Retrieved 2010-02-15.
  14. Baer, April (2010-01-15). "PGE To Close Boardman Plant By 2020". Oregon Public Broadcasting . Retrieved 2010-02-15.
  15. Sickinger, Ted (2010-01-14). "PGE plan suggests shorter time frame to close Boardman coal-fired power plant". The Oregonian . Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  16. 1 2 Learn, Scott (2010-04-02). "PGE files to close Boardman coal plant early, rekindles concerns". The Oregonian . Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  17. Learn, Scott (December 9, 2010). "PGE's coal-fired Boardman plant gets approval to close in 2020, with fewer pollution controls". The Oregonian. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
  18. "Workers reflect on Oregon's first and last coal plant". High Country News. 21 January 2021. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
45°41′36″N119°48′25″W / 45.69333°N 119.80694°W / 45.69333; -119.80694