Massive power line to bring coal-fired electricity from W. Virginia to New Jersey

[jpak]

Background

http://www.electricityforum.com/news/feb06/Pennpowerlineproposed.html

HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA In an ambitious $3 billion plan, the nation's largest power generator has proposed building a 550-mile power line stretched atop 13-story towers to bring surplus electricity from coal-fired plants in Appalachia and the Midwest to the power-hungry Eastern Seaboard.

The initial proposed route would take the high-voltage power line through scenic mountain areas of West Virginia, through Maryland's midsection and across Pennsylvania's Amish country on its way to New Jersey.

Even if state regulators balk, that might not be enough to stop the project.

American Electric Power Co.'s plan could provide one of the first tests of a new law, enacted last year, that allows federal regulators to use the power of eminent domain to override states that don't approve a transmission line that has a demonstrated interstate interest.

Already, environmentalists and clean-energy advocates along the potential path of the towers are sounding alarms over the proposal, which will face years of scrutiny before the line's operative target date of 2014.

<snip>

American Electric is proposing to build the highest-voltage line yet in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey. Industry officials say new transmission lines are needed to meet growing power demands and expanding electricity markets.

Primarily, the line would serve the corridor from northern New Jersey through Philadelphia and Baltimore to Washington, D.C., where electricity prices are comparatively high and power plants difficult to build.

<more>

This is where they will burn the coal from mountain top mines to produce electrcity for NEW JERSEY

http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/WV3140/

According to the plant's owner, American Electric Power, this 2,900 megawatt plant burns five million tons of coal per year, which "equates to roughly 500 coal mining jobs" and can power two million homes. Unit 3, completed in 1973, was the first 1,300 megawatt power plant in the United States. As of 1998, the plant was ranked among electrical utility facilities by the EPA as the second-highest producer of emissions in the nation (second to the Bowan Steam Electric Generating Plant in Bartow, GA). A $100 million SCR (selective catalytic reduction) project, scheduled for completion in 2002, is intended to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from the plant.

<more>

have a nice day

[Tesha]

1. It's funny, though.

When we talk about wheeling renewable energy across moderate distances,
we're told it can't be done. But here we are talking about coal-derived
energy and there's no problem building a transmission line to bring
*THAT* power to market.

Tesha

[DCKit]

2. Slam-dunk Tesha. n/t

[joshcryer]

3. Who in the hell said we can't build transmission lines?

I object to transmission lines because they're inherently destructive.

[jpak]

4. the sickfuck anti-renewable energy crowd

yup

[joshcryer]

5. Got a cite?

The 20-50 thousand miles of lines necessary are not unrealizable. They would just commit a bird genocide yearly. It may be worth it since AGW would kill many many more birds.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NNadir]

6. The PJM grid - you'd have to know something about energy to understand it - can put any kind

of capacity that suppliers put on it and it is bid competitively.

Unfortunately - and there are zero uneducated anti-nukes who give a rat's ass about it - the coal industry, like the dangerous natural gas industry, like the solar industry and its toxics, and like the wind industry, is NOT required to control its emissions for eternity.

This lowers the internal cost of coal, not that dumb anti-nukes care about it.

There is one, and ONLY one form of energy that has a higher availability than coal. It is also the cleanest, cheapest and safest form of energy, nuclear energy.

New Jersey could easily be self sufficient in electricity, by building new nuclear plants. This is, happily, being actively discussed here and for the first time in a long time, now that the dumb Amory Lovins' faith that "nuclear is dead" is fully discredited and seen for the intellectually banal crap it is and has always been.

We can build just ONE nuclear plant, and produce as much energy in this state as all of the wind plants in Denmark. We could built three, in a few acres of land, and produce as much energy as all of Europe produces from solar and wind combined.

I expect that we will.

Have a nice red herring day.

[joshcryer]

7. Transmission lines are still environmentally destructive.

I don't care how many cows can graze beneath them.

[jpak]

8. Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Nuclear New Jersey kills endangered sea turtles

Nuclear New Jersey imports 35% of its electricity from out-of-state fossil-fired power plants - something the nuclear fraud-mongers fail to tell you when they make their fraudulent claims about nuclear power in New Jersey.

Now

Nuclear New Jersey wants to kill MORE West Virginia coal miners.

and remove MORE West Virginia mountain tops.

Why?

Because Nuclear New Jersey is a FRAUD.

Now

Nuclear-New-Jersey-Which-Is-a-Fraud wants to build MORE reactors that will produce MORE spent fuel that cannot be disposed in New Jersey at a cost that Nuclear-New-Jersey-Which-Is-A-FRAUD will not bear.

Oh yeah - the New Jersey Molten Salt Breeder Reactor is a *sickfuck* FRAUD as well...

:rofl:

[bananas]

11. And nuclear hasn't done much for NJ coal or CO2 emissions

NJ still has average coal use and CO2 emissions compared to the rest of the country,
even though it has twice the national average of nuclear: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=250386&mesg_id=250611

The hard energy path is to build more coal and nuclear and offshore drilling,
this will not reduce CO2 emissions, and it will cause more environmental destruction.

The hard energy path is pushed by conservatives and right-wingers, and in "About Democratic Underground" it says:
'We address the right in harsh terms, and we fully intend to make the word "conservative" absolutely radioactive'
www.democraticunderground.com/about.html

[tjr_coaladvocate]

10. Coal

There are just as many uneducated people who do not know the benefits of fossil fuel such as coal. I work for a company that capture and sequest CO2 emissions from coal fired plants as well as service them. With all the government regulations and environmentalist it costing the coal fired plants millions of dollars to bring plants up to regulation. We all ready have 9 reactors in Pennsylvania and they are trying to add a 10th one. Next Idaho we have the most Nuclear plants around. You can't convince that this is the safest way to create energy. Especially after TMI! Although research has stated no effects have been made, how about looking at the cancer rate and miscarriage rate for women as well birth defects.

[jpak]

9. kicking

for the sea turtles and coal miners that will be killed by Nuclear-New-Jersey-Which-is-A-Fraud.

and those that are addicted to Ambien

:rofl: