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Electricity and Environmental Quality Standards

By Eric McErlain
Over at Knowledge Problem, Michael Giberson is taking a look at the closing of a coal-fired power plant in Alexandria, Virginia:
Regulatory authorities and public policy goals have collided on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, just across from D.C. This has been a slow-motion collision, long in coming and probably weeks or months still to go, so pull up a chair and watch the show. Virginia state officials have caused the shut down of a power plant that the Washington, DC utility regulator calls vital to protecting the reliability of the electric power system in the area...

For years, residents of Alexandria, Virginia have complained about the emissions coming from the Mirant’s Potomac River power plant...The five-boiler coal burning power plant, which produces about 500 MW, has been operating since 1949. It is old enough -- by a substantial margin -- to have been exempted from the most stringent air quality regulations, but apparently hasn't been able to comply with the laxer standards do apply.

The Mirant plant, formerly owned by D.C. electric utility Pepco, supplies power into DC and Maryland, but does not directly provide power to its Virginia neighbors. This slight mismatch between costs and benefits probably contributes to the plants political troubles.
The Mirant plant is only a few miles South of NEI's offices in Washington, D.C. and I've pedaled past it plenty of times on the Mt. Vernon bike trail that snakes along the shore of the Potomac.

This might be a good time to mention that increasing the amount of electricity that a state generates with nuclear energy is a great way to help meet clean air standards -- something that my colleague Mary Quillian pointed out a few months ago.

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