Mississippi utility will stop efforts to complete coal plant

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Jeff Amy, Associated Press
Updated 6:32 pm, Wednesday, June 28, 2017


JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — One of the nation's largest utilities, faced with an ultimatum from Mississippi regulators, said Wednesday that it will suspend efforts to complete a first-of-its-kind coal-fueled power plant.

The move is a blow in efforts to develop coal plants that emit less carbon dioxide, which could be key to improving the health of the nation's coal industry.

Mississippi Power Co., a unit of Southern Co., announced it was stopping efforts at its plant in Kemper County, near the Alabama state line. The Atlanta-based utility giant said Wednesday that it could lose another $3.4 billion from the Kemper County plant if it can't reach a more favorable settlement with regulators. Shareholders have already lost $3.1 billion on the $7.5 billion plant.
 
Mississippi Power said it will keep making electricity in part of the plant burning natural gas, as it has since 2014. The Mississippi Public Service Commission allowed the company to raise rates by 15 percent in 2015 on its 189,000 customers to recover $840 million.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Mississippi-utility-will-stop-efforts-to-complete-11253910.php

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Cry me a river.

Southern is close to Bankruptcy and they want the State and the Feds to bail them out.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Wonder how many wind turbines or solar panels you could buy with that $6.5 billion loss.

[Hortensis]

3. So, natural gas energy is cheaper than coal energy right now, and

there are various technical problems with the coal gassification plant, a technology that would reduce coal emissions by "up to 65%," as predicted anyway. This thing isn't dead, but good for Mississippi.

Energy is so critically important to keep us all alive that I won't regret the development, per se, of better coal energy production technology, just its use when there are alternatives.

Someone on TV was saying yesterday that, quantity-wise, we actually already have enough sustainable energy produced right now to power the nation. I haven't checked that claim, but if not entirely true it could be. Hillary had planned to have nearly a half billion solar cells up and running on our homes and businesses by the end of her first term.