Cliffside Plant (retired)
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Cliffside Plant, also known as the James E. Rogers Energy Complex, is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Duke Energy near Mooresboro, North Carolina.
Units 1-4 of the plant, built in the 1940s, were retired in 2011.[1]
The existing Cliffside Plant now consists of two units: the 571 MW unit 5, built in 1972, and the 910 MW unit 6, built in 2012.
Contents
Plant Data on retired units
- Owner/Parent Company: Duke Energy
- Plant Nameplate Capacity: Retired
- Units and In-Service Dates: 40 MW (1940), 40 MW (1940), 65 MW (1948), 65 MW (1948)
- Location: 573 Duke Power Rd., Mooresboro, NC 28114
- GPS Coordinates: 35.217222, -81.76111
- Coal Consumption:
- Coal Source:
- Number of Employees:
Coal Waste Sites
- Cliffside Plant Active Pond
- Cliffside Plant Retired Unit 1-4 Basin
- Cliffside Plant Retired Unit 5 Basin
Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Cliffside
In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants.[2] Fine particle pollution consists of a complex mixture of soot, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Among these particles, the most dangerous are those less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, and pneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal plant emissions. These deaths and illnesses are major examples of coal's external costs, i.e. uncompensated harms inflicted upon the public at large. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities. To monetize the health impact of fine particle pollution from each coal plant, Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.[3]
Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Cliffside Plant
| Type of Impact | Annual Incidence | Valuation |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths | 21 | $150,000,000 |
| Heart attacks | 31 | $3,400,000 |
| Asthma attacks | 340 | $18,000 |
| Hospital admissions | 16 | $360,000 |
| Chronic bronchitis | 13 | $5,600,000 |
| Asthma ER visits | 18 | $7,000 |
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011
Cliffside ranked 68th on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste
In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill.[4] The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.[5]
Cliffside Plant ranked number 68 on the list, with 413,459 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.[4]
Direct actions against Cliffside
April 20, 2009: Planned protest in Charlotte, N.C. against Duke's proposed Cliffside plant
A mass rally is being planned for Earth Day, when hundreds of people from across North Carolina and beyond will converge on Duke's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. to protest the new plant proposed at Cliffside. The additional plant, if built, would release 6 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, and would use coal extracted through mountaintop removal. The action starts Sunday, April 19th with trainings in strategic organizing and nonviolent direct action. The protest is scheduled for April 20.[6][7]
To participate or read more about this event, see StopCliffside.org
Citizen groups
- Appalachian Voices
- Asheville Rising Tide
- Canary Coalition
- North Carolina Waste Awareness And Reduction Network
- Sierra Club North Carolina Chapter
- Southern Environmental Law Center
- StopCliffside.org
- Western North Carolina Alliance
Articles and Resources
Sources
- ↑ Form EIA-860 Data - Schedule 3, 'Generator Data' US EIA, 2014
- ↑ "The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source," Clean Air Task Force, September 2010.
- ↑ "Technical Support Document for the Powerplant Impact Estimator Software Tool," Prepared for the Clean Air Task Force by Abt Associates, July 2010
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sue Sturgis, "Coal's ticking timebomb: Could disaster strike a coal ash dump near you?," Institute for Southern Studies, January 4, 2009.
- ↑ TRI Explorer, EPA, accessed January 2009.
- ↑ StopCliffside.org, accessed March 2009.
- ↑ "Mass Rally and Civil Disobedience to Stop the Cliffside Coal Plant. Join the Cliffside Climate Action April 20 Charlotte, NC," It's Getting Hot In Here, accessed March 2009.
- Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2005, Energy Information Administration, accessed Jan. 2009.
- Environmental Integrity Project, "Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants", July 2007.
- Facility Registry System, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed Jan. 2009.
- Carbon Monitoring for Action database, accessed Feb. 2009.
Related SourceWatch Articles
- Cliffside Plant
- Existing U.S. Coal Plants
- North Carolina and coal
- Duke Energy
- United States and coal
- Global warming
