Montrose Station

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{{#badges: CoalSwarm}} Montrose Station is a retired coal-fired power station owned and operated by Great Plains Energy's Kansas City Power & Light (KPCL) near Clinton, Missouri.

The plant's three coal-fired units have been retired: unit 1 in 2016 and units 2-3 in 2018.

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Retirement

In January 2015 KPCL said its Montrose power plant will stop using coal completely. One of the plant’s generating units will be closed or converted to natural gas by 2016.[1] Unit 1 was retired in 2016. The remaining two units will be closed by December 31, 2018.[2] The last two units were retired at the end of 2018 as planned.[3]

Plant Data

  • Owner: Kansas City Power & Light
  • Parent Company: Great Plains Energy
  • Plant Nameplate Capacity: 564 MW (Megawatts)
  • Units and In-Service Dates: 188 MW (1958), 188 MW (1960), 188 MW (1964)
  • Location: 400 Southwest Hwy. P, Clinton, MO 64735
  • GPS Coordinates: 38.313049, -93.932991
  • Coal Consumption:
  • Coal Source:
  • Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

  • 2006 CO2 Emissions: 3,803,833 tons
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions: 11,561 tons
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
  • 2006 NOx Emissions: 6,041 tons
  • 2005 Mercury Emissions: 444 lb.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Montrose Station

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.[4] 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.[5]

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Montrose Station

Type of Impact Annual Incidence Valuation
Deaths 30 $220,000,000
Heart attacks 47 $5,100,000
Asthma attacks 510 $27,000
Hospital admissions 22 $510,000
Chronic bronchitis 19 $8,300,000
Asthma ER visits 33 $12,000

Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

Montrose ranked 66th 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.[6] The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.[7]

Montrose Station ranked number 66 on the list, with 422,100 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.[6]

Articles and Resources

Sources

  1. Steve Everly, " Kansas City Power & Light will stop using coal at some of its generating units," The Kansas City Star, 01/20/2015
  2. "KCP&L Continues Sustainability Commitment by Announcing Retirement of Six Units at Three Power Plants," Business Wire, June 2, 2017
  3. Personal communication with KPC&L, February 8, 2019
  4. "The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source," Clean Air Task Force, September 2010.
  5. "Technical Support Document for the Powerplant Impact Estimator Software Tool," Prepared for the Clean Air Task Force by Abt Associates, July 2010
  6. 6.0 6.1 Sue Sturgis, "Coal's ticking timebomb: Could disaster strike a coal ash dump near you?," Institute for Southern Studies, January 4, 2009.
  7. TRI Explorer, EPA, accessed January 2009.

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