Roanoke Valley Energy Facility
{{#badges: CoalSwarm}} Roanoke Valley Energy Facility is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by E.ON near Weldon, North Carolina.
In December 2016 Westmoreland Coal said the plant would be closed by March 2017. Over the past few years, the company has reduced annual operations at the plant from 12 months to four months. The company is trying to sell the plant.[1]
Plant Data
- Owner: Westmoreland Coal Company
- Plant Nameplate Capacity: 240 MW (Megawatts)
- Units and In-Service Dates: 182 MW (1994), 58 MW (1995)
- Location: 290 Power Pl., Weldon, NC 27890
- GPS Coordinates: 36.441113, -77.617777
- Coal Consumption:
- Coal Source:
- Number of Employees:
Retirement
On December 28, 2016, plant owner Westmoreland Coal announced that it amended its power supply agreement with Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, to allow the shutdown by March 2017 of the two units at the coal-fired Roanoke Valley power plant. Under the amendment, Westmoreland will begin to provide the required contracted level of energy to Dominion through power purchase contracts, in lieu of providing it by operating ROVA.[2]
Emissions Data
- 2006 CO2 Emissions: 2,304,122 tons
- 2006 SO2 Emissions:
- 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
- 2006 NOx Emissions:
- 2005 Mercury Emissions:
Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Roanoke Valley
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.[3] 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.[4]
Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Roanoke Valley Energy Facility
| Type of Impact | Annual Incidence | Valuation |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths | 4 | $30,000,000 |
| Heart attacks | 6 | $670,000,000 |
| Asthma attacks | 68 | $4,000 |
| Hospital admissions | 3 | $71,000 |
| Chronic bronchitis | 3 | $1,100,000 |
| Asthma ER visits | 4 | $1,000 |
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011
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Roanoke and Coal Ash Waste
According to the 2010 report "Unlined Landfills?: The Story of Coal Ash Waste in our Backyard" by the Sierra Club North Carolina, state environmental inspectors discovered high levels of arsenic, iron and selenium in wetlands at the Arthurs Creek coal ash fill site in Northampton County in 2009, the 21-acre coal waste site for E.ON's Roanoke plant since 2004. There are plans to eventually build office buildings and a parking lot atop the fill, raising issues around potential contamination from the coal ash waste.[5]
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
- ↑ John Dixon, "Weldon power plant closing," RR Daily Herald, Mar 10, 2017
- ↑ "Westmoreland Coal to shut its 230-MW Roanoke Valley plant as of March 2017," Hubs, Dec 29, 2016
- ↑ "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
- ↑ "Unlined Landfills?: The Story of Coal Ash Waste in our Backyard" Sierra Club North Carolina Report, April 7, 2010.
- 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.
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