Over 12,000 megawatts (MW) of U.S. coal-fired generation is slated to retire this year, as utilities work to comply with the environmental agency’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which took effect last month.
According to a new report by SNL Energy, the closures represent about 4% of installed coal capacity in the U.S. and it will make up a third of nationwide coal plant retirements between 2010 and 2015.
Courtesy of SNL Energy.
The analysts said that assuming scheduled retirements proceed as planned, approximately 46,000 MW of U.S. coal capacity would be gone between 2012 and 2022.
Full report available here.
(Cover image by IndustryAndTravel | Shutterstock.com)
2 Comments
Altaf
Assuming 4,000 MT coal required to run 1MW power plant, this means US will not be using 48 million MT coal per annum. Either they are planning to retire the coal mines or diverting the same to other uses or exporting or all three options.
brettles02
yeppers , who wants to be a Coal Miner