204 Coal Plants in the US Are to Shut Down Within the Next 5 Years

According to a report recently made public by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, as many as 204 coal plants in the US are to be shut down within the next five years.

Apparently, the fact that the country's Environmental Protection Agency issued various regulations that do not really see eye to eye with these plants’ working agenda had a say in this matter.

Given the fact that the shutting down of these plants will lead to considerably less amounts of energy being generated across the US, the government is ready to invest roughly $70 billion (about €53.9 billion) to $180 billion (approximately €138.6 billion) in new power plants, their goal being to prevent a potential energy crisis.

Environmental Leader informs us that some of this money will be used to install pollution control systems for various plants that will continue to operate, but which need to make their facilities a tad more environmentally-friendly.

The same source reports that, taken together, these 204 coal plants have an electric generating capacity of up to 31,000 MW, which is why the plan to gradually shut them down has to be carried out with extreme caution so as not to cause glitches in the national grid.

Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina are to be more closely monitored than the other states that will be affected by these closure, due to the fact that these states are to witness the most shutdowns: a total of 103.

The rest of the closure will spread over 20 other American states.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy explains that, in the aftermath of coal's continuously losing ground in favor of natural gas and other energy source, it is of utmost importance for the country to promote both energy efficiency and CHP (i.e. combined heat and power, meaning the use of heat engines and power stations to generate electricity and heat at the same time).

By doing this, the energy industry in the US will eventually be able to meet national electricity demands in a clean and efficient manner.