Closures Of Coal Plants To Increase

Power companies have already shut down or plan to retire about 13% of U.S. coal-fired energy capacity by 2025, with three-quarters of that occurring by the end of next year, the Government Accountability Office estimates in a new report. That’s an increase from the 2 to 12% predicted by GAO in 2012 and is largely because of EPA rules restricting emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants. “This level of retirements is significantly more retirements than have occurred in the past,” says GAO, which serves as a watchdog for Congress. Only 13,786 MW of coal capacity was retired between 2000 and 2011, according to the report (GAO-14-672). Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) says the findings “should renew and reinforce our concerns about the impacts that new federal rules could have on electric reliability.”