CanaryMedia: "Indiana coal plant that Trump forced to stay open is not operating." The administration has spent the last year demanding that old, inefficient coal plants stay online long past their retirement dates. "But one of those plants in Indiana hasn’t operated in months and won’t be able to until costly repairs are completed—undermining federal officials’ claims that their mandates will make energy more affordable and are needed to avoid imminent blackouts."
The administration first ordered Indiana’s R.M. Schahfer coal plant to continue running in December, just a week before its scheduled closure date and after regulators had already determined that the polluting plant was not needed to keep the region’s lights on. "That 90-day emergency must-run order was reupped on March 23."
Facility owner Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) told regional grid operators at their May 19 hearing on summer electricity reliability that the coal plant has been offline for repairs since the end of February and is not expected to start running again until this fall. "The utility added that even without that energy, it is well positioned to meet power demand this summer, in large part thanks to new wind, solar, and batteries."
"The administration is expected to issue [its third] 90-day must-run order at Schahfer when the current one expires on June 21." But as NIPSCO has made clear, the coal plant won’t be able to run at all for the entirety of that three-month mandate. "Households and businesses will bear the financial brunt of propping up coal plants, which are more expensive to operate than newer gas plants and renewable energy paired with batteries."
"In total...Trump’s Department of Energy has ordered seven fossil-fueled plants [1 of them in my home state of Washington] in the U.S. to run past their retirement dates—sometimes against the wishes of the plant owners themselves—in an unprecedented flex of authority under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act." This sort of imbecilic irrationality is how civilizations fail.
