Midland Daily News (Michigan):
That giant sucking sound you hear is money being vacuumed out of ratepayer’s pockets and into the coffers of the fossil fuel industry.
In May, claiming an “energy emergency”, the Department of Energy ordered that the 60-year-old J. H. Campbell plant near Holland, Michigan, which was scheduled to close May 31, remain open an additional 90 days.
Garrick Rochow, CEO of the plant’s operator, Consumers Energy, told an interviewer,“We had people that were going to retire at closure, we had people that were going to move on to other jobs, and so you’re asking people to stay on another 90 days.”
He added, “Many of our coal contracts have expired. We no longer have rail cars. We have to look at leases for rail cars again….is it just 90 days, or is it more than 90 days? We can’t answer that question.”
Rochow’s query was well founded.
In August the plant was ordered to stay open another 90 days by the “small government conservatives” openly intervening to pick winners, or in this case, losers, in competitive markets.
The first 30 days of extended operation added 30 million dollars to ratepayers costs. Continuing to operate a dirty, obsolete and expensive plant will be costly.
The plant closure was not undertaken lightly. Consumer’s had purchased a similar sized gas generator in 2023, brought 500 MW of wind generation on line since 2020, and plans to have an additional 500 MW of solar by 2027.
(both solar and wind are cheaper sources than coal)
“There is no energy emergency in Michigan or in MISO, (the midwest grid operator) and this decision will add even more costs that customers will have to bear,” Dan Scripps, the Chairman of Michigan’s Public Service Commission, which regulates electric rates, said. “Put simply, we don’t plan the grid 90 days at a time.”
A thousand miles east, off the coast of Rhode Island, the Revolution Wind farm, 80 percent complete, and slated to provide electricity to 350,000 homes, was shut down by another Trump administration order.
Governor of Rhode Island, Dan Mckee told PBS, “it sends a signal to businesses, what are permits worth, if all of a sudden, when you are 80 percent in a project…that somehow the Federal government is not going to honor those permits.”
The administration may be holding projects hostage on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.
Governor Mckee said he would entertain a “deal” to allow an unpopular gas pipeline to proceed, in exchange for restarting the wind project.
It’s been reported that Governor Kathy Hochul of New York did exactly that to save Empire Wind, a New York offshore project.
Revolution’s Danish developer, meanwhile, went to court, and last week obtained a preliminary injunction against the government, keeping the construction going, to avoid, in the judge’s words, “irreparable harm” to both the project and the “public interest.”
What these two projects have in common is the Trump administration’s commitment to fossil fuel industry profits above the interests of ratepayers, markets, the environment, and future generations.
The Campbell Coal plant was scheduled to shutter because it was no longer economical to run, and will lose money on virtually every megawatt hour it generates for as long as it’s forced to operate.
In New England, ratepayers suffer from some of the highest electricity prices in the US, despite relying heavily on the Trump administration’s favored sources, gas and nuclear energy.
According to PBS Newshour, “the cost of this electricity (from revolution wind) is locked in for the next 20 years at 9.8 cents per kilowatt hour, that is about half of what electricity costs by other sources in this part of the world.”
Recently, the administration ordered new subsidies for coal, the repeal of rules against mercury and carbon dioxide pollution, and hinted that still more obsolete plants will be mandated to stay open at the expense of taxpayers and ratepayers.
Under the pretext of an “energy emergency,” the Trump administration seems determined to shake down ratepayers to extend profits for his fellow fossil bros.
The only “emergency” is that billionaire coal barons are losing market share to renewable energy, that is both quicker to build and cheaper to operate than fossil fuel competitors, and a global transition away from fossil fuels is in full swing, leaving America behind.
UPDATE: Wall Street Journal reports that the JH Campbell Coal plant is costing ratepayers $615,000 per day.
I like that. On the one hand, Trump is relaxing regulations on mercury emissions, which are known neurotoxins.
Meanwhile, RFKJr is focusing on imaginary neurotoxins in painkillers and vaccines.