The staff of the Kentucky Coal Association wishes each and every one of you a happy holiday season filled with love, laughter, and family. Happy Thanksgiving!
“The Sierra Club lives in some weird Orwellian world where up is down and left is right, where “reality” is whatever they decide it to be. Fortunately, most people don’t live in that world. We live in a world bounded by objective reality — a world where people need reliable energy, not fairy dust and pixie sprinkles. And we don’t appreciate blatant lies.”
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/09/20/lies_damn_lies_and_the_sierra_club_980859.html
LEXINGTON, KY (July 28, 2023) — It’s hot today – around 95 degrees — and it’s supposed to be hot again tomorrow. But 95 degrees in late-July isn’t really strange for Kentucky. In fact, the average high temperature for this time of year is about 90 degrees.
What is new is the increasing inability of our electric grid to provide the reliable energy we need to meet the high demand in mid-summer. What is new is the regular warnings from utilities that we may see rolling blackouts, brownouts or even grid failure at the very time dependable electricity is needed most. To put it context, in 2020, there were fewer than two dozen major power disruptions across the country. In 2020, there were more than 180 such disruptions. This correlates perfectly to the move away from coal to renewable electric generation.
Yesterday, both MISO and PJM Interconnections issued warnings that generation capacity was reaching its limits and there was a potential for failure. And earlier this year, the same shortages and warnings being seen now were also seen during the mid-winter cold snap. In both cases, the failures of the grid to produce the electricity needed threatened lives — particularly the most vulnerable, the poor, the old, the sick and the young.
These closures didn’t have to happen. They were the result, not of shifts in the market, but of political decisions made by first the Obama and now the Biden Administrations, who are in thrall to their allies in leftist and environmental groups.
We at KCA have warned against shutting down our baseload electric generation capacity – our coal fleet – that served us so well, so dependably for 100 years. Others have joined our warning, including PJM, MISO, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
NRECA CEO Jim Matheson put it very bluntly, saying the problems being seen are a “dire warning that America’s ability to keep the lights on has been jeopardized. That’s unacceptable. The decisions we make today determine whether utilities across the nation have the resources to power the American economy tomorrow. Federal policies must recognize the compromised reliability reality facing the nation before it’s too late.
For more information contact Tucker Davis at the Kentucky Coal Association at (859)233-4743 or via email at tdavis@kentuckycoal.com.
LEXINGTON, KY (May 11, 2023) — Earlier today, the Biden Administration released a draft package of regulations that will effectively force utilities to close the remainder of the nation’s coal-fired power generation fleet. Today’s action will drive up Americans’ electric bills, push the electric grid past the point of failure, lead to electricity rationing, and bring the nation’s economy to its knees, while China and India continue to grow their economies with low cost coal-fired power generation.
The new rules require coal-fired power plants to capture 90 percent of their CO2 emissions by 2040.
Biden EPA Administrator Michael Regan said utilities can “avoid most requirements by agreeing to shutter their coal units by 2032 or by 2035 if they run them only occasionally. Plants that will retire by 2040 but don’t meet those criteria would co-fire with natural gas, meaning that they would use 40 percent gas to lower their emissions.”
The Biden Administration is taking this action despite warnings from utilities and regulators that closing any more baseload generation capacity will lead to widespread blackouts and total grid failure. Today’s announcement is an open declaration of war against America’s coal miners, their families and the communities across this nation that depend on coal. It will drive tens of thousands of American onto unemployment lines and electric bills beyond many Americans’ capability to pay, forcing millions into energy poverty for millions. It will bring an end to economic development for Kentucky and the other states that depend on coal-fired generation for low industrial electricity rates to attract business investment.
Here in Kentucky, we’ve seen first-hand what the radical policies of the Obama and Biden Administrations have done.
Kentucky Power (KP) stopped coal-fired power generation at its Big Sandy plant in 2015. Since its closure KP customers have seen their electric bills increase by 78 percent – from 9 cents per kWh to 16 cents per kWh today. The shutdown of Big Sandy’s coal generation was largely the result of a decade-long regulatory assault by the Obama-Biden Administration that was designed to force utilities to close coal-fired power plants. Kentuckians were not alone in seeing their bills rise, average electricity prices across the nation increased by almost 30 percent between 2011 and 2021, as coal-fired generation went from 42% to 22%.
As a harbinger of things to come, this past December, Kentucky Utilities instituted rolling power outages as temperatures plummeted due to a polar air mass because they did not have the ability to meet the electricity demand. Yet, Kentucky Utilities and its sister company Louisville Gas & Electric are currently before the Kentucky Public Service Commission requesting approval to close 1,500 MW of coal-fired generation, that’s enough power to service over 600,000 homes.
Just a few weeks ago, PJM, the grid operator for the nation’s largest electricity market, projected it will lose 40 GW of generating capacity by 2030 – 21% of the market’s existing capacity – with only 31 GW of additions in the same period. Of the 40 GW of projected losses, PJM expects 25 GW to be pushed off the grid due EPA rules and state-mandated clean energy targets.
PJM believes that just three EPA rulemakings – part of the suite of six the agency is promulgating – could force 10,500 MW of capacity off the grid. Even the Biden Administration’s own regulators say the pace of coal plant closures is too fast.
FERC Commissioner Mark Christie has said traditional sources of power are shutting down “at an unsafe pace” to keep up with the transition to wind and solar and that “The red lights are flashing everywhere. We’re not going to have sufficient power supply.”
Christie’s fellow FERC Commissioner James Danly said, “We know that there is a looming resource adequacy crisis. Our market operators have been explicitly telling us as much for years. Both MISO and ISO-NE have warned about upcoming scarcity and PJM, the nation’s largest wholesale [electricity] market, and the one that serves Washington, D.C., has recently raised the alarm about impending shortfalls.”
Even the Biden-appointed Chairman of FERC, Willie Phillips, testified: “I am extremely concerned by the pace of retirements we are seeing of generators that are needed for reliability on our system.”
In fact, in 2022, as many as 40 planned coal plant retirements were postponed or scrapped largely due to acute grid reliability challenges where utilities and grid operators have made it clear closing plants would be reckless.
Today’s action by the Biden Administration must not be allowed to move forward. We urge you to call your Congressmen, your Senators, to contact your neighbors and friends and tell them our nation is being threatened by President Biden’s reckless disregard of reality, of the needs of average Americans who depend on reliable, affordable electricity. Urge them to take action to stop these policies from being enacted. The time is short. The threat to our way of life is real.
For more information contact Tucker Davis at the Kentucky Coal Association at (859)233-4743 or via email at tdavis@kentuckycoal.com.
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FRANKFORT, KY (March 16, 2023) – The following is a statement from the Kentucky Coal Association (KCA) regarding the passage of State Senate Bill 4, sponsored by Senator Robby Mills, which will help protect the state’s electric grid from the threat posed by the ill-advised closure of much of the state’s coal-fired electric generation fleet.
“Kentuckians are common sense people. When you find yourself stuck in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. It has been obvious for some time that the continued closing of the state’s coal-fired power plants is bad policy and something had to be done to protect the long-term stability of the electric grid. The near failure of the grid to meet demand this past December brought the issue to the fore.
Today, the Kentucky General Assembly took a big step toward guaranteeing Kentuckians can feel confident that when they flip the light switch or turn on their furnace, the electricity they need will be there. The Kentucky House passed Senate Bill 4 on a 66-28 vote. The bill will now go to Governor Beshear for his signature.
We trust the Governor will sign this common-sense bill. Nothing is more important in the modern world than the ready and reliable availability of affordable electricity. It is the lifeblood of industry. Without it, nothing works. No lights, no heat, no television, electric vehicles, computers, none of the comforts of modern life. Kentucky’s ready access to affordable and almost limitless electricity is why so many major manufacturers have chosen the state as home.
However, the continuing closure of power stations across Kentucky and across the country, has robbed our state of the certainty that our coal-fired baseload generating plants provided for so long. Last December, due in large part to these closures, combined with the inability of renewable and natural gas plants to meet demand during the bone-chilling temperatures the state was seeing, threatened to push the grid past the breaking point to failure. The result would have been catastrophic and life-threatening. Today, the House joined the Senate in the passage of SB4, effectively drawing a line in the sand and saying ‘no’ to further cuts without a full accounting of the impact on the economy and human life.”
For more information contact Tucker Davis at the Kentucky Coal Association at (859)233-4743 or via email at tdavis@kentuckycoal.com.
By Tucker Davis, president
Kentucky Coal Association
March 15, 2023
Between 2011 and 2022, residential customers of Kentucky Power saw their electric bills increase by 78 percent – from 9 cents per kilowatt hour to 16 cents per kilowatt hour. This increase coincided with the shutdown of the company’s Big Sandy coal-fired power plant and its conversion to natural gas.
Meanwhile, residential customers of LG&E saw their electric bills go up by 33 percent over the same period – from just over 9 cents per kilowatt hour to just over 12 cents per kilowatt hour. And residential customers of Duke Energy saw a 48 percent increase. Lastly, Kentucky saw its national rank among states for the lowest cost of power from 4th to 18th.
The one common factor in the rise of electric bills for Kentuckians is the closure of approximately 6000 MW of coal-fired capacity that has been shut down in Kentucky over the past decade. That is enough power generation capacity to provide electricity to every home in Kentucky for three years.
A few months ago, LG&E and KU announced further closures of coal generation across the state, and coal capacity continues to be retired at breakneck speed across the country. Defenders of the push to close coal capacity claim it will save customers money. But it clearly hasn’t so far, as the skyrocketing price of electricity clearly shows. In fact, more and more Kentucky families are facing energy poverty – forced to choose between food on the table and paying their ever-increasing electric bills.
And it isn’t only the price of electricity that is becoming a problem. Utilities are closing down coal-fired capacity faster than the oft-promised replacements with wind, solar and battery storage are being built and brought online. And yet, the power companies have largely shifted from long-term supply contracts for coal, which can be stored at the power plant until needed, to buying coal at spot prices as needed. This may sound like a good idea, but it prevents the coal companies from producing a regular, dependable amount of coal, which means fewer coal mines operating, few coal miners working and, when the crunch time comes, higher prices for what coal can be produced.
Meanwhile, renewables simply can’t produce as needed. In fact, as shown many times in recent years, they fail and production declines at the very times when the most electricity is needed – such as during the recent bone-chilling cold snap in December, when these same power companies were forced to issue warnings for blackouts, brownouts and shortages, pushing customers to reduce usage just as the need was greatest.
MORGANTOWN, WV — West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research recently released a study looking at the economic impact of the nation’s coal industry. They looked at the nation as a whole and then broke down the impact by coal-producing state.
The study showed that in 2021, the coal mining industry in the state of Kentucky produced around 26.6 million short tons of coal and employed around 3.5 thousand workers. The reseachers estimate that this coal production generated around $1.4 billion in output in 2021. This output is estimated to generate $1.0 billion in secondary output impacts, resulting in a total economic impact of more than $2.4 billion in output in the Kentucky economy.
They further estimate that the 3.5 thousand coal mining jobs in Kentucky in 2021 are expected to generate nearly 5.0 thousand additional jobs in the state economy, resulting in a total employment impact of 8.5 thousand jobs. Further, coal production generates more than $670.0 million in labor income in the state.
Finally, coal production is estimated to generate $172.0 million in select state and local tax revenue.
LEXIINGTON — Friends of Coal is volunteer organization made up of Kentuckians and non-Kentuckians alike, with one main goal: informing and educating Kentucky citizens about the coal industry. Ask us how to become a Friend of Coal today! Contact us at kca@kentuckycoal.com.
UNIONTOWN, KY — State Senator Robbie Mills, (R-District 4) was presented an award today by Kentucky Coal Association President Tucker Davis for legislative work preventing investment companies from engaging in energy company boycotts. Mills was presented the award during a tour of Riverview Coal.
#friendsofcoal #coal #kentucky #Alliance #ESG
Lexington – The following statement may be attributed to Tyler White, President of the Kentucky Coal Association, regarding actions taken this week by the President of the United States of America with regards to the Energy Independence Executive Order:
The Kentucky Coal Association is pleased to see President Trump’s Energy Independence Executive Order. This is another example of this administration’s commitment to the American people by taking steps to ensure American policies are not stifling growth and development by artificially limiting our ability to produce affordable and reliable energy.
Actions taken in this Executive Order are consistent with the President’s commitment to returning EPA to its core mission of protecting the environment. This will begin to return the EPA to its proper role under the Clean Air Act of actually regulating air emissions, instead of dictating to states how they should produce electricity. The Clean Air Act was not designed to allow EPA to determine how states should produce electricity. But the Clean Power Plan (CPP) gave EPA just such authority, in clear violation of the law.
The CPP was legally flawed from the beginning, and represented an unprecedented and unlawful power grab by the last Administration. We were confident the CPP ultimately would have been struck down as illegal by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court already recognized there were substantial legal questions raised by the rule and that it risked causing great harm to the economy, and the Court took the nearly unprecedented step of staying the rule.
Many states like Kentucky have wisely ignored the CPP while it has been stayed by the Supreme Court. It is our hope that with this new action from the administration, all states will put this behind them and focus instead on providing affordable and reliable electricity to grow their economies and give their citizens the best chance to achieve upward mobility. Here in Kentucky, we know that such affordable and reliable electricity that is fueling growth comes from coal.
For too long this country has been victim to policies that limit our growth by overregulation. Policies put into motion by the former Administration, like the Clean Power Plan, would have provided no meaningful impact on the planet’s climate but would have had a devastating impact on the U.S. economy. We appreciate that this administration is not picking winners and losers in the energy business and is allowing coal and other fuels to compete on a level playing field.
According to the National Mining Association, “EIA recently found that unplugging the CPP would preserve 240 million tons of annual coal production (EIA AEO 2017), saving 27,700 high wage mining jobs and an additional 99,849 jobs throughout the supply chain, according to NMA estimates.”
