Cheswick closure in southwest Pennsylvania latest coal casualty

(The Center Square) – Cheswick Generating Station became latest conventional coal-fired power plant casualty in Pennsylvania this month as the handful of remaining facilities face increased economic and environmental pressure to follow suit.

Cheswick employs about 60 people and has, in recent years, functioned mainly as a peaking plant that ramps up production when energy demand is high enough to justify its pricey operational costs, according to a report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It is one of just six operating coal-fired facilities left in the state, according to the newspaper, down from 23 in 2004.

So it came as little surprise when the 565MW facility in Springdale, on the northeastern outskirts of Pittsburgh, failed to clear PJM’s annual capacity auction – meaning other fossil fuel plants and renewable resources offered electricity at lower cost, setting a price floor Cheswick could not match.

Dave Freysinger, CEO of GenOn – the company that owns Cheswick and two other facilities in Ohio and Maryland slated for closure – said “the decision to retire a power plant is always a difficult one for employees and the local communities.”

“These are not decisions taken lightly,” he said.

In a June 8 statement, he blamed “unfavorable economic conditions, higher costs associated with environmental compliance, an inability to compete with other generation types and evolving market rules that promote subsidized resources” for forcing Cheswick into retirement as of Sept. 15.

But the Cheswick closure is just the latest in a string of retirements that began nearly 20 years ago as the energy market shifted from coal production to cheaper natural gas.

It’s an economic transition best illustrated in the state’s western half, where a boom in natural gas development – coupled with growing political pressure to curb industries that contribute to climate change – helped usher in coal generation’s twilight years.

An analysis from the journal Science published in December predicts that about 1,400 “coal extraction” jobs will exist in the state as of 2035 – a 67% decline compared to 2018 estimates. Natural gas extraction employment will decrease 77% during the same time frame, the data shows, while plant jobs will decline 70%.

Emily Grubert, the study’s author, said policy planning now for anticipated job losses could prevent economic devastation unseen since the collapse of the steel industry 40 years ago.

But state lawmakers worry that Gov. Tom Wolf’s climate policies, namely his executive order entering Pennsylvania into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in early 2022, will force history to repeat itself.

“We all want clean air, don’t get me wrong,” said Rep. Jim Struzzi, R-Indiana, during a House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee on the same day Cheswick announced its retirement. “But this is not the way to do it – by jeopardizing not only the economy in Indiana County, but the economy across this commonwealth.”

Struzzi’s comments reference his second attempt at passing a bill that would block the state’s path into RGGI and prevent future governors from entering the program without legislative approval.

RGGI, a consortium of 11 northeastern and midAtlantic states, auctions off emissions caps to power producers in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Participating states reinvest the proceeds into programs that promote clean air and energy efficiency, though state Democrats prefer an approach that consider environmental justice policies, too.

Modeling from the Department of Environmental Protection estimates that Pennsylvania will cut upward of 225 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions and generate 27,000 new jobs through 2030 by joining RGGI.

“Climate change is the most serious long-term threat to this planet and this is not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists,” said Minority Chairman Greg Vitali, D-Havertown, during the committee’s June 8 meeting. “It’s also their opinion that we need to act quickly and deliberately to address it.”

Republicans argue that Wolf’s executive order violates the constitution by implementing a carbon tax without any legislative support. Besides, they say, the emissions RGGI reduces will be erased by leakage from nonparticipating border states, including Ohio and West Virginia.

“The imaginary line between my district and Ohio is not going to stop the CO2 emissions,” said Rep. Josh Kail, R-Monaca. “It’s garbage. It’s just flat out garbage.”

Kail said it’s easy for lawmakers in the state’s southeastern corner to support RGGI and other climate change policies that “attack” coal because “it’s in someone else’s backyard.”

He also doubted the DEP’s economic estimates from RGGI participation.

“The bottom line is what people are really talking about is jobs being created somewhere else, jobs probably in another country,” he said. “They’re not going to be jobs in my district. They’re not going to be jobs in western Pennsylvania.”

Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Carmichaels, said she knows firsthand the devastation a plant closure inflicts upon a community. She represents Pennsylvania’s 50th House district in the southwestern corner of the state, where about 400 residents lost their jobs in 2013 after FirstEnergy retired two plants rather than retrofit the facilities to comply with federal pollution regulations, according to a report from the Herald-Standard.

“Let me be clear, I care deeply about the environment, contrary to what some may believe,” she said. “But, I also care about the social economic environment in my district and the people I represent here today.”

Snyder – who co-sponsored House Bill 637 with Struzzi – said her district shares “real borders” with West Virginia and is home to the largest producing coal plant in the world. She criticized DEP and the Wolf administration for insinuating that public support is on their side when her constituents weren’t able to contribute to the public discourse.

“The DEP had virtual hearings. Well guess what? In the place where coal is mined, in the place where people are going to be out of jobs, they couldn’t get online to participate in those public hearings because they don’t have broadband access,” she said. “To say that it was a fair process is incorrect.”

Supporters of RGGI and other climate change policies insist that the coal industry’s days are numbered, with or without the program. Grubert’s analysis concludes that nearly three quarters of the nation’s fossil-fuel fired generation capacity will reach the end of its typical life span by 2035. The DEP estimates that “limited” coal facilities will operate beyond 2025 in Pennsylvania, though new additions of natural gas are anticipated in the coming decade.

The Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, in an economic impact report published in 2019, said the industry supports nearly 18,000 direct and indirect jobs and is a key part of the state’s role as the third largest power producer, behind Texas and Florida, in the nation.

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