Coal's future bleak in New England

This is likely to have an impact on New England's freight railroads...

From The Portland Press Herald:

The Portland Press Herald wrote:In 2000, coal was the third-most-used fuel for electricity in New England, accounting for 18 percent of the region's power. Now, it produces just 6 percent of regional power, according to grid operator ISO New England.

Read more at: http://www.pressherald.com/business/coa ... 09-10.html

MEC407 wrote:This is likely to have an impact on New England's freight railroads...

From The Portland Press Herald:

The Portland Press Herald wrote:In 2000, coal was the third-most-used fuel for electricity in New England, accounting for 18 percent of the region's power. Now, it produces just 6 percent of regional power, according to grid operator ISO New England.

Read more at: http://www.pressherald.com/business/coa ... 09-10.html

Probably very little impact. Brayton Point and Bridgeport Harbor both receive coal by ocean-going barges. Lower delivery charges if a station can be reached by vessel. Rail is generally used only by stations that don't have access to the ocean other than stations in coal producing states so the rail trip is not much different than going to tidewater to transload.

Are there any New England power plants other than Bow, NH, and Mt. Tom, Mass., that have received coal by rail in recent years? As noted above, most of the remaining coal-fired plants are on navigable water and get their coal by boat.

TomNelligan wrote:Are there any New England power plants other than Bow, NH, and Mt. Tom, Mass., that have received coal by rail in recent years? As noted above, most of the remaining coal-fired plants are on navigable water and get their coal by boat.

Well Tom, the UI plant in Bridgeport still got coal through most of the 60's, I don't know just when rail shipments of coal ended there. The coal came through Maybrook on a unit coal train usually on a Saturday or a Sunday. The Laurel plant also got coal well into the 60's via the Air Line from Cedar Hill, I worked that job one night and it was a very interesting night. One more, Cos Cob got company coal up to the time that they shut down the coal fired boilers there and went entirely to natural gas for the last few years of operation at Cos Cob.
Noel Weaver

Ken W2KB wrote:Probably very little impact. Brayton Point and Bridgeport Harbor both receive coal by ocean-going barges. Lower delivery charges if a station can be reached by vessel.

Yes, so wouldn't that mean that plants like Bow and Mt. Tom would cost more to operate, and therefore would be even less economically viable than Brayton Point and Bridgeport? If the plants with ocean access can't make it, that doesn't seem like it would bode too well for inland plants. Thoughts?

I'm sure the P&W would beg to differ that there will be little impact on New England railroads.

is there any play in using north dakota crude at the sandwich station? i remember the plant used south american crude in the past. it is now closed. who might i contact to inquire if this is feasible? ken patrick

MEC407 wrote:

Ken W2KB wrote:Probably very little impact. Brayton Point and Bridgeport Harbor both receive coal by ocean-going barges. Lower delivery charges if a station can be reached by vessel.

Yes, so wouldn't that mean that plants like Bow and Mt. Tom would cost more to operate, and therefore would be even less economically viable than Brayton Point and Bridgeport? If the plants with ocean access can't make it, that doesn't seem like it would bode too well for inland plants. Thoughts?

Among other things, that would depend on the heat rate of the unit and the pricing mechanism for capacity, energy and reliability in ISO New England. Note that the Bridgeport coal unit is rarely dispatched with the prevalence of cheap natural gas. Mid-merit and peaker gas-fired units are often less expensive given the clear and abundant gas supply.

Noel Weaver wrote:

TomNelligan wrote:Are there any New England power plants other than Bow, NH, and Mt. Tom, Mass., that have received coal by rail in recent years? As noted above, most of the remaining coal-fired plants are on navigable water and get their coal by boat.

Well Tom, the UI plant in Bridgeport still got coal through most of the 60's, I don't know just when rail shipments of coal ended there. The coal came through Maybrook on a unit coal train usually on a Saturday or a Sunday. The Laurel plant also got coal well into the 60's via the Air Line from Cedar Hill, I worked that job one night and it was a very interesting night. One more, Cos Cob got company coal up to the time that they shut down the coal fired boilers there and went entirely to natural gas for the last few years of operation at Cos Cob.
Noel Weaver

Don't know when coal stopped being shipped by rail, but Bridgeport Harbor Station's present owner PSEG Fossil, LLC changed it over to coal imported from Indonesia in 2002 as I recall.

PSEG Fossil's Hudson Station in Jersey City, NJ changed from rail to ocean going barge at some point when Conrail as such was still extant. Coal moves by rail to tidewater in Virginia and there it is transloaded into barges for the trip to northern New Jersey.

KEN PATRICK wrote:is there any play in using north dakota crude at the sandwich station? i remember the plant used south american crude in the past. it is now closed. who might i contact to inquire if this is feasible? ken patrick

GenOn's Canal Station, to which you are referring, is not closed. Just checked and as of a week ago both units were in ISO New England's installed capacity. It may not be dispatched often, but is available. That said, only a very tiny fraction of generation in the US has been oil-fired for many years and most of that is for peaker, not steam base load or load following. The cost of oil and environmental restrictions essentially rule out oil except for a small number of days use per year. If Canal were to be dispatched, it would probably be only the unit capable of burning gas unless there were numerous unanticipated generation forced outages elsewhere in the ISO.

ken- the reason i think it 'closed' is that they sold the oil contents of their tanks. it can't go on line without oil. i believe the emissions uproar was over sulfur. the north daktoa light, sweek crude has less than 1% sulfur. the venezuela crude was much higher. in addition, the venesuela screenings container marketable amounts of vanadium as well as nickel & carbon. louis gallo had the disposal contract and loaded 4 gons/week o scrrening ( foul stuff) for disposal in arkansas. how can this plant be in standby without new fuel? ken patrick

KEN PATRICK wrote:ken- the reason i think it 'closed' is that they sold the oil contents of their tanks. it can't go on line without oil. i believe the emissions uproar was over sulfur. the north daktoa light, sweek crude has less than 1% sulfur. the venezuela crude was much higher. in addition, the venesuela screenings container marketable amounts of vanadium as well as nickel & carbon. louis gallo had the disposal contract and loaded 4 gons/week o scrrening ( foul stuff) for disposal in arkansas. how can this plant be in standby without new fuel? ken patrick

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why couldn't the owner just refill the oil tanks?

ridgefielder . my point. now, how do you fill the tanks ? bakken crude is looking for users. seems the crude is in excess of current demand. do you load barges in new jersey from railcars to be floated to sandwich or do you run the railcars to the plant? since the oil is moving by rail to new brunswick, i'm thinking the all-in price at sandwich would be attractive. and certainly to the railroads. the current bnsf move is pas from mechanicville to new brunswick. perhaps the routing should be csxt to worcester where canal tankers are cut for a middleboro move to mass coastal. mass coastal would do all the switching and enjoy a significant revenue bump. i would love to work the pro-formas. ken patrick

Bridgeport Harbor's discharge permit to burn coal was just renewed after a contentious proceeding with substantial enviro group opposition. I believe it will continue to use coal imported from Indonesia for the very few days per year that the unit operates.

KEN PATRICK wrote:ridgefielder . my point. now, how do you fill the tanks ? bakken crude is looking for users. seems the crude is in excess of current demand. do you load barges in new jersey from railcars to be floated to sandwich or do you run the railcars to the plant? since the oil is moving by rail to new brunswick, i'm thinking the all-in price at sandwich would be attractive. and certainly to the railroads. the current bnsf move is pas from mechanicville to new brunswick. perhaps the routing should be csxt to worcester where canal tankers are cut for a middleboro move to mass coastal. mass coastal would do all the switching and enjoy a significant revenue bump. i would love to work the pro-formas. ken patrick

The station is receiving capacity payments from the the New England Independent System Operator ("ISONE") to be available when called into capacity. Perhaps a limited amount of fuel oil was retained or can be obtain on very short notice from area suppliers. See below with respect to the station using residual fuel.

The air quality permit proceedings state that the units burn residual oil, not crude. Residual is what is left over after refining of crude to remove lighter products such as gasoline, 2 oil, 4 oil, etc. I believe that it would be highly unusual for crude to be used directly as a fuel, thus 'wasting' the economic value of the lighter products that could be extracted from the crude. That said, I suppose that crude could be burned directly, but in the highly competitive market for wholesale electric power in the northeast, such would likely render the plant at more of a competitive disadvantage.