A look inside Oregon's only coal power plant before it shuts down 

No one wants to build natural gas plants people hate them

@@joshuamast5128 Can I have some of what you're smoking? Nat gas gas-turbines in hybrid plants are way preferable to coal-fired steam-cycle.

The only use for natural gas is to BURN it for heat or electric, and it burns very clean and with NO dusty mountains of ash to transport and dispose of

@@joshuamast5128 you're smoking crack man. i've worked on 4 new gas plants in the past 5 years.

@@HobbyOrganist problem is not ash but co2

it's not a dirty fuel if it's properly scrubbed. stop believing all of the propaganda, we do have ways of making coal cleaner.

Er, thermal power plants work better in cold weather. www.tva.com/energy/wintertime-efficiency

The irony is, Texas would've had reliable backup if they didn't trade 33% of their gas and nuclear power for wind turbines.

You make a great point. Coal is not the only source of backup power during peak demand. These guys act like coal (probably the dirtiest form of fossil fuel) is all there is which can fulfill high demand. Simply not true.

Texas's nuclear power did not shut down during the freeze. Just their gas and coal.

@@blainelafreniere5170 Typically when demand is high, plants are put on gas curtailment. So not very reliable either.

@Raa Hiissdd dass barely any waste.

..?

Till it melts down

Thorium salt reactors dont meltdown

Chernobyl the land becomes a nuclear wasteland.

That’s a bummer. Sorry to hear that brother good luck

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

@@Brian_yeah_that_brian_Strang Awesome news for our environment and economy

@@NicholasLittlejohn You must be off the grid then?

@@generatorjohn4537 no he's just an idiot who thinks renewable energy sufficient enough. Little does he know, renewable energy will harm the environment just as bad.

Are you a plant? Do you think more extreme weather and climate refugees are a good thing?

@@phiksit Why do I need to be a plant to know that carbon dioxide is plant food? So tell me, how does plant food create “climate refugees”?

its not dont lie, if water drops lights go out, happened than aliuminium plants where forced to close as there was no energy from hydro

They already do... lots of hot air.

Never underestimate the power an aggrieved wealthy white liberal woman.

It's mostly economics. Coal is an expensive power source compared to solar, wind and natural gas.

@@nathanstrain2158 Nah, coal produces much cheaper electricity than solar and wind. Natural gas is about even with coal if not a little better when used in a combined cycle plant. Nuclear is next on the list and all the way at the top is hydroelectric.

@@nathanstrain2158 The stats I look at shows Coal as one of the most economical fuels but even if what you say was true, why would you need a triggered Karen and lawsuits? The free market would cause them to shut down on their own without anyone forcing them to .

@@mosipd So true.

Fossil fuels are far more subsidized.

@@nathanstrain2158 um not really. But okay

I worked in the electric power industry and I have to say is if renewable energy was SO Cheap why didn't they do it year's ago??? I smell BS here the government is mandating renewable energy. I can relate to these people, my power plant closed March 2019 and was able to retire.

@@fxdb2011 why does the Gov't have to subsidize it... and what do you do when wind doesnt blow?

@@tdgreenbay Yes really, plus all that burned coal produces massive amounts of dusty waste ash that has to be disposed off by transporting it elsewhere- so there's a big loss of efficiency there.

Are you a tree? Trying breathing CO2 😛

Sick with happiness

All the other polluters

@@NicholasLittlejohn Trojan didn't pollute. Nuclear power plants emit only steam.

Trojan closed because of safety issues

And replacing it with viable alternatives that pollute way less.

@@coorbin Wind is not viable and never will be.

Well sure, see it from their angle. They want the best of both worlds, and they'll make the rest of us pay for it if it means they can have it.

@@chardontimes8392 How do you think unreliable and dilute energy could ever be viable?

@@coorbin go stand outside on a dark windless night and give some thought to "green power".

Mostly being replaced by gas fired plants. Cheap to build, cheap to operate.

Oregon is like 50% hydro backed by gas… they’ll be fine without this one

China is currently building 10 coal fired power plants I think many other countries are still building them to this day, and the technology they use makes them even cleaner than before

@@Marlboro.Reds1776 Coal is DEAD, China which bought huge amounts of American coal has been replacing coal with SOLAR PANEL FARMS and has been decreasing use of coal; ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qaSJLKM5ApA.html This is the solar power plant expand on 30,000 acres with 6 million solar panels. currently having 3000 MW Last September, Bloomberg reported that a 2GW capacity solar farm with 6 million solar panels was being built in the Ningxia autonomous region, which would make it the the world’s largest solar plant. China is the world’s largest solar power producer by capacity, with total installed capacity of 77.4GW at the end of 2016, the National Energy Administration said this month. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tGz1ir0A1zo.html The irony of all is this floating solar panel farm built over a collapsed and flooded former COAL MINE; 2017 HUAINAN CITY, CHINA - A new floating solar farm constructed on a lake in Huainan City, China is said to be the largest in the world. According to the South China Morning Post, the farm is made up of 160,000 solar panels. These panels reportedly can produce electricity for up to 15,000 homes. The farm is built over a lake that emerged from a collapsed coal mine, reported Phys.org. The water from the lake helps cool the panels’ electronics, reported the Smithsonian Mag, citing a Telegraph report on Europe’s largest solar farm. The farm was linked to Huainan City’s power grid last month, reported the South China Morning Post. The U.S. has also lost global leadership on the $100 billion global solar industry. American scientists invented the technology in the 1970s, though it remained peripheral until China did what China does better than anyone: mass-produced with incredible speed and booming efficiency. As a result, the price of panels plummeted 40% over the last two years as demand has mushroomed. Four out of five solar modules installed around the world today are Chinese-made. “China’s investment in solar really is a gift to the world,” says Amit Ronen, director of the Solar Institute of George Washington University. time.com/china-massive-floating-solar-field/ ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tGz1ir0A1zo.html world largest solar power plant 3000 MW china Last September, Bloomberg reported that a 2GW capacity solar farm with 6 million solar panels was being built in the Ningxia autonomous region, which would make it the the world’s largest solar plant. China is the world’s largest solar power producer by capacity, with total installed capacity of 77.4GW at the end of 2016, the National Energy Administration said this month ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qaSJLKM5ApA.html

A little? C'mon, we're talking megatons.

Coal really isn't that dirty at all.

@ say that to all the people who died with black lung disease.

@@Hmonks Worked in coal for thirty years, lungs are fine. we had to get them checked every year. We are not in the 1920's anymore.

Grid batteries are what's needed.

cheap natural gas is killing coal, not renewables

Grid batteries and demand response.

@@NicholasLittlejohn Your grid batteries have a finite life span, after which they become HazMat to be disposed of. Wind turbine blades also have a finite life span...they have opened a special disposal site just to bury them.

Even plants are affected by droughts, flooding, extreme temps and weather caused by excessive CO2 ... not to mention the finite habitable regions are shrinking causing more climate refugees.

The Sierra Club has sued to stop wind farms as well (www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/environmentalists-sue-over-proposed-california-wind-farm)

My best information is that we can expect blackouts.

Nuclear Plants are the way to go. France generates most of its power from Nuclear!

@@Humza_3.14 Damn it, Edgeworthy and JD, your comments are refreshingly logical and reasonable. :)

@@webranger1962 yup. better get a good home generator, and install LPG in it.

people like her are a huge problem

Nuclear ??

Stop it, you are making to much sense

Coal technology is obsolete. Time to go nuclear

@@clayallen4354 to where?

Mike is an anti climate troll

@@Deterrent-xz5zz The government has not offered to permit any new nuclear plants….are talks going on between the green new deal bureaucrats and utility companies to explore new nuclear plants? No.

J D it’s not that *i* don’t want them as base load, it’s that they aren’t base load. And nuclear is going away. All US plants will age out in the short to medium future.

777jones the nuclear industry is recovering and projected to grow it simply won’t go away not feasible

@J D Nuclear & Hydro are excellent sources, but there's a war on Nuclear as well. What to do if there's a single Nuc incident? No matter how minor, the Sierra Club will go after them. Wind & Solar aren't worth mentioning at this point (and unsightly). We need the diverse power resources available even if the coal burners don't run. There's an abundance of issues that could one day cause the country (and world) to say Thank God we have these coal plants to save us. A day without electric and we'll begin to implode

777jones people that are for fossil fuels should stop killing children and probably not have any.

I happen to love my woodstove and "sunshower". Hardly fossilized. Conscious thought always a BIG PLUS- use some.

Different types of burners. You'd basically have to rebuild the place.

That's so wrong I'm not even sure where to start. Loads vary now more than ever with computers, TVs, air conditioners, electric ovens and stoves, and many other appliances all being used basically exclusively during the afternoon, meaning a massive peak in demand. There are entire power plants dedicated to covering peaks. Saying peaks don't exist doesn't make them go away, it just makes you look like an idiot.

Henri Bergeron you can start by not going backwards. Thanks for listing electrical devices? lol. Bad ass enthusiasm! 👍🏼 I should correct myself. The peak power question was answered just in the last decade. It wasn’t meant to be literal. More of a comment on the lack of research in the video. Horrifically today California is disposing of power daily. The duck curve is still a basic reality, yes, this is only because the demand for battery storage facilities is greater than the supply. Green energy will be stored during the day to cover the peak and eventually through the night. 🤞🏼 this is proven in California, New Zealand & Australia. Power is held for demand in municipal or private facilities. As well as our home batteries and even looking more and more likely, our cars. The Battery technology being released now, literally this month, should realize a path set in stone. They might be lithium, dry cell even hydrogen? Some new chemistry? But battery storage is the answer to the peak problem. The conversation now is education, PRODUCTION and installation. Currently used ev batteries are being stacked into trailers that can be relocated in situations like hospitals to avoid peak demands and establish power reliability. Another leg of the solution is in the grid. Europe is developing a grid to share demand between countries. Unfortunately the states can’t sell extra power between them today for political reasons. This isn’t the best environment to fix that now. Yes, We have our work cut out for us, but the plan is functional. Peace

@@hyperdrivee7922 Where is it being proven as viable ANYWHERE? Just because South Austalia has batteries on their solar, doesn't mean it's changed ONE THING. Look at their own website for real time demand and generation. SA uses more power than they generate; solar comprises a bit less than 20% of the picture, and most of what they get from their neighbor states, is COAL GENERATED. Renewables are, like Tesla, crony corporatism to rob taxpayers and hold cash for demonrat campaigns. It's a huge circle jerk, and we're getting the corncob up our rears for our trouble. The only things we should be doing with our money, are tearing down the pinwheels and smoke-and-mirror solar spoiling the landscape, in favor of nukes, gas, and MORE COAL. You can pee and moan to your heart's content while enjoying FULLY RELIABLE power that uses less than 1/50th the land, leaving room for more plants and trees to soak in that CO2 you're wetting yourself over.

Bill Cichoke sorry you’re having a hard time. I hope things get better for you. Be safe.

@@hyperdrivee7922 Not as long as our grid is being destabilized by this 'green' malarkey.

It costs ~3 million dollars to build a 4MW wind turbine. Little maintenance over a 30 year lifespan. Cheapest power around.

Happy for health

No we want to kill the world

So your logic is: destroy the planet for short term economic stability? yeah it’s cheaper but so is labor in china. Doesn’t mean it’s admirable to utilize labor in china. It’s bad for the environment, simple as that.

Wind turbines are 1,000 year old technology. So, the chariot maker is putting the buggy maker out of business. Oh, and buggies are not run on fossil fuels, but cars and trucks are.

It’s called nuclear power. The most clean. More efficient than coal oil and nat gases. It takes 50 years before stuff has to be replaced and requires more people to operate causing more jobs. The only thing that stands in the way is big oil and it’s conspiracy theorists and uneducated republicans

Natural gas provides far more electricity than coal nowadays. And renewables have even surpassed coal. You don't need coal for electric cars, and you don't even need fossil fuels, since nuclear could power the entire nation with next to 0 carbon emissions.

China is cutting back on coal and heavily investing in Green Energy you Dingus.

@@ImperatorZor typical, not once did i mention i hated renewable energy but stated why renewable energy alone is not a good idea. I think they both have pros and cons. Really nuclear is the answer to both.

Before you tell people to get an education maybe you should stop calling them “fossil” fuels

@@ImperatorZor LOL i know this is old, but China is building coal plants at a steady pace.

Hvdc and smart grids can increase reliability of renewables. In other words, instead of opting for dispatchable energy, how about we even out our consumption?

The US produces much more CO2 per person than China or India. All three nations have to reduce emissions. And China is adding the equivalent of an entire American energy grid worth of renewable energy within 10 years, so it's not as if they aren't changing as well. The plant has to shut down eventually, all coal plants do.

No we can’t because those designs were never practical

You have GOT to be kidding. It IS due to Democrats, and KATE with her public employee mandate, HAS hastened it. Thanks to this nonsense, we out here in eastern Oregon have more and more solar, and less and less reliable power. I would LOVE for you to find out what it's like to have the same kind.if power over there. If you're so certain about wind, have PG&E turn off Bonneville and all the gas plants. Then, as your computers and other electronics get fired by the power fluctuations with NO BASELINE SUPPORT, you can bloviate about how magnanimous you are. Hell, most of Portland went to hell in a handbadjey when we were without power for less than a WEEK. Imagine your lefty paradise when you can't even trust the power socket you want to plug things into.

Bill Cichoke Bill, you're one squared away person! I'm shocked to see that liberals are removing cost effective and safe power generation in exchange for overpriced power from other States, same crap that was done to California! I grew up in Klamath Falls (70's-80's) and watching Oregon removing all their hydro electric plants and dams is pure criminal. Their windmill and solar power technology is a pure joke and generates far more hazardous waste than current systems. There's efficient air scrubbers that can remove the Co2 levels but, that wouldn't be warm and fuzzy for these yogurt eaters! Same goes for agriculture, there's automated harvesting equipment readily available where human harvesting is barely required except for the equipment operators. The liberals say "if not for illegals, who would pick the crops!?" Wow. It never ends until our society implodes so they can usher in their socialist utopia that resembles Cuba.

@ carbon dioxide is a Carcinogen so are a lot of the chemicals released when coal is burned.

@ forget about climate change. Coal causes cancer because it lingers in the air 100 year ago in New York the air quality was so bad people would get all kinds of fucked up lung diseases and asthma and die prematurely

@ "global warming is a hoax" that's enough to not belive you.

you cant coal cant be turned on off like gas,

Fossil fuels are not just dirty, they are non-renewable. This idiotic desire to live in the past ignores the economics of energy production and resource exhaustion. Coal is now more expensive than natural gas, and that trend will only solidify.

Looks like your comment was deleted, but I still see it in my recommendations. My response is that perhaps you should think of the billions of people and millions of species that DON’T live near the arctic circle, and can’t survive in a world where all the coal and oil is burned. Bit selfish to prioritize the comforts of a few people in Alaska over everyone else.

@@JD-ex7ix Look into it bro. Watch the Alex Jones podcast with Joe Rogan, Earth almost went into another ice age permanently, and mass extinction. But we luckily evolved when we did. We are actually saving the planet by burning fossil fuels. C02 levels and oxygen levels were once much higher in earths early history. When you burn oil or coal or natural gas or any other substance that produces green house gases, you are SAVING the world. TRUUUMP!!!

@@Darkwindowtint8389 Alex jones... Boi....boi.

@@Darkwindowtint8389 They're lying to you.

There's no mother in nature. We aren't doing anything the planet hasn't already seen or dealt with, and it won't care in the future. Why we ARE doing, is fulfilling the nazi/malthusian agenda of killing off as many people as possible. Not through war or pollution, but by denying them reliable and cheap power. Wanna help the planet? Get rid of renewables and vegans.

@@billcichoke2534 u hv your opinion i hv mine

@@boduke2522 Absolutely. I DO try my best to base my opinions on correct historical fact and observation though.

@@billcichoke2534 again i hv mine u hv yours lets respect everyones opinion and move on

@@chardontimes8392 Vegans require monocrops, which destroy the soil without the agency of herd animal wastes renewing and building it. Proven to create more desertification, which means lower oxygenation and less arable land. Also more health problems requiring more attention and assets. Vegans also tend to be use more technology and provide less actual work value, due to their lesser physical capability (again due to diet). As has been shown over the last 15 or so years, 're-greening' is possible, but ONLY through the inclusion of HERD ANIMALS. Also, as evidenced in certain sections of outer Sahara, this herding, plus HIGHER CO2 LEVELS, can even get plants to start growing in the WORST of these deserts. Renewables take and damage more land, with little to no benefit for the trouble. As well, end of life comes very quickly, and the components are not recyclable. This leads to a HUGE waste stream that usually falls on OTHER COUNTRIES to absorb. Not really as clean as advertised. If you want this or no electricity, then you're free to live that way. So move to subSaharan Africa. If you're REALLY wanting to deal with pollution and make cheap power available for all, AMERICAN coal plants and AMERICAN hard anthracite are less resource-heavy and cleaner than anyone else's coal generation. Plants cover 1/20 the area and provide CONSTANT, RELIABLE power for well over 40 years. If that isn't kosher, nuclear can do the same thing with 2/3 the space as coal, over similar lifespans, and produces ZERO exhaust and almost ZERO waste. With Liquid Fuelled Thorium reactors, that waste and others' nuclear waste can even be recycled as fuel. God DOES help us...if we stop listening to the false goddess (Gaia) zealots and use our heads.

No we dont.

Like what. It's not solar/wind so what else.

16,000 very cold dark homes on a calm winter night.

How will you heat YOUR home (if you own one) when the electrical grid goes down from too much stress on it? I assume you drive an electric car or a bus or mass transit... GEE, WHERE DOES ALL THE power to keep those modes of transportation AND lights and refrigeration of foods, among hundreds of other things that ALL people use every day; where is all that power going to come from? Maybe one day some wise people will figure out a practical/sensible way to use less hydro and coal for electricity production (since we also can't have nuclear plants either) but that time is not NOW. It amazes me that the climate "chicken littles" can't see the future of their impractical and dangerous ideas.

@@carolv5726 there is renewable energy sources. And for heating you use natural gas

@@kittybanana9389 people have to understand what dispatchable power is. Dispatchable power is power that can be adjusted on demand or when needed. This is power from coal, oil, natural gas and nuke. Wind power or renewable energy is not dispatchable. However what makes fossil fuel more expensive is the fact that when renewable energy output is up fossil fuel plants have to decrease output. Because costs dont decrease in times of low output the average costs of fossil fuels goes up substantially making fossil fuel appear to be higher. Bad thing is renewable energy such as wind doesn't care when energy demands are high like in summer with your a/c. If everyone turns their a/c on and it is a hot windless day you will have black outs or the local governments telling young people to use fans so the elderly can use a/c. So you see fossil fuels are in reality cheaper and more reliable. Its not the USA that a pollution pump its up and comming industrializing countries like China who we all helped get where they are that are poluting.

Solar generates electricity in proportion to the amount of light hitting the modules. Wind generates electricity in proportion to the wind velocity *raised to the power of ~2.5.* Meaning if the wind speed halves, electricity generated drops by more than a factor of 6. Unless the wind velocity drops below 7mi/hr to 10mi/hr, in which case the wind turbines are now a load. Big wind turbines need turning gear to keep the blades rotating when the turbine is not generating, as otherwise the blades will warp and cock up the bladeset balance. This turning gear uses tens of kW per turbine. Yes, the 'fuel' is free. Making that fuel into useful energy is anything but.

Cost of driving to work? $5. Cost of walking 25 miles to work? $0. Walk every day to work. Cost of owning a house? $250,000+. Cost of being homeless? $0. Live on the streets. Your comparison makes no sense. It’s invalid. You’re not accounting for the fact that it costs money to install and maintain solar and wind farms, and you’re literally not even considering the amount of electricity produced. It doesn’t matter if solar or wind power are “free” if you have to build and maintain (which costs money) a ton of them just to produce the same amount of power. If it was actually cheaper, the government wouldn’t have to subsidize it, and coal plants would be shutting down on their own without government interference led by people like you who have no idea what they’re talking about.

usa is the second biggest polluter in the world