Skip to main content

Coal Supply Disruption Threatens Operations at North Dakota Plant

News release from the Basin Electric Power Cooperative:
Bismarck, N.D. – Curtailment plans are being formulated at Missouri Basin Power Project’s Laramie River Station in Wheatland, Wyo., because the rail transportation system has not been delivering the fuel required to keep the plant operating at full production. Since May of 2005 deliveries out of the Powder River Basin to all utilities have been highly sporadic.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative is the operator of and part owner of Laramie River Station. Ron Harper, Basin Electric’s CEO and general manager, said “the reduced rail deliveries aren't a result of a lack of supply or ability to produce coal in the Powder River Basin; it’s simply a lack of rail transportation of coal to Laramie River Station. We are concerned about a decline in service and efficiency.”

Maintaining full generation levels at the 1,650 megawatt, three-unit station requires 24,000 tons of coal per day, which is what BNSF Railway is normally scheduled to deliver. Just to match daily consumption, LRS needs the equivalent of one-and-a-half trains per day. (A train consists of about 136 rail cars, each carrying about 120 tons of coal.) In addition, a stockpile is maintained at the plant site, which is used as backup in case of an interruption in rail deliveries. Today, the stockpile contains less than six days of operation at full production.

“In order to conserve our stockpile and maintain at least some production at the station, we are currently determining how to reduce production levels in the event curtailment becomes necessary,” Harper said. “Even though there’s enough demand for all three units to operate at full capacity, we want to conserve coal to be able to perform during a severe cold snap, for example. We are doing everything we can to continue full production, including adding a fourth train set and purchasing coal from mines closer to the plant to reduce transportation cycle times.”

If the stockpile is depleted further, the project will be forced to implement a 20 percent generation curtailment to preclude the possibility of reaching total coal exhaustion, which would shut the entire project down. A total plant shutdown may result in significant economic and reliability impacts to the region.

Laramie River Station is owned by the Missouri Basin Power Project, a consortium of consumer-owned electric utilities. Participants include Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Bismarck, N.D.; Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Denver, Colo.; Missouri River Energy Services, Sioux Falls, S.D.; the Lincoln Electric System, Lincoln, Neb.; the Heartland Consumers Power District, Madison, S.D.; and the Wyoming Municipal Power Agency, Lusk, Wyo.
Interesting.

Technorati tags: , , ,

Comments

Anonymous said…
"Interesting."

I figure you are all sitting at your computers faintly smiling and thinking "One and a half 136 car trains full of uranium fuel rods do last quite longer than a single day."

Well, so am I. ;)

It seems the god of railroads sends swift retribution to the burners of fossil fuels. ;)

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should