Asbury Generating Station

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Asbury Generating Station is a retired power station in Asbury, Jasper, Missouri, United States.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Plant name Location Coordinates (WGS 84)
Asbury Generating Station Asbury, Jasper, Missouri, United States 37.361319, -94.588667 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the power station.

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Unit-level coordinates (WGS 84):

  • Unit 1: 37.361319, -94.588667

Project Details

Table 2: Unit-level details

Unit name Status Fuel(s) Capacity (MW) Technology Start year Retired year
Unit 1 retired coal: bituminous 212.8 subcritical 1970 2020

Table 3: Unit-level ownership and operator details

Unit name Owner Parent
Unit 1 Empire District Electric Company [100%] Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp

Retirement

In October 2017 Empire District filed an application with the Missouri Public Service Commission to more than triple the amount of energy it gets from wind. If approved, the plan would call for Asbury to close by April 2019 - 15 years ahead of schedule. The company estimate the move from coal to wind would save more than $300 million over 20 years.[1]

In January 2020, it was reported that the plant would close by June 1, 2020.[2] It closed in March 2020,[1] and will be replaced by a wind farm.[3]

Emissions Data

  • 2006 CO2 Emissions: 1,212,452 tons
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions:
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
  • 2006 NOx Emissions:
  • 2005 Mercury Emissions:

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Asbury Generating Station

In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants.[4] Fine particle pollution consists of a complex mixture of soot, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Among these particles, the most dangerous are those less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, and pneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal plant emissions. These deaths and illnesses are major examples of coal's external costs, i.e. uncompensated harms inflicted upon the public at large. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities. To monetize the health impact of fine particle pollution from each coal plant, Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.[5]

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Asbury Generating Station

Type of Impact Annual Incidence Valuation
Deaths 9 $63,000,000
Heart attacks 13 $1,400,000
Asthma attacks 150 $8,000
Hospital admissions 6 $140,000
Chronic bronchitis 5 $2,300,000
Asthma ER visits 9 $3,000

Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

Coal Waste Site

Asbury ranked 72nd on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste

In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill.[6] The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.[7]

Asbury Generating Station ranked number 72 on the list, with 381,186 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.[6]

Articles and Resources

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Jordan Larimore,"Empire plans pivot to wind energy generation," Joplin Globe, Oct 31, 2017
  2. "Work underway in Missouri and Kansas on wind far project," Fox News, January 6, 2020
  3. "Wind farm going up in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri". Oklahoma Energy Today. 2020-05-12. Retrieved 2020-06-11.
  4. "The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source," Clean Air Task Force, September 2010.
  5. "Technical Support Document for the Powerplant Impact Estimator Software Tool," Prepared for the Clean Air Task Force by Abt Associates, July 2010
  6. 6.0 6.1 Sue Sturgis, "Coal's ticking timebomb: Could disaster strike a coal ash dump near you?," Institute for Southern Studies, January 4, 2009.
  7. TRI Explorer, EPA, accessed January 2009.

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of coal-fired power stations, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Plant Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.