Mill Creek Station

From Global Energy Monitor

Mill Creek Station is an operating power station of at least 1717-megawatts (MW) in Louisville, Jefferson, Kentucky, United States with multiple units, some of which are not currently operating.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Plant name Location Coordinates (WGS 84)
Mill Creek Station Louisville, Jefferson, Kentucky, United States 38.052378, -85.909811 (exact)

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

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Unit-level coordinates (WGS 84):

  • Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 4: 38.052378, -85.909811
  • Unit CC1: 38.0525, -85.9103

Project Details

Table 2: Unit-level details

Unit name Status Fuel(s) Capacity (MW) Technology CHP Start year Retired year
Unit 1 operating coal - bituminous 355.5 subcritical 1972 2024 (planned)
Unit 2 operating coal - bituminous 355.5 subcritical 1974 2028 (planned)
Unit 3 operating coal - bituminous 462.6 subcritical 1978
Unit 4 operating coal - bituminous 543.6 subcritical 1982
Unit CC1 pre-construction[1] gas[2] 621[2] combined cycle[2] not found 2028[1]

CHP is an abbreviation for Combined Heat and Power. It is a technology that produces electricity and thermal energy at high efficiencies. Coal units track this information in the Captive Use section when known.

Table 3: Unit-level ownership and operator details

Unit name Owner Parent
Unit 1 Louisville Gas & Electric Co [100.0%]
Unit 2 Louisville Gas & Electric Co [100.0%]
Unit 3 Louisville Gas & Electric Co [100.0%]
Unit 4 Louisville Gas & Electric Co [100.0%]
Unit CC1 Louisville Gas and Electric Company[3] PPL Corp

Natural Gas Generation

In December 2022, Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities companies announced that they plan to retire nearly a third of the capacity of their aging generation fleet by 2028 and build two natural gas plants, including one 621 MW combined-cycle unit at the Mill Creek Generating Station. As of June 2023, the company is seeking approval from the Kentucky Public Service Commission, which is expected to be received by Oct. 1, 2023[4].

Unit Retirements

In July 2023, Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LGE/KU) requested approval from the utilities regulator to close four coal units, including E.W. Brown Generating Station Unit 3, Ghent Generating Station Unit 2, and Mill Creek Units 1 and 2. LGE/KU proposed retiring these units between 2024 and 2027, replacing them and other aging generating systems with fossil gas combined cycle units, solar and battery storage facilities, as well as solar power purchase agreements.[5]

2022 winter blackouts

In January 2023, the CEO of Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LGE/KU) blamed blackouts on December 23, 2022, on a frozen gas pipeline. The blackouts affected 35,000 customers and the utility shed 317 MW in load to stabilize the system. The CEO’s comments were cited by Republican legislators the following month before they adopted Senate Bill 4, which made it harder for utilities to retire coal and other fossil fuel power plants. In August 2023, however, the Kentucky Public Service Commission held a hearing in which LGE/KU revealed that 800 MW of coal capacity was offline during the outage. At Mill Creek station, 121 MW were offline due to frozen components in a coal delivery system. Also offline were 639 MW at Trimble County power station and 62 MW at E.W. Brown Generating Station.[6]

Emissions Data

  • 2006 CO2 Emissions: 10,089,535 tons
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions: 25,464 tons
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
  • 2006 NOx Emissions: 12,594 tons
  • 2005 Mercury Emissions: 361 lb.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Mill Creek 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.[7] The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma-related episodes and asthma-related emergency room visits, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, peneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution is formed from a combination of soot, acid droplets, and heavy metals formed from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and soot. Among those particles, the most dangerous are the smallest (smaller than 2.5 microns), 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. 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.

The table below estimates the death and illness attributable to the Mill Creek Station. 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.[8]

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Mill Creek Station

Type of Impact Annual Incidence Valuation
Deaths 75 $550,000
Heart attacks 110 $12,000,000
Asthma attacks 1,200 $64,000
Hospital admissions 54 $1,300,000
Chronic bronchitis 45 $20,000,000
Asthma ER visits 73 $27,000

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

Coal Waste

Water Contamination

In August 2010 a study released by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice reported that Kentucky, along with 34 states, had significant groundwater contamination from coal ash that is not currently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The report, in an attempt to pressure the EPA to regulate coal ash, noted that most states do not monitor drinking water contamination levels near waste disposal sites.[9] The report mentioned Kentucky based Mill Creek Station, Shawnee Fossil Plant and the Spurlock Power Station were three sites that have groundwater contamination due to coal ash waste.[10]

EPA "high hazard" dam

In November 2011, the EPA released a new set of data that revealed 181 “significant” hazard dams in 18 states - more than three times the 60 significant-hazard ponds listed in the original database released in 2009. In addition to the increase in the number of significant hazard-rated ponds, eight previously unrated coal ash ponds were found to be high hazard ponds in information released by the EPA earlier in 2011. Because of the switch in ratings after the EPA inspections, the total number of high hazard ponds has stayed roughly the same at a total of 47 ponds nationwide.[11]

According to the National Inventory of Dams (NID) criteria, “high” hazard coal ash ponds are categorized as such because their failure will likely cause loss of human life. Six states that gained high hazard ponds include:[11]

Other coal waste sites

To see a nationwide list of over 350 coal waste sites in the United States, click here. To see a listing of coal waste sites in a particular state, click on the map:

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Citizen groups

Articles and Resources

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 https://web.archive.org/web/20230407223456/http://www.lge-ku.com/future. Archived from the original on 07 April 2023. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archive-date= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://web.archive.org/web/20230321143518/https://lge-ku.com/newsroom/press-releases/2022/12/15/nearly-one-third-lge-and-kus-aging-generation-be-retired-2028. Archived from the original on 21 March 2023. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. "U.S. Energy Information Administration, Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory (May 2023)". Archived from the original on September 18, 2023. Retrieved June 21, 2023.
  4. "Nearly one-third of LG&E and KU's aging generation to be retired by 2028". LG&E KU. December 15, 2022. Retrieved June 1, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. "PSC to retire several coal, natural gas plants," Middlesboro News, July 24, 2023
  6. "Coal-fired power failures during winter storm come to light months later," Kentucky Lantern, September 8, 2023
  7. "The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source," Clean Air Task Force, September 2010.
  8. "Technical Support Document for the Powerplant Impact Estimator Software Tool," Prepared for the Clean Air Task Force by Abt Associates, July 2010
  9. "Study of coal ash sites finds extensive water contamination" Renee Schoff, Miami Herald, August 26, 2010.
  10. "Enviro groups: ND, SD coal ash polluting water" Associated Press, August 24, 2010.
  11. 11.0 11.1 Ken Ward Jr., "EPA data reveals more dangerous coal ash ponds" Coal Tattoo, Oct. 31, 2011.

Additional data

To access additional data, including interactive maps of the power stations, downloadable datases, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Plant Tracker and the Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.