After pouring billions into failed green energy debacles, Obama’s War on Energy continues.
Obama pledged to cripple the coal industry, using government , specifically the EPA as his pit bull. This is not what the founders envisioned government doing, as in politicizing industries, ultimately eradicating the free market.
Yet, that’s exactly what Obama does routinely. The most recent victim of Obamatization is the J.E. Corette coal-fired power plant in Billings, MT.
According to the plant’s owner, the plant will shut down in August; just another casualty in a wave of closures across the country that has the coal industry reeling.
The 153-megawatt plant owned by PPL Montana has operated since 1968 along the Yellowstone River. It burns coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
PPL had announced plans in 2012 to mothball the 30-worker plant this spring, with consideration to restart it if market conditions improved. However, PPL spokesman David Hoffman said a recent re-analysis showed a temporary shutdown no longer made economic sense.
The projected cost to resume power generation at Corette had increased to more than $40 million, he said, as weak electricity markets in the Pacific Northwest were keeping down profits.
Make no mistake about it, without Obama, the plant would have likely come back online. However, the cost of new pollution controls needed to meet federal restrictions on emissions of mercury and other toxins produced by burning coal made the decision an easy one.
