From Fox 5:Queens Power Plant to Close Sunday
One of New York City's dirtiest power plants is closing this weekend. New York State Power Authority officials confirmed Friday that The Charles Poletti Power Project in Astoria, Queens, will close at 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
The Astoria plant was named one of the city's worst polluters in a 2002 report by the Environmental Protection Agency. The generating station was built in the mid-1970's and could burn either oil or natural gas.
Queens City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. calls the closing a breath of fresh air. Vallone and an environmental group won a 2002 lawsuit against the power authority, which led to the plant closing this weekend.
A replacement plant was built in 2005 to provide electricity to city agencies, subways and metro-area commuter trains.
8 comments:
Yay, Poletti's dead. Though too late for my mother's asthma. Too bad they didn't shut down Big Allis in Ravenswood before the deregulation.
Good riddance!
How many other power plants are left around there?
Although I live nearby and my non-smoking lungs have been savaged by the plant, I wonder how we can make up for the loss of capacity. We already have blackouts and summer is on the way.
Yes Poletti is dead but US POWER GENERATING's huge Astoria Generating PLant is still standing, and still polluting the East River and all the people of Astoria. When will politicians and the community step up and finally have that huge pollution causing dump shut down?????????? People of Astoria, we need to do something about this ASAP. US POWER GENERATING is not a public company, so they get to fly under the radar. If you all knew how much pollution they were hitting AStoria, you'd be protesting.
Be careful what you wish for. There is a reason NYC has the most expensive energy and capacity in continental US. The closure of the Poletti plant resulted in a loss of about 900MW of capacity, or about 10% of the NYC requirement. Result? You are now paying the most expensive capacity pricing seen, ever:
http://www.ferc.gov/market-oversight/mkt-electric/new-york/elec-ny-cap-nyc-pr-vlm.pdf
Of course, since most of you are not large C&I, these capacity charges are rolled up in your magical "$/kWh" rates.
We as a society find blackouts to be absolutely unacceptable, resulting in a near vertical demand curve at the capacity requirement. Ironically, your calls for closing down more plants would be a boon to capacity providers. Guess who benefits when you close down plants, while simultaneously refusing to reduce your usage? That's right, the remaining capacity providers.
So by all means, close down the plants. We will have a wonderful time racking in 15$/kW-mo capacity charges from you folks.
Or smarten up, realize energy is extremely important, and "protest" to have new power plants built, and the transmission system improved.
anonymous who just posted. You are full of shyt and probably work for one of these companies that is polluting the air. Dont give us the nonsense that we will pay more? I myself know about the energy industry. Plants are MEANT TO SHUT DOWN after 50 years. Do u still run cars from 1950 wiseguy? So stop feeding the public BS info. A plant is not supposed to be open 60 years. New ones should be built. If USPOWERGEN or these other companies will build new, more efficient plants, we are fine with it. If not, go move the plant in your neighborhood....That just won't fly anymore. And if our costs went up slightly to be healthy, I am sure most people would be fine with it. It is when the costs are high due to your awful management of your companies, so you have to bill back the people. So maybe you should have more efficient union workers, and not guys doing OT, double time, and all nonsense. Not to mention half your vendors are involved in kickbacks. So please tell the public the truth. How about you either a) run the plants more efficiently. b) shut down old plants and create more efficient, c) sell your plants and let a company who actually knows what they are doing run it. or d) build some new plants NOT IN ASTORIA.
Better yet, when USPOWERGEN bought the plants in 2006, it "promised" the City Council to get rid of the old, polluting plants and build new ones......has it happened?? read below. This is from an article in 2006 when USPOWERGEN purchased the plants..
Officials of the U.S. Power Generating Company, which is close to acquiring the Astoria generating plant in Astoria, have assured local public officials that the company is willing to work with the community to adopt measures to produce clean energy.
Assemblymember Michael Gianaris (D–Astoria), commenting on the pending sale negotiations, stated: “I have been assured by the U.S. Power Generating Company that it intends to close the existing Astoria facility and replace it with a much cleaner alternative. While this is welcome news, I intend to make sure that this promise is kept.”
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