Hutsonville Power Plant Goes Away Forever

Another Crawford County Landmark is gone forever. The Ameren CIPs which has been in operation for my entire lifetime has now dispersed. Not efficient, Dirty Coal and other EPA bureaucratically mumbo-jumbo has been given as the reason. 

Coal burning plants are leaving the country side daily with no replacement plants being built. It will only be a matter of time before the Newton Power Plant falls victim to EPA regulations. As much as the tree-huggers want to save the environment, they haven't come up with a practical alternative energy source. Wind mills and solar panels might be the future, but at the present time, they couldn't come close to meeting our needs. In the mean time...electricity prices will continue to soar and rural America will suffer for it. It may seem like a good idea to get rid of these old power plants.But let's look at what has gone on here.  There used to be a railroad tracks that delivered coal from Danville Illinois to Power the turbines. Hauling the coal by train was very efficient, but then it seemed like a good idea to pull out the rails and track beds during a downturn in the economy. The same tracks that went by the power plant came through  Robinson. Over the years the line was known as the Big Four,
New York Central, Penn Central and Conrail. Conrail was the last effort where the US Government got involved in the management with of course, doomed it forever.

 Power Plant Today

When the gas prices were low, the powers that be felt it was cheaper to haul coal from Indiana by truck. That was fine until gas prices went shy high and the EPA declared Indiana Coal to dirty to burn. Coal had to be shipped in from the Western United States. But wait... there aren't any train tracks leading to the Hutsonville Plant anymore. The Newton Power plant has remained viable for now because coal can be shipped by rail.( How much extra C O2 goes into the atmosphere from locomotives coming halfway across the country?) Probably more than if we would burn the local coal that we have in spades. But I digress.

Know for a fact that coal is being phased out of our country as it should. In fifty or a hundred years when we have the technology to replace it!!!

Political agendas are killing small towns; Especially in Southern Illinois. Think how many good jobs we have lost over the years. Power Plant Jobs, Railroad Jobs, Coal mining and all of the support businesses.

Technology had improved enough to keep the plant viable if Far minded leaders used common sense! Don't kill the horse if you don't have another one to take its place.

For you millennials,.. that means don't get rid of a good inexpensive source of energy to take its place.  I'll eat my hat when I see a nuclear power plant on the Wabash River.

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Rick Kelsheimer

More Good Ideas at the Time

Tear them down and all we have are old pictures

Enough Said