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L.V. Sutton Steam Electric Plant is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Progress Energy near Wilmington, North Carolina.

Contents 1 Progress Energy to shut Sutton and other N.C. coal plants 2 Plant Data 3 Emissions Data 4 L.V. Sutton ranked 55th on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste 5 Articles and Resources 5.1 Sources 5.2 Related SourceWatch Articles 5.3 External Articles

Progress Energy to shut Sutton and other N.C. coal plants

On December 1, 2009, Progress Energy Carolinas announced that by the end of 2017 it would permanently close all of its North Carolina coal plants without sulfur dioxide scrubbers. The 11 units at L.V. Sutton, Cape Fear, Weatherspoon, and Lee total almost 1,500 megawatts and represent about a third of the utility's coal-fired power generation in N.C. The retirement plan includes the following:

• Lee is scheduled for retirement in 2013.
• Sutton is slated for closure in 2014. Progress hopes to replace it with a natural gas-fired power plant.
• Cape Fear and Weatherspoon will be shut down between 2013 and 2017. The company is considering converting 50 to 150MW of the total capacity to burn wood waste.

The closure plan was filed in response to a request by the N.C. Utilities Commission, which ordered Progress to provide its retirement schedule for "unscrubbed" coal-fired units in North Carolina. The request was a condition of the commission's approval of Progress' plan to close Lee and build a 950-MW natural gas plant at the site.^[1][2]

Plant Data

• Owner: Progress Energy Carolinas Inc.
• Parent Company: Progress Energy
• Plant Nameplate Capacity: 672 MW (Megawatts)
• Units and In-Service Dates: 113 MW (1954), 113 MW (1955), 447 MW (1972)
• Location: 801 Sutton Steam Plant Rd., Wilmington, NC 28401
• GPS Coordinates: 34.283786, -77.985205
• Coal Consumption:
• Coal Source:
• Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

• 2006 CO₂ Emissions: 3,159,267 tons
• 2006 SO₂ Emissions: 19,159 tons
• 2006 SO₂ Emissions per MWh:
• 2006 NO_x Emissions: 6,345 tons
• 2005 Mercury Emissions: 160 lb.

L.V. Sutton ranked 55th 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.^[3] The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.^[4]

L.V. Sutton Steam Plant ranked number 55 on the list, with 548,210 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.^[3]

Articles and Resources

Sources

1. ↑ "Progress Energy Carolinas Plans to Retire Remaining Unscrubbed Coal Plants in N.C.," PRNewswire, December 1, 2009.
2. ↑ Tina Casey, "Progress Energy Joins Stampede Away from Coal," Reuters, December 2, 2009.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Sue Sturgis, "Coal's ticking timebomb: Could disaster strike a coal ash dump near you?," Institute for Southern Studies, January 4, 2009.
4. ↑ TRI Explorer, EPA, accessed January 2009.

• Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2005, Energy Information Administration, accessed Jan. 2009.
• Environmental Integrity Project, "Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants", July 2007.
• Facility Registry System, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed Jan. 2009.
• Carbon Monitoring for Action database, accessed Feb. 2009.

Related SourceWatch Articles

• Existing U.S. Coal Plants
• North Carolina and coal
• Progress Energy
• United States and coal
• Global warming

External Articles

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