The Story of Coal ....... as told by the end user ---->

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

The power plant I work for is owned by a large utility that owns several coal power plants. The utility publshes a monthly magazine for its employees to keep them up to date on general company news and other business sectors they may not be afiliated with. This month’s magazine had it’s feature story on coal. It resembed Mark Hemphill’s article on commodities of the Rio Grande (although solely on coal in this case), but from the viewpoint of the end user - the power utility. I thought some of you might find it interesting, so I retyped it here. I apologize for the length, but I wanted to include it all. It includes mention of the rail transport in the second half of the article.

This article was written in Exelon’s monthly company magazine (December '04). Keep in mind it was written by employees of a power company, for employees of a power company, but I thought it had some neat information in it from the other end of the tracks.

BLACK GOLD

In today’s highly competitive business of electric generation, companies
such as Exelon Generation only make money if their generation assets are online and producing electricity at a price the market finds acceptable.
With both oil and natural gas reserves needing to be increasingly imported
from other countries at escalating prices, a number of electric generation
companies have again looked to the United States’ enormous domestic coal supply as a way to lower their overall fossil fuel costs.
Considering that point, it is no wonder why 51 percent, or nearly 2 million
gigawatthours, of the nation’s electricity was generated by the use of coal as a
fuel source in 2003. Exelon Generation, which alone used more than 7.75 million tons of coal last year, is no exception.

Why Coal?

"Just like you would want to diversify your stock portfolio, we want to
diversify our fuel portf

2

Dave,

Thanks for sharing this very interesting and informative piece of literature. It’s nice to know the full story of coal from mine to power plant. Every time I run a coal drag I have often wondered about the process as a whole and now I know a whole lot more!!!

3

Exelon is the parent company of Commonwealth Edison (northern Illinois) and Philadelphia Electric (SE Pennsylvania). It’s interesting to find out how far they have to go to get suitable coal for their plants. Also note that the plants are designed for a specific grade of coal and new supply sources have to be carefully selected. Using the wrong grade of coal can affect a power plant’s performance as surely as it affected a steam locomotive’s performance.

4

Your article is great. I was a Southern Company employee back in my 20’s and early 30’s building two similar plants (Wansley and Scherer) as you described. After reading you companies article the hurtles of time fell down and I was back on the base slab looking up at a real large piece of work. There is nothing in the world quite like watching those things come out of the ground when they are being built and the come to life in commercial operation for the first time. The reciept of the first shipment of coal from the railroad (Norfolk Southern) is viewed as the beginning of “bringing the baby to life.” thanks for the thread, you made a 50 something mans day.

5

88:

Great article. Thanks for taking the considerable time and effort to share it.

ed

6

Lots of coal trains here in British Columbia, but none are going to power plants here in the province, all are headed overseas, most to China I would imagine.

7

Very GOOD article,Thanks for sharing it with us.[:)]

8

Surprising to hear of coal coming from Venezuela.