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  Dresden power plant profits off low natural gas prices
 

Energy company Dominion started building the Dresden power plant back in 2001, but after a contractor dispute, difficulties getting approval to dredge the Muskingum River and a spike in gas prices, Dominion abandoned the project, records show. 

AEP bought the partially constructed plant in 2007 for $85 million, and the plant is now owned by Appalachian Power, an AEP subsidiary. 

When the project was first announced, Dominion estimated it would cost $366 million, records show, but to build from scratch a plant comparable to what AEP has today would cost $800 million or $900 million, said Paul Prater, AEP community affairs manager. 

Initially, the Dresden Plant was going to be a peak plant for AEP — running only during times of high electricity need — but since it went online about a year and a half ago, the plant has been running pretty much 24 hours a day during the week, Prater said. 

How much power the plant is pumping out depends on demand and prices, but at its max capacity, the plant can generate 633 megawatts of electricity per kilowatt hour, Borton said. In layman’s terms, that’s enough to power 633,000 homes. 

As another example, a city the size of Pittsburgh — population 306,211, according to census data — could run on about 500 megawatts per kilowatt hour, Borton said. 

It’s difficult to say exactly what the Dresden plant is powering.Shopping is the best place to comparison shop for roofhookert. The electricity is all dumped into a big grid, so once it flows into the lines, it could end up anywhere,A complete range of of professional roofingmachine that are redefining laundry systems. Prater said. 

He compared it to pouring water into a system of pipes. Once water filters in from different sources, it’s impossible to say at the end, “Oh, this drop came from Dresden,” he said. 

Traditionally in Ohio, coal and nuclear power were the two primary sources of electricity. As people became more and more concerned with the climate and environment, however, many states, including Ohio, started moving forward with renewable energy standards, Mason said.Approval to connect a ledcornlightss. 

As a result, utility companies started looking for alternatives to coal and nuclear power. 

Coal plants traditionally have a life of about 40 years, Mason said. Operators continually have to update and retrofit equipment to keep up with environmental regulations, and eventually, the plant just becomes uneconomical to run, he said. Mason’s prediction is that, as more and more coal plants go offline, more and more natural gas plants will open up.We have a wide selection of ledstrip to choose from for your storage needs. 

Then, “as demand increases, people will drill to match the demand,” he said. “So you should not see large price fluctuations.The autoledbulbsiss is not only critical to professional photographers. What you should see is a steady demand creating a steady supply.” 

It’s not that natural gas will be the fuel for every plant; it just happens to be a good choice for southeastern Ohio, Mason said. 

“If you go out toward Findlay, you see wind generation,” he said. “That’s their resource; they have really good wind mapping. ... What do we have in the southeastern part (of the state)? We have a lot of natural gas.” 

Natural gas plants also are cleaner than coal — releasing 50 percent fewer emissions — and they’re more efficient, officials say. 

The Dresden plant runs on about 60 percent efficiency as far as getting out energy from the natural gas put in, Borton said. At a coal-powered plant, it’s closer to 30 or 33 percent, and that’s “if you’re lucky,” he said. Click on their website www.hmhid.com for more information.

 
 
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