Quenton, AL: 1978 2.8MW Alabama Power James H. Miller Generating Plant

(Satellite) 

Four units, each of which is 705.5mw. The project was commissioned in Oct 1978. [power-technology]

The units are subcritical. [gem]

The plant burns sub-bituminous coal. The units came online in 1978, 85, 89 and 91. As a result of a 2001 EPA agreement, $200m was spent to install sulfur scrubbing and selective catalytic reduction. As with most power plants that are still operating, they are now struggling to meet EPA requirements for coal ash disposal. [bhamwiki] That may explain why the units are subcritical.

HAER ALA,37-BIRM.V,10-
AERIAL OVERVIEW - Miller Electric Generating Plant, Warrior River, Birmingham, Jefferson County, AL

The formal name is John H. Miller Jr.

Wikimedia via eenews
[It is the largest carbon dioxide emitter in the US since it is big and it achieves a high capacity factor (76% in 2019).]

The above aerials don't have the coal pile. But this one shows it.

Photo by Nelson Brooke. Flight provided by SouthWings. via BlackWarriorRiver
[The ash pit is unlined and relies on a 170' earthen dam for containment. ]

Note that the above aerials have just two smokestacks. A street view below shows that it now has four smokestacks and that it uses just the two new ones. The new stacks have scrubbers that were installed as a $900m project that was completed in 2011. "Since 1996, the plant has cut its emissions of nitrogen oxides by 76 percent and sulfur dioxide by 95 percent, thanks to the successful installation and operation of new scrubbers and selective catalytic reduction technology on all four of the plant's generating units." [prnewswire] This plant was already burning low-sulfur Powder River Basin (PRB) coal. "The state-of-the-art Double Contact Flow Scrubber (DCFS) technology installed at Plant Miller is capable of controlling multiple pollutants (SO2, SO3, particulate matter, mercury, other metals and acid gases). Because of its simple internal configuration, the design is robust and typically achieves 100 percent availability." Because the scrubber uses pre-ground limestone, a byproduct is exceptionally pure saleable gypsum. [aecom] I thought burning Wyoming coal was good enough to avoid the expense of scrubbers. If they now have scrubbers, can they switch back to Illinois Basin coal? I'm glad it also removes mercury and other metals. That is a current problem, along with CO2 emissions, of many contemporary coal-fired plants.

Street View

Using PRB coal explains why coal is delivered by BNSF unit trains. "Although the plant sits in the middle of the Warrior Coal Field, it burns only 7000 BTU western coal. One of the security personnel told us they receive 4-5 coal trains each day! Wow!" [csxthsociety, this page contains several photos of a train and the power plant] Because of the Frisco railroad, it appears that BNSF can use its own tracks all the way to the power plant.

The crane in this 2011 photo caught my eye. The $900m of pollution controls must have been more than just the scrubbers because they are already working in this photo.

I can't determine who wrote the blog post.

Eric Wasson posted
Alabama Power Plant Miller makin’ Megawatts!
Bob Batchelor: Quinton Alabama
Andrew Shafer: They keep a lot of people employed at BNSF. Good to see all 4 units up!
Cleve Whatley: Used to work there, very clean producer of power from PRB coal.

I saw about a half dozen articles about this being the first or second largest emitter of CO2. But how many other plants produced 21,658,406 mwh in 2006? It ranked 126th in emissions per mwh. [bhamwiki]

This article lists the top 10 emitters, but it doesn't bother to indicate the power produced for each plant. Thus there is no list of tons of CO2/mwh.

al
Alabama Power "has completed more than $1.2 billion in environmental improvements at its coal-fired power plant in Jefferson County."
[It is not clear if that is just for air pollution, or if that includes the work they have done to reduce the coal ash pollution.]

Ben Stalvey posted two photos with the comment:

The octatrack 21000. One beast of a machine. Sadly only 8 have ever been built... Not sure currently how many are actually working. Or just sitting around in crane rental yards...

Lift capacity of 1,000 tons with the maxer wagon.

Here is a video of the same crane https://youtu.be/vcIFnRakPzI

Alabama Power had two 21000 Manitowocs

[The comments include several more 21000 photos. This post was my motivation for researching this power plant.]

1

2

safe_image for 9:50 YouTube Video
Alabama Power's Plant Miller How Electricity Is Generated 3D Animated Tour

Comparing the road map with the satellite image shows the fly ash waste pond at one time covered all of the "scarred land."

Satellite

Map

The groundwater at this site contains unsafe levels of lithium, sulfate, cobalt, molybdenum, arsenic & boron. [AshTracker] Alabama Power plans to begin de-watering this facility in 2019 with a final closure date estimated for 2029. [BackWarriorRiver] I wondered if the difference between the satellite image and the road map was because of the de-watering so I fired up Google Earth. I did not see any variance in the pond size. But in the 1999 image I noticed a north/south hill in the middle of the land scar.

Google Earth, Jan 1999

And that hill was longer and wider by 2002.

Google Earth, Mar 2002

It looked like it stopped growing at the 2002 size, but it became heavily eroded by 2006.

Google Earth, Jun 2006

At first, I thought they had removed it by 2010. But maybe they just flattened it.

Google Earth, Sep 2010

Today they have scars on top of scars. Are these drying ponds? Is the white the gypsum that they have been making since the scrubbers were installed?

Satellite

Flickr photo