 |
| safe_image for Xcel to replace Sherco coal plant with 460-megawatt solar project in Becker Tim Livingston: 460 mw covers 3,200 acres 😱 William B. Hearn: Visited this plant in 2013 right before they closed Mitchell to view the installation of the Gore Mercury Removal System on a couple of their scrubber modules. We were planning on installing that system on Mitchell Unit #3. Less than 3 weeks later they announced the closing of Mitchell. The Gore System was later installed on Ft. Martin #1 & 2 from where I retired. The system seems to work pretty good at the Fort. |
"Unit 1: 765.3 MW (1976), Unit 2: 765.3 MW (1977), Unit 3: 938.7 MW (1987)
Technology: Subcritical
Coal type: Sub-bituminous
Unit Retirements: Unit 1 is scheduled for retirement in 2026, Unit 2 in 2023, and Unit 3 in 2030, according to Xcel Energy SEC 10-k Filing for 2020.[4]" It burns 30,000 tons of coal (three trainloads) of coal every day. [gem]
 |
| Street View |
Given the modern-looking buildings and the late 1970s dates, I assumed that these were built with particulate control. In fact they were also built with scrubbers with #1 and #2 using wet scrubbers while #3 used a dry scrubber. Mercury controls were added to #3 in 2009. "Unit 3 was severely damaged in November 2011 during the testing of safety equipment, followed by a nearly two-year shutdown that required the unit to be rebuilt from the ground up. It began operating again in October 2013." [gem] That 938.7mw unit is one of the largest I have seen, so I'm surprised that the technology is subcritical instead of supercritical. The coal type of sub-bituminous means it is burning Powder River Basin coal. That makes sense since this plant is even closer to PBR than Duluth. Duluth is where PBR coal is shipped to power plants further East such as those by Detroit.
 |
| MPCA Photos Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) |
Even a modern plant has some old-fashioned dials and manual controls.
 |
| MPCA Photos Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) |
The above Flickr site has more photos from a tour of the plant including this one.
 |
| MPCA Photos Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) |
2005 Mercury Emissions: 958 lb.
- Chromium Waste: 56,671 pounds
- Air Release: 421 pounds
- Land Release (Landfill/Sludge/Reuse): 56,250 pounds
- Dioxin Waste: 1.85 grams
- Air Release: 1.85 grams
- Lead Waste: 60,914.2 pounds
- Air Release: 380.8 pounds
- Land Release (Landfill/Sludge/Reuse): 60,533.4 pounds
- Nickel Waste: 74,185 pounds
- Air Release: 605 pounds
- Land Release (Landfill/Sludge/Reuse): 73,580 pounds
[gem]
It has the most modern coal handling system that I remember seeing. Note the stacker/reclaimer in the middle of this view. And the many feet of conveyor belts. I'm guessing that the long building is to store coal in an above-freezing environment. I'm reminded that this plant is up north in Minnesota. Near the bottom of this view, we can see the engines of a second train that is waiting to be unloaded. The engines of the train currently being unloaded are near the northeast corner of the loop track.
 |
| Satellite |
 |
| mprNews Sherburne County Generation Plant's Unit 3 is under repair in Becker, Minn. Oct. 2, 2012. A mechanical failure caused a fire to the coal-powered turbine in November 2011. MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson "Xcel officials expect repair costs to be between $150 and $200 million, most of which is covered by insurance." The cause was still under investigation. |
 |
| mprNews Sherburne County Generation Plant in Becker, Minn., pictured Oct.2, 2012, is the largest electric generation plant in Minnesota. MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson |
In 2008, Excel was planning to add Mercury controls to #1 and #2 also. But because of the flux in Federal regulations, they later decided to convert those units to natural gas. Now they have scrapped the natural gas plans in favor of solar power. But a 460mw solar plant does not replace a 2,469mw plant. The grid will loose 2 giga-watts. In fact, a 460mw solar plant doesn't even replace 460mw of coal unless the solar plant includes a lot of batteries. People turn on their lights when the sun is not shining.
 |
| StarTribune, Feb 28, 2017 Jason Wachter - St. Cloud Times via Associated Press Excel got the state legislature to pass a bill allowing units #1 and #2 to be converted to natural gas. The bill allowed them to do an end run around the regulatory agency. The conversion would reduce the employment from 300 to 150 people. But since then they have decided to scrap the natural gas plans. |
Both Northern Pacific and Great Northern passed just north of the plant.
 |
| 1980 Clear Lake Quad @ 1:24,000 |
No comments:
Post a Comment