Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Elrama, PA: 1950s-2012 510mw GenOn/Duquesne Power Plant

(Satellite)

100+100+125+185mw [gem

The power plant was shutdown in 2012 and removed in 2022-23.

3 of 17 photos posted by Mark Ankrom with the comment: "Elrama power plant this was a Duquesne light power plant! This plant had the first scrubber in the country! Their scrubber had a bypass built into it?? Plants built later did not have a bypass!!"
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wvhistoryonview

wvhistoryonview

3 of 9 photos posted by Gary Wetzler with the comment: "Just a few photos from Elrama Power Station."
Tim Fleegle: I've never seen it clean.
Gary Wetzler: Me neither…😂  The turbine floor pictures were while we were there during decommissioning. They had already been off for months.
Terry Haldin: Gary Wetzler I heard the took fire hoses to the walls to get them clean. That place was filthy when I was there. Periodically one of the unit would catch fire from the coal dust building up on the steam lines. There was so much coal dust that it peaked on everything, couldn't get any more on everything. For a while they couldn't make enough good water to fill the boilers. They would take water from a boiler that wasn't running. At one point, PJM wouldn't take a bid from them until they could run a unit for a full day.
Terry Haldin: Earl Cowher that place was dangerous, when I got there. They had a chlorine leak with a 1000 lb cylinder. Had to evacuate the plant. The place was on the verge of being shut down for lack of maintenance. Reliant Energy sunk a lot of money into that place. They didn't have digital control on the unit 1 and blew it up. Cost 12 million to repair it, along with asbestos mitigation. The place was a money pit!
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The following showed up in a Power Plant Pictorial search for Elrama. A comment indicates that this is Indian River, DE. I'm leaving this photo in these notes because this power plant is about the same vintage as the first unit in Indian River.
Rick Barbye posted two photos.
Rick Barbye: Indian River, DE.
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Gary Diefendorff commented on Rick's post
Well this isn’t the right use of parts from a B&W Type E pulverizer but this is what happens to the roof of a station wagon when a B&W pulverizer ball is fired from a home made mortar.

It appears the scrubber was the first thing to go in late 2022.
0:16 video with audio
 
0:28 video with a better view

The Mon Valley Photo Works posted
-Elrama Demo #1-
I made a long overdue visit to the Elrama Power Plant today. Demolition started a few months ago. Those familiar with this scene will notice that the scrubbers have been removed.
Elrama shut down 10 years ago. It was last owned by GenOn after being a Duquesne Light facility for many years. Then, in March of 2021, it was sold for about $5.1 million to Trogon Development LLC, which appears to be a shell company of some sort. Some further research led me to find this article about the owner of the company. Their track record with demolitions of these decommissioned coal plants has not been great so far, we will see how things progress in Elrama. https://www.wcpo.com/.../small-business-takes-on-big-job...
Rich Pantaleo shared

And then the power plant came down on May 12, 2023. Talk about biting the dust.
1:37 video

triblive

And on Sep 19, 2023 the smokestack went down. This is the first video I came across. The are more on YouTube, but I didn't look at them.
0:34 video



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