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| Mining #Shorts posted West of St. Louis, four massive generating units rise above the Missouri River floodplain. Together, they form the Labadie Power Plant, the biggest coal-fired power station in Missouri. Commissioned in June 1970, the Ameren-owned facility carries a generating capacity of roughly 2,400 megawatts. That’s enough to supply electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes across the Midwest during peak demand periods. The plant burns low-sulfur coal shipped mainly from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Labadie became one of the defining pieces of Missouri’s industrial grid during the second half of the 20th century. Even today, coal still dominates Missouri’s electricity mix, and Labadie remains one of the state’s most important generating assets. But the station also became highly controversial. Environmental groups and federal data have repeatedly ranked Labadie among the nation’s largest sulfur dioxide emitters and one of America’s biggest greenhouse gas sources. Debates surrounding ash ponds, groundwater contamination and air pollution placed the facility under growing scrutiny over the past decade. Despite that pressure, the plant continues operating while many other large coal stations across the country shut down permanently. That contrast says a lot about the current American power grid. Even as utilities push toward gas, wind and solar, giant coal plants like Labadie still carry a major share of the electrical load when demand surges across the Midwest. |
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| 1972/73 Labadie Quad @ 24,000 |
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