There are 2 additional factors that that contributed to the decline in coal use in the northeast. Following WW 2 may manufacturing facilities moved out of the area to lower cost regions of the country. Many of these facilities used coal to power the factory. Of course there was no need to ship coal to a shuttered facility. The larger impact on coal use in the northeast was the new regulations enacted about 1970 that imposed air quality requirements. The remaining industrial coal users and electric utilities switched to fuel oil and natural gas to meet the new requirements. The power plant near West End noted by Paul Tup (PSE&G's Hudson Station) switched one of its units to oil. The second unit continued to burn coal into the 1980's (and may still be doing so), but it is delivered by barge. It was much cheaper to convert an electric generating unit to burn oil or gas than to install the necessary equipment to allow continued use of coal and meet the regulations. Many of PSE&G's generating units were designed to burn either coal of natural gas. They would burn coal (later oil) in winter and natural gas in summer when the gas was not needed for home heating. Boilers that continued to use coal were also switched to a lower sulfer supply to meet the new regulations and the end result was the closing of many mines, in Ohio and elsewhere, that contained higher sulfur coal. Large amounts of PRB are used in the east to help meet even more stringent air quality requirements. In addition to the plant noted by Randy, there is another large generating plant in southern Indiana, about 40 miles east of Evansville that burns on the order of 5 million tons a year, but it is delivered by barge. Most of the PRB is railed to the Mississippi and then barged to the power plant. If Indiana is too far west, there are at least 2 plants in the Cincinnati area, one of which burns 2-3 million tons a year, and at least one plant in the Pittsburgh area besides the eastern Ohio plant served by the OC. There is a very large power plant south of Detroit that has been burning PRB since the mid 1970's. I am sure there are many other power plants east of the Mississippi that burn PRB today and this trend has been accelerating in the last decade. While the original destination of PRB may have been for local consumption, today the Ohio river valley is a significant market for PRB. The statement that the first trainload of PRB coal came out in 1984 is incorrect. A new rail line built in the early 1980's to increase the capacity of the rail lines in the basin. The building of that line is quite a story on its own. Significant amounts of coal were coming out of the basin and headed east for a least a decade before the new line was opened. Pete S The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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