Mitchell Steam Generating Plant (Georgia)

Mitchell Steam Electric Generating Plant is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Southern Company near Albany, Georgia.

Conversions and retirements
On March 19, 2009, the Georgia Public Service Commission approved a request from Georgia Power to convert the coal-fired power plant to burn woody biomass. When the transition is completed, Mitchell will be the first biomass plant in the fleet of Georgia Power's parent Southern Company and "the largest biomass facility in the United States," according to Southern COO Tom Fanning.

In January 2014 Georgia Power said the company is cancelling a 2008 proposal to convert Plant Mitchell Unit 3 from a coal-fired unit to biomass and plans to file a request with the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to decertify the 155-MW unit. If the decertification is approved, it will be retired by April 16, 2015, which is the compliance date of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) Rule.

Plant Data

 * Owner: Georgia Power Company
 * Parent Company: Southern Company
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 163 MW (Megawatts)
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 163 MW (1964)
 * Location: 5200 Radium Springs Rd., Albany, GA 31705
 * GPS Coordinates: 31.444556, -84.136722
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Sources (2009)
 * Alliance Resource Cave Branch (Kentucky)
 * CONSOL Energy Motts Branch (Kentucky)

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 679,638 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions:
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions:
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions:

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Mitchell Plant
In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution consists of a complex mixture of soot, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Among these particles, the most dangerous are those less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, and pneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal plant emissions. These deaths and illnesses are major examples of coal's external costs, i.e. uncompensated harms inflicted upon the public at large. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities. To monetize the health impact of fine particle pollution from each coal plant, Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Mitchell Plant
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

Legislative issues
House Bill 276, proposed by Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur), would put a 5-year moratorium on building new coal plants and eliminate the burning of Appalachian coal mined by mountaintop removal by mid-2016. The Appalachian Mountain Preservation Act would gradually prohibit Georgia coal consumers from using Central Appalachian mountaintop removal beginning in 2011. The bill is backed by environmental groups including Appalachian Voices but received strong opposition from POWER4Georgians, a coalition of 10 electric co-operatives seeking to build a $2 billion 850-megawatt supercritical coal plant in Washington County.

Citizen groups

 * CleanPower4Georgians
 * Fall-line Alliance for Clean Environment
 * Focus the Nation
 * Friends of the Chattahoochee
 * GreenLaw
 * Sierra Club Georgia Chapter
 * Co-op Conversations Georgia
 * Cobb Alliance for Smart Energy

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Coal plant conversion projects
 * Georgia and coal
 * Southern Company
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming