Gadsden Steam Plant

Gadsden Steam Plant is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Southern Company near Gadsden, Alabama.

The Gadsden plant has the capability to produce steam and electricity using coal or natural gas, or both, and by 2011 was using mainly natural gas. The plant also was an experimental site for burning wood biomass and switch grass fuels, but as of 2012 the plant does not burn biomass.

Gadsden Steam Plant and Environmental Justice
Southern Company's Gadsden Steam Plant has 24,955 residents within a 3-mile radius and 3,487 within a one-mile radius; in the 3-mile radius, 49.9% of residents are non-white with a per capita income of $13,600, below the U.S. per capita income of $21,587, raising issues around environmental justice and coal. The plant does not have a scrubber to reduce emissions. Gadsden Steam Plant is among over 100 coal plants near residential areas.

Plant Data

 * Owner: Alabama Power Company
 * Parent Company: Southern Company
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 138 MW (Megawatts)
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 69 MW (1949), 69 MW (1949)
 * Location: 1000 Goodyear Ave., Gadsden, AL 35903
 * GPS Coordinates: 34.009396, -85.967952
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source:
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 764,053 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 9,344 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions:
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions:

Coal Waste Site

 * Gadsden Steam Plant Ash Pond

Gadsden ranked 93rd on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste
In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill. The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.

Gadsden Steam Plant ranked number 93 on the list, with 249,740 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

Related SourceWatch Articles

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