Frank Ratts Generating Station

Frank E. Ratts Generating Station is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Hoosier Energy near Petersburg, Indiana.

In May 2012 Hoosier Energy announced plans to retire the Ratts plant in 2015, citing costs associated with new and proposed US Environmental Protection Agency rules. However the company said that new technologies, lower capital costs, changes in environmental compliance time lines, or delays in implementing environmental rules could extend the plant's life.

Plant Data

 * Owner/Parent Company: Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 233 MW (Megawatts)
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 117 MW (1970), 117 MW (1970)
 * Location: 6825 Blackburn Rd., Petersburg, IN 47567
 * GPS Coordinates: 38.519111, -87.2655
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source:
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 1,883,773 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions:
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions:
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions:

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from Frank Ratts Generating Station
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 Frank Ratts Generating Station
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed March 2011

Coal Waste Sites

 * Frank Ratts Generating Station Bottom Ash Pond
 * Frank Ratts Generating Station Fly Ash Pond 1
 * Frank Ratts Generating Station Fly Ash Pond 2
 * Frank Ratts Generating Station Fly Ash Pond 3

Frank Ratts ranked 83rd 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.

Frank Ratts Generating Station ranked number 83 on the list, with 330,014 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * Indiana and coal
 * Hoosier Energy
 * United States and coal
 * Global warming