Barry Steam Plant

Barry Steam Plant is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Southern Company's Alabama Power near Bucks, AL.

As of March 2009, when Georgia Power announced state approval to convert its Mitchell plant to biomass, Alabama Power, another Southern Company affiliate, said it was also considering a switch to biomass at its coal-fired Gadsden and Barry plants.

Plant Data

 * Owner: Alabama Power Co.
 * Parent Company: Southern Company
 * Plant Nameplate Capacity: 1,771 MW
 * Units and In-Service Dates: 153 MW (1954), 153 MW (1954), 272 MW (1959), 404 MW (1969), 789 MW (1971)
 * Location: U.S. Highway 43, Bucks, AL 36512
 * GPS Coordinates: 31.005908, -88.011383
 * Coal Consumption:
 * Coal Source:
 * Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

 * 2006 CO2 Emissions: 12,449,918 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions: 52,621 tons
 * 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
 * 2006 NOx Emissions: 16,800 tons
 * 2005 Mercury Emissions: 881 lb.

Coal Waste Site

 * Barry Steam Plant Ash Pond

Barry ranked 13th 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.

Barry Steam Plant ranked number 13 on the list, with 2,350,349 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

Southern Company abandons carbon capture and storage project
In December 2009, Southern Company received a $295 million grant from the Department of Energy to retrofit 160MW at the Barry Steam Plant for carbon capture. The company plants to compress and transport the CO2 through a pipeline and store up to one million metric tons per year in deep saline formations. The company will also explore using the captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery.

However, on March 1, 2010 it was announced that Southern Company had abandoned its $700 million carbon capture project at the Barry Steam Plant. Company spokesperson Steve Higginbottom said, "It's really about the efficient deployment of resources. Really, we felt it was in the best interest of our customers and shareholders to not move forward with the expanded CCS project at Plant Barry." He added, "The current economic conditions also factored into the decision."

Later in September 2010, Southern Company reported that they had captured carbon emissions at its Yates Steam Generating Plant for the first time and then released it during a pilot project. The technology uses a solvent to remove carbon gas from emissions. The company stated that while the they released the captured carbon at Yates, it will be catching carbon and storing it underground at its Barry Steam Plant in 2011. .

Other coal waste sites
To see a nationwide list of over 350 coal waste sites in the United States, click here. To see a listing of coal waste sites in a particular state, click on the map:



Citizen Groups
See also Alabama and coal
 * Black Warrior Riverkeeper
 * GASP (formerly Alabama First)

Related SourceWatch Articles

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