Oklaunion Power Plant
Oklahoma
A coal plant that burned Wyoming coal for thirty-four years is now the site of a four billion dollar green hydrogen project.
For most of its life, this power plant ran on coal that arrived by train from Wyoming. Not from Texas. From mines more than a thousand miles away. In a single year, 2017, it took in roughly seven hundred twenty thousand tons of coal hauled in from the North Antelope Rochelle Mine. Earlier the coal came from the Rawhide Mine, also in Wyoming. The water for cooling came from Lake Diversion, a couple of counties over. Construction started in 1982, and the plant began selling power in December of 1986. It could put out six hundred fifty megawatts. Then in September of 2018, American Electric Power said it was done. The reason was money. Production costs had risen and the plant could no longer compete in the power market. It was slated to shut by September of 2020. A company called Frontier Energy bought it and talked about converting it to natural gas. Instead, in 2022, Air Products and AES announced a four billion dollar green hydrogen facility on the ground where the coal used to burn.
Wayside reads this to you as you drive past, timed to arrive before the place does. Plan a route through here.
In 2022, Air Products and AES Corporation announced they were to partner up to develop a $4 billion green hydrogen facility on the site of the former Oklaunion plant.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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