One West Virginia community ponders life after a coal-fired power plant

St. Marys has benefited from the coal-fired Pleasants Power Station for decades; now its residents wonder what will happen when the plant closes or is sold next year.

It was an uncharacteristically calm moment for a weekday afternoon in the Bank Barber Shop. Mark Bailey sat at his desk, waiting for his next customer, as an employee used electric clippers on a man’s gray hair.

Bailey has lived in St. Marys, West Virginia, since third grade. The town of fewer than 2,000 sits on the banks of the Ohio River in Pleasants County. And for the past four decades, it’s benefited economically from the Pleasants Power Station: a coal-fired power plant only a few miles south of Bailey’s downtown barber shop.

“We’ve just been so fortunate to have [the power plant] for all these years,” Bailey said.

But the plant’s long life may be nearing an end. As energy companies across the country retire older coal plants in favor of facilities that use cleaner, cheaper natural gas and renewables, the Pleasants Power Station’s owner last month announced a goal of becoming 100% carbon free. As a result, the company plans to sell or close the plant next year.

https://energynews.us/2022/04/13/one-west-virginia-community-ponders-life-after-a-coal-fired-power-plant/