Brunner Island Steam Electric Station is a coal-fired, alternatively natural gas-powered electrical generation facility in
York County, Pennsylvania
York County ( Pennsylvania Dutch: Yarrick Kaundi) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 456,438. Its county seat is York. The county was created on August 19, 1749, from part of Lancaster ...
. It occupies most of the area of the
eponym
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Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
ous island on
Susquehanna River
The Susquehanna River (; Lenape: Siskëwahane) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, overlapping between the lower Northeast and the Upland South. At long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the ...
. The power plant has three major units, which came online in 1961, 1965, and 1969, with respective generating capacities of 334 MW, 390 MW, and 759 MW (in winter conditions). In addition, three
internal combustion
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...
generators (2.8 MWe each) were installed in 1967.
Talen Energy
Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALEN) are restriction enzymes that can be engineered to cut specific sequences of DNA. They are made by fusing a TAL effector DNA-binding domain to a DNA cleavage domain (a nuclease which cuts DN ...
will stop coal use at the plant in 2028.
Environmental impact
PPL, the owner of the plant at the time, announced in 2005 that it would begin to install scrubbers at the plant and that installation would be complete by 2009. The scrubbers, PPL says, are intended to annually remove 100,000 tons of sulfur. The facility was cited as one of several facilities in the region by a USA Today study of air quality around area schools as a potential source of significant pollutants. Fly ash from the Brunner Island facility is approved for use in construction projects, especially for "use in concrete mixes to reduce alkali silica reactivity of aggregate."
Greenhouse gas emissions
In 2021, the facility produced 2.28 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) greenhouse gas emissions. This is the same climate impact as 491,312 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year. With respect to greenhouse gas emissions, out of 89 power stations in the state, Brunner Island ranks as the 13th most polluting.
Sulphur dioxide emissions
In 2006, Brunner Island ranked 27th on the
list
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People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
of most-polluting major power station in the US in terms of
sulphur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic activ ...
gas emission rate: it discharged of SO
2 for each
MWh of
electric power
Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions o ...
produced that year (93,545 tons of SO
2 per year in total).
Scrubbers began operation in 2009, removing about 90-percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, and they reduce mercury emissions. They spray a mixture of crushed limestone and water onto the exhaust gas before it goes out the plant's chimney. Sulfur reacts with the limestone and water in the plant's exhaust, forming synthetic gypsum. This is collected and shipped to a drywall manufacturing company.
Waste heat
Brunner Island discharges all of its
waste heat
Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility ...
(about 1.44 times its electrical output) into its brand new cooling towers as of 2009.
Conversion to Natural Gas
As part of a 2018 out-of-court settlement with the Sierra Club, which had previously sued the plant and its current owner, Talen Energy, over air and water pollution, Brunner Island will eventually completely phase out coal. By 2023, Brunner Island will stop burning coal from May to September, which is considered peak smog season. By 2028, the facility will have completely switched over to natural gas.
See also
*
List of power stations in Pennsylvania
In 2019, Pennsylvania had a total summer capacity of 47,812 MW through all of its power plants, and a net generation of 228,995 GWh. The corresponding electrical energy generation mix was 42.9% natural gas, 36.3% nuclear, 16.5% coal, 1 ...
References
{{reflist
Energy infrastructure completed in 1961
Energy infrastructure completed in 1965
Energy infrastructure completed in 1969
Coal-fired power stations in Pennsylvania
Buildings and structures in York County, Pennsylvania