The Dolphus M. Grainger Generating Station was a

coal power plant A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a th ...

located near

Conway, South Carolina Conway is a city in Horry County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 24,849 at the 2020 census, up from 17,103 in 2010 census. It is the county seat of Horry County and is part of the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area. It is the home ...

Horry County Horry County ( ) is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 351,029. It is the fourth-most populous county in South Carolina. The county seat is Conway. Horry County is the central ...

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

. The plant closed in 2012. It was owned by Central Electric Power Cooperative and operated by

Santee Cooper __NOTOC__ Santee Cooper, also known officially from the 1930s as the South Carolina Public Service Authority, is South Carolina's state-owned electric and water utility that came into being during the New Deal as both a rural electrification and ...

History

Grainger was constructed at a cost of $52 million and unit 1 began generating electricity in 1965 and unit 2 began operation in 1966. The plant is named after Dolphus M. Grainger, a Horry County native who pushed for rural electrification. The power plant had 2 units and had an operating capacity of 170 megawatts ( MW). Its cooling source came from the nearby Waccamaw River and outlet to Lake Busbee which was created for the power plant. In 2004, Grainger along with several other coal plants owned by Santee Cooper were found to be in violation of the Clean Air Act. As a part of the settlement, Santee Cooper had to install

LO-NOx burner A LO burner is a type of burner that is typically used in utility boilers to produce steam and electricity. Background The first discovery Around 1986 John Joyce (of Bowin Cars fame), an influential Australian inventor, first learned about oxi ...

s to reduce

nitrogen oxide Nitrogen oxide may refer to a binary compound of oxygen and nitrogen, or a mixture of such compounds: Charge-neutral *Nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen(II) oxide, or nitrogen monoxide *Nitrogen dioxide (), nitrogen(IV) oxide * Nitrogen trioxide (), or n ...

() emissions at Grainger. Grainger was retired in October 2012 by Santee Cooper as it was too costly to comply with the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

's (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS). After three years of decommissioning, demolition of Grainger's structure began in 2015. Its two smokestacks were imploded using controlled demolition in February 2016. Lake Busbee was drained and returned to its natural state as

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s in 2018.

References

Energy infrastructure completed in 1966 Power stations in South Carolina Former coal-fired power stations in the United States Buildings and structures in Horry County, South Carolina Former power stations in South Carolina {{US-powerstation-stub

History

See also

References