Luminant is a

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

-based

electric utility An electric utility is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major pr ...

. It is a wholly owned

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

Energy Future Holdings Corporation Energy Future Holdings Corporation is an electric utility company headquartered in Energy Plaza in Downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The majority of the company's power generation is through coal and nuclear power plants. From 1998 to 2007 ...

. Luminant's operations include

electricity generation Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For electric utility, utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its Electricity delivery, delivery (Electric power transmi ...

and wholesaling,

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

, construction, and development. The company has capacity for the generation of 18,300

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...

(MW) of electricity in 20 power plants spread across Texas, of which 2,300 MW come from

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

generated at the company's

Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant is located in Somervell County, Texas. The nuclear power plant is located southwest of Ft. Worth and about southwest of Dallas. It relies on nearby Squaw Creek Reservoir for cooling water. The plant has about ...

, 5,800 MW from

coal-fired 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 ...

s, and the remainder from

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

-fired plants. Luminant is also a major purchaser of

wind power Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wi ...

. Luminant also owns and operates three of the five largest

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

s (by production) in Texas: the Beckville Strip, the Three Oaks Mine, and the Oak Hill Strip. The Beckville Mine was mined out in the fall of 2015 and the three drag lines were moved to other mines. The Oak Hill Mine will cease operation in December 2016. In December 2016, 77 miners were laid-off due to the closures. The company extracted over fourteen million short tons of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

from those three mines in 2007. The company also operates a private rail line known as the Martin Lake Rail Line that carries coal from mines around Texas and the

Powder River Basin The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very s ...

via

BNSF BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

to the

Martin Lake Power Plant Martin Lake Power Plant is a 2,250-megawatt coal power plant located southwest of Tatum, Texas, in Rusk County, Texas. The plant is owned by Luminant. It began operations in 1977. The plant is also served by the Luminant owned Martin Lake Line, ...

History

Luminant was formerly known a
TXU
(Texas Utilities).

2010

The new 1600MW Oak Grove which burns lignite coal from the Kosse Mine went online.

2013

February

In February 2013 a Waco-based federal judge denied a motion filed by Luminant seeking dismissal of an air pollution lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club. The lawsuit involves excess levels of particulate matter at two Texas power plants owned by Luminant. The suit is based on information filed by Luminant with state environmental regulators which revealed thousands of violations of clean air standards.

August

In August 2013 Luminant was sued by the Environment Protection Agency over air-pollution standards at two Texas plants. This enforcement action followed two earlier EPA notices of violations at Luminant's Big Brown and Martin Lake plants. The suit alleges that Luminant made unauthorized changes to the two coal-fired plants. Also in August the Dallas County Medical Society announced that it would petition the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to crack down on Luminant and its three Texas power plants: Big Brown, Martin Creek Lake and

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

. The doctor's group wants Luminant to lower emissions from the three plants. They say that doing so will lower cases of asthma, chronic lung disease, heart attacks and premature death contributed to by coal emissions.

2014

April

On April 29, 2014 Energy Future Holdings, Luminant's parent company, filed for bankruptcy protection under Title 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Luminant current has a new parent company called Vistra Corp which is a successor to Energy Future Holdings.

References

{{reflist Vistra Corp Coal companies of the United States Nuclear power companies of the United States Mining companies of the United States