Power for the U.S.A.

Sharing my knowledge and experience in Energy and electricity generation

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Registered Professional Engineer in NC. Specialized as a Coal power generation engineer. Began career in 1962. Worked as electrician at SPS Technologies, Utility Engineer at Mobil Oil Corp, at Babcock & Wilcox as a Results Engineer, Riley Stoker as Senior Field Service Engineer, Carolina Power and Light Company as a Principal Engineer and later, Operations Superintendent of Roxboro Generating Plant, head of Technical Services Department of Flame Refractories and then founded Storm Technologies in 1992. Served as a contributing Editor to POWER Magazine and Instructor of Power Generation Short Courses at Storm Technologies and Williamson College of the Trades. My largest current concern is the inadequate understanding of the general public on the importance of energy to humankind and western civilization. My goal for this Blog is to share my knowledge and experiences regarding Energy and Electricity Generation. Specifically, I will endeavor to provide posts of some reasons why and how reasonable cost energy and electricity lead to Economic Prosperity and at the same time, protect our environment & support clean air and clean water.

Advantages Of Coal Fuel for Electricity Generation

It is now officially winter. I think this is an appropriate time to review eleven advantages of coal fuel for electric power generation.

Coal is Proven because it provided nearly 50% of America’s electricity generation up till about 2012. The peak year for coal production was 2008 when America produced over 1 billion tons of coal. Coal has been displaced by natural gas as the #1 fuel for American power production but the infrastructure remains to produce twice as much power as we did in 2024 with coal. Even today, especially in the winter, coal is depended on by some RTO’s for as much as 40% of the winter power generation.

Energy density favors coal. A 2,000 MW coal plant can be comfortably sited on a small parcel of land. A wind or solar farm would require much more space. For example a 2,500 MW coal plant capable of generating electricity 24/7, 300+ days per year (allowing outage time for maintenance), will require about a few square miles of land. A solar farm with battery storage will require between 100 and 200 square miles of land to intermittently produce 2,500 MW of electricity.

Coal plants, when properly maintained can operate at capacity factors of over 85% with reliability of over 90%. Unfortunately, because many coal plants have not been maintained as they were prior to 2012, the reliability has declined. However, the proven top reliability is a matter of record.

Coal Plants are Affordable. The states with the lowest cost electricity typically use coal fuel for a large portion of their power generation. Some examples are the states of North Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, Missouri, West Virginia and Montana.

On site Fuel Storage of a coal plant is intrinsic in the design. A large coal plant may store up to three months of fuel to operate at high load factor. Gas turbines can have oil fuel backup for days and solar or wind farms may use batteries for hours of backup. But when it comes to onsite storage of fuel, nuclear and coal are far superior.

America is the Saudi Arabia of Coal America has hundreds of years of some of the highest quality coal reserves in the world. Coal power contributes to energy security and energy independence.

Coal Power is Dispatchable, when the customer Demands the power, a coal plant can ramp up generation when needed whether daytime, night time or when the wind is not blowing. Winter and summer.

Coal Plants are Robust and live a long life. It is not uncommon to see coal plants running 50 to 60 years and beyond. That is, when they are properly maintained. The jury is still out on the life of solar and wind farms. However, their early demise from extreme weather has been documented such as the hail storms in Texas and wind farm blade failures off-shore in the Atlantic Ocean.

Coal Plant Manufacturing Supply-Chain is similar to gas turbines. That is, limited. However, America has built thousands of large coal units and not too long ago, we could startup a 720 MW coal plant about four years after the contract was signed. America can do it again, if we want to.

Personnel Training of Coal Plant Operations and Maintenance professionals has been accomplished, is well documented and proven. Like the manufacturing supply chain, the talent supply-chain can also be re-established.

As I started this article saying, it is the beginning of winter and by the end of the winter I predict that the general public may come to appreciate coal plants for the advantages they provide. If there are winter Blackouts such as winter storm URI in 2021, the public and policy makers may wake up? I hope so. Here above are my top ten reasons why I support building new coal plants.

The last and perhaps most important reason to build new coal plants is that coal can provide the primary energy needed to increase the U.S. Total Primary Energy to the range of 110-120 Quadrillion BTUs/year.

My previous article on the growth of electricity Demand will require 32-100 GW of new generation capacity per year between now and 2050 is here. Long story shortened, we have the infrastructure in place to provide 25 Quadrillion BTUs of coal power. Increasing the total Primary Energy Consumption to say 110 or 120 Quadrillion BTUs will be difficult and risky to depend on natural gas alone. Nuclear, with all due respect and I support new nuclear plants, will take decades to get built in the GW capacities needed. My answer: Build coal plants now.

Yours very truly,

Dick Storm, December 21, 2025

References and information for further reading and research:

  1. Power for the U.S.A. Reality of Building 32,000 MW each year: https://powerfortheusa.com/2025/10/22/reality-of-32000-mw-year-of-new-generation-demand-solution-build-new-coal-plants-now/
  2. Power for the U.S.A. https://powerfortheusa.com/2025/09/24/five-reasons-to-build-new-coal-plants-now-coal-should-be-included-as-a-critical-fuel-to-power-americas-future/
  3. Present DangerChina.org  Threats to the Electric Grid, Frank Gaffney, Grant Newsom, Sam Faddis, Dave Walsh and Dick Storm: https://presentdangerchina.org/webinar-inside-our-wires-the-ccp-has-penetrated-our-electric-grid-will-xi-destroy-it/
  4. Conventional Energy Including Coal is the Life-Blood of America:  https://dickstormprobizblog.org/2025/06/18/conventional-energy-including-coal-is-the-life-blood-of-america/
  5. Thomas J. Shepstone published version of Dick Storm blog post on the “Madness of the Self-Inflicted Electricity Generation Crisis” https://open.substack.com/pub/energysecurityfreedom/p/the-madness-of-the-us-self-inflicted?r=kv1a9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
  6. Energy is the Economy and Electricity is the Life-Blood of western civilization Coal Can Make America’s Electricity Supply Great Again  https://dickstormprobizblog.org/2025/07/30/energy-is-the-economy-electricity-is-the-life-blood-of-western-civilization-coal-can-make-americas-electricity-supply-great-again/
  7. Thomas J. Shepstone on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/energysecurityfreedom/p/electricity-is-the-life-blood-of?r=kv1a9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
  8. Thomas Shepstone on Dick Storm presentation to the Coal Institute, July 2025: https://open.substack.com/pub/energysecurityfreedom/p/the-unpopular-but-hard-truths-of?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
  9. SWAMP People and Organizations Against Making America Great, Foreign and Domestic https://dickstormprobizblog.org/2025/08/07/swamp-people-and-organizations-against-making-america-great-foreign-domestic/
  10. Winter Storm URI casualties: https://www.dshs.texas.gov/sites/default/files/news/updates/SMOC_FebWinterStorm_MortalitySurvReport_12-30-21.pdf

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