After the long discussion on the post about Small Wind Turbines, I began to think about where the our electricity actually comes from. I know that on a national power grid, it is all one big pool of power that we all draw off of. That being said, the laws of physics state that electrons will follow the path of least resistance, therefore it is likely that the electricity in our house is coming from several of the closest power plants that are on line.

Armed with this bit of insight, I thought I would do a little research and see where my power is coming from. I know that in this area, most of the power plants are built along the Hudson River because they need large amounts of water to cool them when in operation.

I did a little work with Google to find information.  Some of it was easy to find, some not so easy.  With that, here is a list of the closest power plants and their characteristics:

1. Bethlehem Generating station Units 1 and 2. This is located just south of Albany, NY. Formerly a coal fired plant, it has been converted to Natural Gas. 793 MW owned and operated by PSEG
2. Selkirk Co-Generation Station. This plant is located south of Albany, burns garbage and natural gas. 345 MW owned and operated by Cogentrix.
3. Danskammer Units 1, 2, 3 and 4. This plant is located just north of Newburgh, NY. Units 1 and 2 use oil/natural gas and are set up to run during peak periods. They generate 246 MW. Units 3 and 4 use coal/oil/natural gas and are baseload (on line all the time) 740 MW owned and operated by Dynegy.
4. Roston. This plant is also located just north of Newburgh, NY. It uses oil/natural gas and is in intermediate service, generates 1,185 MW. Owned and operated by Dynegy
5. Indian Point units 2 and 3. This plant is located just south of Peekskill, NY. Units 2 and 3 are pressurized water nuclear reactors. They have a combined capacity of 1,955 MW. Owned and operated by Entergy
6. Westchester RESCO. This plant is also located just south of Peekskill, NY. It is a cogeneration facility that burns garbage and natural gas. 60 MW owned and operated by Waste Management.
7. Lovett power plant. This plant is located at Stony Point, NY. It is a coal fired plant that is operating on only 1 unit (unit 4) as the other three have been forced to shut down by NYS DEC for clean air violations. 183 MW owned by Mirant.
8. Bowline Power Generation plant. This plant is located in Haverstraw, NY. It uses oil/natural gas. 1,125 MW owned and operated by Mirant.

Almost all of these plants use a once through cooling system, which means that water from the Hudson River is circulated through the cooling system once then returned to the river. This has lead to several law suits from the Hudson River preservation group Riverkeeper.

In addition, the Danskammer units 3/4 burn mostly coal, as evidence by the long coal trains that park near the plant. When they are not burning coal they use #6 bunker oil, which has a high sulfur content.  The Lovett power plant was force to close down in April of 2007 except for unit 4, which is scheduled to close in April of 2008.

My weekly/monthly work travels take me to the vicinity of most of these power plants. I will have to remember to bring the camera so I can snap some pictures of them.  I will put them on the refrigerator to remind me not to waste valuable resources.

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