Manager's Column

Authored by: Richard Fowler

 In 1978, Congress passed the Fuel Use Act. Because there was a perception that we were running out of natural gas, this Act prohibited electric utilities from building ANY natural gas generating facilities.  

  As a result, in 1978, the choices for base load generating facilities were nuclear and coal. Unfortunately, in March of 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred and even though no one was killed in that accident, the building of new nuclear plants came to a standstill.    

Coal was all that was left and our nation’s utilities built many coal plants between 1978 and 1987 when our power demands were increasing. It was in 1987 that the prohibition on natural gas was finally lifted.   However, in the late 80’s and 90’s, natural gas prices were so high that no one was interested in building natural gas plants except for use as occasional peaking plants.    

It wasn’t until the year 2000 when the lower prices of natural gas made it feasible to build base load natural gas plan  Now, the utility industry is being criticized for building the coal fired power plants that were built from 1978 through 2000, even though that was really the only economical choice available.