The Buck Steam Station is a 369-
MW formerly
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 Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
-fired electrical power plant, owned by
Duke Energy
Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company ranked as the 141st largest company in the United States in 2024 – its highest-ever placement on the ...
. There are also three
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
-fueled
combustion turbines at the location that provide an additional 93 MW (and which began operation in 1970), and two natural gas-fueled
combined cycle
A combined cycle power plant is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem from the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy. On land, when used to make electricity the most common type is called a combined cycle gas turb ...
turbines are planned for the near future.
Remaining coal-fired units (IDs 5-9) were decommissioned in mid-2011 and April 2013, with only natural gas units (11C and 12C) remaining.
History
Steam plant
The Buck Steam Station was built in 1926. It is named after a co-founder of Duke Energy,
James Buchanan "Buck" Duke. The plant was originally three units, but a fourth was added when the company bought up an order cancelled by
the Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...
.
was built as a
mill village along the banks of the
Yadkin River
The Yadkin River is one of the longest rivers in the US state of North Carolina, flowing . It rises in the northwestern portion of the state near the Blue Ridge Parkway, Blue Ridge Parkway's Thunder Hill Overlook. Several parts of the river a ...
in 1926 to house plant employees of the Buck Steam Station. In 2014, Dukeville residents were told that "
coal ash pits near their homes could be leaching dangerous materials into groundwater."
Addition of combined cycle turbines
In 2007, Duke Energy began to pursue permission to add two new combined cycle, natural gas-fired, 620 MW generating units to its fleet: one at the
Dan River Steam Station in
Rockingham County, the other at the Buck Steam Station. This was done in order to diversify the company's fuel sources, expand its generating capacity, and to modernize its energy generation by moving away from less efficient, more polluting coal. When the two turbines were added, two of the four older coal units were to go offline.
Demolition
Part of the plant was
imploded in August 2018, and another section came down October 19, 2018. The decommissioning was the subject of an episode of the
Smithsonian Channel
The Smithsonian Channel is an American pay television channel owned by Paramount Global through its media networks division under MTV Entertainment Group. It offers video content inspired by the Smithsonian Institution's museums, research facil ...
's "Inside Mighty Machines".
See also
*
List of power stations
References
External links
*{{Cite web
, title = Duke Energy - Buck
, work = BREDL - Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League - Coal-fired Power Plants
, accessdate = 2014-06-17
, url = http://www.bredl.org/air/coal-fired_powerplants/nc-buck.asp
, url-status = dead
, archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20140815021559/http://www.bredl.org/air/coal-fired_powerplants/nc-buck.asp
, archivedate = 2014-08-15
Energy infrastructure completed in 1926
Energy infrastructure completed in 1970
Coal-fired power stations in North Carolina
Buildings and structures in Rowan County, North Carolina
Duke Energy