Luminant is a

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

-based

electric utility An electric utility, or a power company, 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. Electric utilities are ...

. It is a wholly owned

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

Energy Future Holdings Corporation Energy Future Holdings Corporation was an electric utility company headquartered in Energy Plaza in Downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The majority of the company's power generation was through coal and nuclear power plants. From 1998 to 2 ...

. 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 transm ...

and wholesaling,

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

, 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 in honor o ...

(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 by ...

generated at the company's Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, 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 2,500 coal-fired power stations, on average capable of generating a gigawatt each. They generate a ...

s, and the remainder from

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 ...

-fired plants. Luminant is also a major purchaser of

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

. Luminant also owns and operated three of the five largest

coal mine Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

s (by production) in Texas: the Beckville Strip, the Three Oaks Mine, and the Oak Hill Strip. The Beckville Mine was mined out in fall 2015 and the three drag lines were moved to other mines. It is now closed. The Oak Hill Mine closed in December 2016 laying off 77 miners. The company extracted over fourteen million

short ton The short ton (abbreviation: tn or st), also known as the US ton, is a measurement unit equal to . It is commonly used in the United States, where it is known simply as a ton; however, the term is ambiguous, the single word "ton" being variously ...

s 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 Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

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 ...

via

BNSF BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide ...

the Martin Lake Power Plant.

History

The new 1600MW Oak Grove which burns lignite coal from the Kosse Mine went online. 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. 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 residence and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States. Jefferson began designing Monticello after inheriting l ...

. 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. 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 Vistra Corp. is a Fortune 500 integrated retail electricity and power generation company based in Irving, Texas. The company is the largest competitive power generator in the U.S. with a capacity of approximately 39GW powered by a diverse portfol ...

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