Saturday, December 17, 2022

End of Philip Sporn

For some reason  — I'm sure there's a good one — demolition by explosion seems to happen more often in cold weather than warm. That's been my experience here in the Ohio Valley, and it happened again today when the old Philip Sporn Plant, a coal-burning power plant idled in 2015, came down.


Sporn joins a list of other retired coal burners that have met their end in recent years: R.E. Burger, Killen, Stuart and Beckjord come to mind first. Zimmer could join them. There are a few I think have been demolished, but I'm not certain.

As I understand it, once the Philip Sporn site has been cleared, it will be available for redevelopment.


There are a couple of other coal-fired power plants on the Ohio whose future is cloudy. We'll have to see what happens in 2023 and beyond.