A 376-foot concrete cooling tower at a West Virginia coal plant no longer meets its design loads after 55 years, so regulators just approved a $191 million replacement for a plant due to retire in 2040, when the new tower will be 12 years old

A 376-foot concrete cooling tower at a West Virginia coal plant no longer meets its design loads after 55 years, so regulators just approved a $191 million replacement for a plant due to retire in 2040, when the new tower will be 12 years old

Along the Ohio River south of Moundsville, West Virginia, two enormous concrete cooling towers rise over the Mitchell coal plant. Each is about 376 feet tall and 288 feet across at the base, with the classic hourglass shape most people associate with power stations. One of them is falling apart. Earlier this month, Kentucky’s utility […]