(CN) - Coal's death knell is ringing in Texas as the state's largest energy producer says it will close three coal-fired power plants in January, but the message isn't getting through to the Trump administration, which is trying to revive the industry that some experts say is beyond redemption.
Rebecca Johnson-Vasquez owns Lonestar Guns and Goods in Rockdale, a town with a population of 5,600 halfway between Austin and College Station in Milam County.
She is also the chairman of the board for the Rockdale Chamber of Commerce.
She said Luminant Energy's announcement last week that it plans to close the Sandow Power Plant in Rockdale in January and lay off 200 plant employees was totally unexpected.
"It's awful. It's devastating. It's truly devastating," she said.
When you add in the hundreds of subcontractors who worked at the plant, she said, it was the largest employer in the rural area. Other top employers in the area are two hospitals and Walmart, and many people make a living raising livestock or growing crops on their ranches.
She said Rockdale and Milam County will miss the good-paying jobs.
"Regular small business is a massive amount of our businesses here ... And of course where does our business come from? It comes from employees that worked out there [at the power plant], a good part of it," she said.
To give local residents some hope for economic viability amid the deflating news, Milam County officials early this week said they submitted a bid to Amazon, hoping to pique the e-commerce company's interest in locating its second headquarters – which is expected to employ 50,000 people and break ground in 2018 – on 33,000 acres that Alcoa is selling near Luminant's power plant.
"It seems a little out there as far as Milam County and not being a major metropolitan area, but we are in close proximity to, and in between, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth," Johnson-Vasquez said.
Milam County Judge Dave Barkemeyer – the county's CEO, not a judicial officer – said at a news conference Tuesday at the county courthouse that the proposed Amazon headquarters site is within 60 miles of 2.5 million people and two research universities, and the area would afford Amazon employees a low cost of living without having to deal with city traffic, while giving Amazon plenty of room to expand its operations, according to local news reports.
Vistra Energy, Luminant's parent company, also operates Texas power plants fueled by natural gas and nuclear power. Its plants have the capacity to generate 18,000 megawatts of energy, 8,000 of which come from coal. Its subsidiary TXU Energy sells electricity to around 1.7 million homeowners and businesses.
One megawatt of electricity can power 200 homes during peak demand – in Texas, the hot summer when air-conditioning units are incessantly running – and about 500 homes during milder weather.
In addition to closing the Sandow Power Plant, Vistra also said last week that it plans to close two other coal-fired power plants in Central Texas in January.
Six hundred plant employees will be laid off and another 250 who work for Vistra at a coal mine in Bastrop County, near Austin, will lose their jobs, and the plants' generating capacity of 4,100 will be taken offline, the company announced last week.
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