Gas Plants
At 3,705 MW, FPL's Martin County Power Plant, which burns gas and oil, is currently the single largest fossil fuel burning power plant in the United States. It is located in Western Martin County, just north of Indiantown. It was originally permitted in the early 1970s and has expanded to its current size since. The plant is cooled with water which is then pumped into the surrounding 17-mile (27 km) cooling pond, one of the largest bodies of water in the state of Florida.
FPL is currently constructing a permitted 3,800 megawatt power plant, the West County Energy Center (WCEC). It is located in northern Palm Beach County in the Everglades Agricultural Area, 1,000 feet (300 m) from the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge. The refuge functions as the northern headwaters of the entire southern Everglades ecosystem. Once completed, the WCEC will be the largest fossil fuel power plant in the United States.
In 2012, FPL was constructing a $1.2 billion gas plant to replace a demolished oil-burning plant in Port St. John, Florida.
Read more about this topic: Florida Power & Light
Famous quotes containing the words gas and/or plants:
“Shielded, what sorts of life are stirring yet:
Legs lagged like drains, slippers soft as fungus,
The gas and grate, the old cold sour grey bed.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“When the
Marne flowed by the plants nodded
And above the glistering Gila
A sunset as beautiful as the Athabasca
Stammered. The Zambezi chimed. The Oxus
Flowed somewhere.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)