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Out With A Schumpeter's Gale — Watch Electricty Generation Get Subjected To Creative Destruction

KUAR | By Bobby Ampezzan,

Bobby Ampezzan

Published October 31, 2016 at 10:49 AM CDT

On Friday, Entergy Arkansas Inc. demo-ed the Cecil Lynch Power Plant, a first step to redevelopment of the 130-acre North Little Rock site that’s located directly across the Arkansas River from the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.

https://youtu.be/e-52CrXHwro

Nationwide, utilities are doing this kind of thing to “green up” their portfolios, so to speak. And to modernize operations.

Increasingly, electricity will come from cleaner burning natural gas and renewables such as wind and solar. Why?

Part of the reason is stricter limits on carbon emissions and other particulates set forth by the Environmental Protection Agency. Another part is utility companies’ own goals for cleaner electricity generation. And, of course, a third part — perhaps the biggest part — is cleaner electricity generation is becoming cheaper electricity generation.

We at Arkansas Public Media think this drone video footage courtesy of Entergy is worth a look. The Lynch Plant lit homes for 67 years. It’s named for Cecil Lynch, chief engineer for Arkansas Power & Light — later Entergy — at the time the plant was built.

News from KUAR, KASU and AR Public Media

Bobby Ampezzan

Bobby Ampezzan is a native of Detroit who holds degrees from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) and the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville). He's written for The Guardian newspaper and Oxford American magazine and was a longtime staff writer fortheArkansas Democrat-Gazette. The best dimestore nugget he's lately discovered comes from James Altucher's Choose Yourself(actually, the Times' profile on Altucher, which quotes the book): "I lose at least 20 percent of my intelligence when I am resentful." Meanwhile, his faith in public radio and television stems from the unifying philosophy that not everything be serious, but curiosity should follow every thing, and that we be serious about curiosity.

See stories by Bobby Ampezzan

Bobby Ampezzan

Bobby Ampezzan is a native of Detroit who holds degrees from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) and the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville). He's written for The Guardian newspaper and Oxford American magazine and was a longtime staff writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The best dimestore nugget he's lately discovered comes from James Altucher's Choose Yourself (actually, the Times' profile on Altucher, which quotes the book): "I lose at least 20 percent of my intelligence when I am resentful." Meanwhile, his faith in public radio and television stems from the unifying philosophy that not everything be serious, but curiosity should follow every thing, and that we be serious about curiosity.