The last coal plant in New England is sputtering. What happens next?
On the banks of the Merrimack River, a coal-fired power plant sleeps for most of the year. Concrete smokestacks stand silent. The industrial sprawl is eerily quiet compared with the hum of producing electricity for decades.
One December morning, Nick Lydon spots a dark plume wafting through the air. On the coldest days of winter, the generators at Merrimack Station rumble into production, burning coal to generate electricity when demand peaks. But this day was different.
“That’s the first time that I ever looked at the smokestack and saw something other than just water vapor coming out of it,” says Mr. Lydon, who’s lived and worked here in Bow, New Hampshire, for two decades.
