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14 www.coalage.com July/August 2017 news continued The OUCC, Indiana's utility consumer watchdog, said decre- ment pricing is not without some risk for customers because it can force them to pay for uneconomic coal units to run, as op- posed to paying the cost incurred by utilities buying power at a lower rate from the wholesale market. However, the OUCC added that the impact of decrement pricing must be weighed against other costs incurred by a utility, such as storage fees for coal kept at the mine, storage fees with a third party, and the impact of taking generating units offline, and other related expenses. Nipsco in late June committed to retiring its 480-megawatt Bailly coal-fired power plant on Lake Michigan in Porter County, Indiana, by mid-2018 in keeping with a previous agreement with several stakeholders including the Sierra Club and Citizens Ac- tion Coalition, an Indianapolis-based environmental/consumer advocacy organization. The utility also plans to retire two units at its 1,780-mega- watt R.M. Schahfer near Wheatfield, Indiana, by the end of 2023. That would leave Nipsco with only one coal plant — the 540-megawatt (MW) Michigan City station on Lake Michigan in northern Indiana. Indianapolis Power & Light Co., meanwhile, had lowered its coal inventory to within its target range of 25 to 50 days by the start of summer. The AES Corp. subsidiary was able to do that, in part, by closing its 341-MW Eagle Valley coal plant near Mar- tinsville, Indiana, and converting its 700-MW Harding Street coal plant in downtown Indianapolis to natural gas last year. Now, IP&L; only owns and operates a single coal plant, the 1,700-MW Petersburg station in Pike County, Indiana. At least this spring, Evansville, Indiana-Vectren Corp. still had a coal inventory that was on the rise. Eckert said Vectren's coal stockpile stood at 818,240 tons at the end of March, up from 809,033 tons in February. Inventory figures at the start of summer were not yet available. Murray Energy Sues Time Warner and HBO In response to what Murray Energy Corp. (MEC) calls blatantly false, totally concocted, and deliberately destructive statements made against Robert E. Murray, MEC and some of its West Vir- ginia operations, the company confirmed they have filed a law- suit against Time Warner Inc., Home Box Office Inc. (HBO) and their operatives for the false and defamatory statements that they made during the broadcast of an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which aired on June 18. Prior to the broadcast, MEC said it had sent them two let- ters, on June 12 and June 16, and had a lengthy conference call with their counsel, on June 17, to correct what they knew of "their proposed false and destructive broadcast and present the facts to them." Time Warner and HBO, according to MEC, ignored the communications and aired the episode. Several news outlets said that that have received statement from HBO saying it had not yet seen the complaint from MEC. "We have confidence in the staff of Last Week Tonight and do not believe anything in the show this week violated Mr. Murray's or Murray Energy's rights," HBO said. KY Coal Academy Partners With CEDAR The Kentucky Coal Academy recently announced a partnership with CEDAR (Coal Education Development and Resource) Inc. to develop, promote and deliver unique opportunities for the citi- zens of the coalfields of eastern Kentucky. KCA Executive Director Gary Whisman said, "Students in the 12-county CEDAR program (Breathitt, Floyd, Harlan, Johnson, Knott, Lawrence, Leslie, Letcher, Magoffin, Martin, Perry and Pike counties) will be able to take advantage of the curriculum CEDAR offers, which teach transferable skills that can be used in a variety of trades." These opportunities include the Coal Study Unit program, providing teachers the opportunity to use their skills in creat- ing, developing and implementing lesson plans about coal in their classroom, in one or more of seven core content areas of science, math, English/literature, art, music, technology/mul- timedia, and/or social studies; the CEDAR Coal Fair, providing students the opportunity to investigate certain aspects of coal and apply their findings to showcase their talent and knowledge by creating a coal project and entering it in one of the seven core contents; and the Mars Invasion 2030 program, a classroom cur- riculum and interactive learning opportunity challenging fourth grade students to imagine the task of being the first humans to colonize Mars. "In addition to the previously mentioned opportunities, CE- DAR is also happy to partner with the Kentucky Coal Academy to enable its eastern Kentucky programs at Big Sandy Community and Technical College, Hazard Community and Technical College and Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College to implement an Entrepreneurial Coal Lands Redevelopment pro- gram," said CEDAR President and Executive Director John Justice. c a l e n d a r o f e v e n t s August 29-30, 2017: Illinois Mining Institute's annual meeting, The Pavilion in Marion, Illinois. Contact; Contact: Web: www.illinoismininginstitute.org. August 29-31, 2017: AIMEX, Asia-Pacific's International Mining Exhi- bition, Sydney, Australia; Contact: Web: www.aimex.com.au/home/. September 13-15, 2017: Bluefield Coal Show, Brushfork Armory-Civic Center, Bluefield, West Virginia, USA. Contact: Bluefield Chamber of Commerce; Tel: +1-304-327-7184; Web: www.bluefieldchamber.com. September 26-27, 2017: Platts 40 th Annual Coal Marketing Days Con- ference, Omni William Penn Hotel, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Con- tact: Web: www.coalmarketingdays.com. September 27-29, 2017: Coal Association of Canada Conference 2017, Vancouver, British Columbia. Contact: Web: www.coal.ca. October 25-27, 2017: The World Coal Leaders Network, Hotel Melia Sitges, Sitges, Spain. Contact: Coaltrans Conference: Web: www.coaltrans.com/world-coal-conference/details.html. November 7-9, 2017: MetCoke World Summit 2017, Chicago, Illinois. Contact: Web: www.metcokemarkets.com. January 28-31, 2018: 44 th Annual Conference on Explosives and Blasting Technique, San Antonio, Texas. Contact: Web: www.isee.org. February 25-28, 2018: 2018 Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Annual Conference & Expo, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Contact: Web: www.smenet.org.