Arkansas has a total of 58 power plants which range from coal fired power plants, natural gas fired power plants, petroleum fired power plants, 1 Nuclear power plant, 20 hydroelectric power plants and 6 renewable type power plants.
Arkansas power plants use coal, natural gas, nuclear and water for generating electricity.
For example Swepco uses coal to produce electricity in Arkansas and they have tow coal power plants located in Arkansas.
The coal comes from the powder river basin.
Coal power plants are shutting down due to environmental concerns over pollution.
Due to greener alternative for electricity production such as solar power, wind generation and natural gas being cleaner for producing electricity the coal power plants are seen as dirty and polluting.
However in reality coal power plants are very clean burning and mostly put out steam and not really smoke.
There are still several operational coal power plants as of now and likely will be for several more years.
Natural gas is not available everywhere and solar and wind power is not enough to produce enough power for everyone either.
Sun does not always shine and wind does not always blow.
Coal is still pretty cheap as well and is one of the cheaper ways of producing electricity.
However there's also nuclear power plants that don't really create pollution until the radioactive material is disposed of.
Nuclear power plants can use the same fuel for at least a year and produce heat to turn the steam turbines which in turn spins the generators.