Utilities Vote To Close Largest Coal Plant In Western US (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: At 2.25 gigawatts, Arizona's Navajo Generating Station is the biggest coal-burning power plant in the Western U.S. The plant, and the nearby Kayenta coal mine that feeds it, are located on the Navajo Indian Reservation, and the Navajo and Hopi peoples have had a conflicted relationship with coal since the plant opened in the 1970s. Almost all the 900-plus jobs at the mine and plant are held by Native Americans, and the tribes receive royalties to account for large portions of their budget. Negotiations were underway to improve the tribes' lease terms, which expire in 2019. But on Monday, the four utilities that own most of the plant voted to close it at the end of 2019. They decided that the plant's coal-powered electricity just can't compete with plants burning natural gas. A press release from Salt River Projects, which runs the plant, explained, "The decision by the utility owners of [Navajo Generating Station] is based on the rapidly changing economics of the energy industry, which has seen natural gas prices sink to record lows and become a viable long-term and economical alternative to coal power."

Comments

Lots of Sunshine there

[wardk]

massive Solar plant?

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Smidge204]

Except you can't scale solar production up or down to handle fluctuations in demand.

You can scale it down, absolutely.

Or produce solar at night.

You don't need nearly as much power at night, and if they go with solar thermal you get quite a bit of storage "for free."

Or control the weather.

It's Arizona. They basically have two types of weather; Sunny and Night.
=Smidge=

Market Forces Kill Coal

[ClayDowling]

This demonstrates exactly how empty the campaign promises to bring back coal were. Nobody wants to burn coal when it's so much more expensive than everything else.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[MightyMartian]

Natural gas killed coal, and by the time natural gas is on the decline, coal will be even less viable. It's done. Besides, why in the hell would you even want to burn the stuff? Apart from CO2 emissions, so much effort has to be put into keeping it from ruining the environment and poisoning everyone around it that it's a good thing they're erecting its tombstone.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[DickBreath]

Coal NEEDS to choke under regulations before it chokes us all and destroys our climate.

Giving tax breaks to promote future progress is not a bad thing to do.

The switch to getting as much clean energy as possible won't be cheap, and won't happen over night. And other forms of energy will have to be available when clean sources may be unable to produce. But every bit helps.

We've tackled other huge projects. Rural electrification. Roads to support modern cars replacing horse and buggy. The interstate highway project. Electric street lighting and traffic signals literally everywhere -- and these things are friggin' expensive. But it was worth it for the benefits we collectively get from it.

It is inevitable that we will use electric cars. It is inevitable that we will stop using fossil fuels as they become ever harder to find. Coal isn't going to make our environment any better, so we should be minimizing its use to the extent possible. New technologies bring new jobs.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[MightyMartian]

If market forces were allowed their way, the Great Lakes would still be a toxic soup. Sometimes a government has to step in to prevent industries from fucking things up. I may remind you that that great conservative lion Ronald Reagan did a helluva lot of the initial work on what is, or was until a few weeks ago, the government's push to try to clean up polluting industries.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[rahvin112]

More propaganda, you people will blame Obama for everything, even things he had nothing to do with. This plant is going to be shut down because gas is cheaper, it has very little to do with Obama era regulations. It should have never been exempted from the Mercury rule for more than a decade (the exemption goes away in 2018 so they'll need the scrubbers in 2 years). The CO2 regulations Obama added on top had very little impact to this, it was driven primarily by costs, in particular the combined phase gas plants that are super efficient compared to this awful 50's era coal plant and have cheaper fuel.

The utilities were going to pay the costs to upgrade the plant until gas prices cratered and with wind/solar dropping so fast if they authorize it for another 20 years they'll be losing money on it for 18 of those years. Navajo generating station was dead when gas prices fell and it's about fucking time. It's poisoned two generations of people in the southwest with heavy metals and put haze in the grand canyon since it was built.Good riddance.