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

[Two99Point80]

Hope so - that'd provide a bunch of jobs quickly, and the transmission infrastructure is already there...

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[EndlessNameless]

Except you can't scale solar production up or down to handle fluctuations in demand. Or produce solar at night. Or control the weather.

But aside from that, sure.

Solar will always be a second-rate option for utilities until storage becomes cheap and plentiful.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[HornWumpus]

322 kW panels?

You lost a 10^3 and are ignoring capacity factor.

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=

Re: Lots of Sunshine there

[CaptainDork]

Invest in your looser people.

Fuck you.

You said they were tight.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[CaptainDork]

That's why no one is manufacturing solar cells.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Concentrated solar thermal with molten-salt heat storage can do both of these.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[whoever57]

Except that, for this generator, demand can easily be modified.

This facility provides power to pump water as part of the Central Arizona Project. The pumps don't have to operate 24/7.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Freischutz]

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."

True, Power companies typically have trouble selling excess energy produced during the night.

Or control the weather.

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

Where I come from we have two types of weather, rain and night ... we all hate you.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[mspohr]

You can't scale a coal power plant up or down to follow demand, either. It takes days.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[TWX]

One of my uncles works on control systems and environmental systems for coal plants. He's had to travel to visit that plant several times. It's truly decrepit and the plant is dangerously lacking in written procedures. Some of that comes from being on Tribal land, so State of Arizona laws do not generally apply. If I remember right it's been a known cause of pollution affecting the Grand Canyon and other parks and monuments too.

That part of the Colorado Plateau is pretty sunny. It does snow from time to time but it's not the kind of climate where the snow just builds up all winter, so it probably would be practical to keep the panels snow-free.

Re: Lots of Sunshine there

[TWX]

So you're saying that a partial solution is worse than having no solution?

As I see it, since people are most often awake and active during daylight hours, being able to operate enough base-load plants to meet nighttime needs coupled with solar to meet daytime needs would be a good way to transition the utility to provide the most efficiently and environmentally produced bulk generation while the consumer-end clean stuff satisfies the remainder.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[rtb61]

All renewables will struggle with high energy power requirements, industry, commercial and high density residential. Suburban power in suitable climes will not be a problem but beyond that simply can not achieve the required energy out comes.

That does not even touch the concept of substantially increasing recycling of all material via high energy industrial processes. So using energy to eliminate waste and minimise resource use, a double plus but it will take a lot of cheap energy to achieve it. We should be starting to push into zero waste societies which is possible through effective industrial recycling, turning waste into useful matter to be used again. Even sewerage when properly treated can be turned into high value fertiliser and of course energy, 'natural gas' (tee hee).

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[AbrasiveCat]

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."

True, Power companies typically have trouble selling excess energy produced during the night.

Or control the weather.

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

Where I come from we have two types of weather, rain and night ... we all hate you.

Sigh, where I come from we have two types of weather, rain and rain at night, you lucky dogs

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Uberbah]

Pedant fail.

Here is an example of a coal plant that can ramp in less then days.

Irrelevant. The whole point of the Baseline Power Canard is that wind and solar cannot bridge the power gap on a dark, windless night. Do tell how a coal power plant ramping up generation "less than days later" manages to fill that overnight hole.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Uberbah]

All renewables will struggle with high energy power requirements, industry, commercial and high density residential.

Err, not so much. You simply build your generating capacity to meet expected demands - no different than you would for coal or nuclear power, only in less time for less money. Most of the overwrought concerns over wind and solar power may be answered by simple technology from the '70s. The 1870's.

There are water towers and hydroelectric dams functioning today that were constructed more than a century ago. For an up front investment - which is required by coal and nuclear power to a Biblical degree - you can build water reservoir batteries to store excess energy to be used when needed, by releasing water to move a turbine. And before you dismiss that idea, the whole point of a
$10 billion nuclear power plant is to heat water - to move a turbine to generate electricity.

Re: Lots of Sunshine there

[Barsteward]

he's probably too stupid to understand that reply

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Barsteward]

Could also put up turbines if its suitable and maybe create a huge power storage system

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[jabuzz]

Yeah right, Dinowic (a pumped storage in Wales) can go from zero to 1800MW in 75 seconds. If the turbines are pre-synchronized (aka spinning in free air for a small power draw) they can go from zero to 1800MW in 16 seconds.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[DirkDaring]

few billion... but who's counting.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Anonymous Coward]

>dark, windless night.
that's a local fenomenon. you could build something to transmit power a few thousand K's in any direction.
"A recent study by Mark Jacobson and colleagues went well beyond above studies. It showed that all energy use in the USA, including transport and heat, could be supplied by renewable electricity. The computer simulation used synthetic data on electricity demand, wind and sunshine taken every 30 seconds over a period of 6 years."
see http://www.energyscience.org.a...

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[AmiMoJo]

Solar PV is trivial to scale down, just rotate or shade the panels. In practice you would probably use the excess to charge batteries or pump water or use for some kind of non-time-critical process like desalination or refrigeration.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Solandri]

You can scale it down, absolutely.

You don't want to scale it down. Solar's costs are almost entirely up-front. There are no recurring fuel costs. So after you've built the panels, you want them running at full capacity whenever possible. If power generation needs to be scaled down, you want to scale something else down (preferably something using fuel).

The flip side of this is that solar can't provide base load nor peaking load. You need other power sources to provide those. Something renewables advocates need to learn if they want to be taken seriously in energy generation debates.

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."

If the dream of an EV in every house comes true, power consumption at night will exceed power consumption during the day.

And all power storage technologies incur losses. Right now, the most efficient method of storage (pumped storage) is about 80% efficient. So like above, you are best off using electricity from solar when it's generated. Don't throw away 20% of the energy just so you can check a box by pounding a round peg into a square hole. Use each technology in its most efficient way. Solar to reduce power generated from other sources during the day. Other power generation sources during the night. Far in the future if so much of our power is generated by solar that we have excess, then we can start to worry about storing some of that energy to time-shift its use.

Re: Lots of Sunshine there

[CaptainDork]

The mods failed to get it, too.

"Tight," is an old you-fee-mism for being drunk.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[thegarbz]

Average peak demand occurs AFTER sunset. Solar Thermal with and without storage has a very different cost. You don't get anything "for free". Those which do have storage require some form of backup power anyway as the process of losing energy in the system can cause a several month outage for a plant (solidified thermal carrier material in your pipework is a disaster)

I'm not saying solar is a bad idea, but one has to be realistic on the applications of it.

Re:Lots of Sunshine there

[Uberbah]

that's a local fenomenon. you could build something to transmit power a few thousand K's in any direction.

Yes, that's something I point out to concern trolls on wind and solar power - we already move coal and nuclear power hundreds of miles via power lines. So space out your wind and solar farms across the same distance, as you aren't going to have an entire region go without any wind.

Re: Lots of Sunshine there

[Coren22]

If they are looser, perhaps their leaders should tighten them up with a wrench or something. But I guess you are too much of a loser to spell that word correctly.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes markets need to be protected from themselves don't you think?

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[MightyMartian]

Well, unless you're using the Invisible Hand as a sort of religious icon masking the fact that you want to take part in short term profiteering regardless of any long-term effects your business may be causing. Those that want to keep doing nasty things like selling cigarettes to children or vomiting sulfur dioxide and CO2 into the atmosphere will often decry any attempt to limit the harm their business cause by praying to the Invisible Hand, declaring that any attempt to interfere with this deity will lead to Communism or some other sort of ideological bogeyman to scare Rust Belt types into believing that America will only be great so long as a few rather rich people accrue even more money.

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:Market Forces Kill Coal

[Layzej]

By market forces you mean the immense pressure Obama put on the industry, choking it under regulations while giving huge tax breaks to other energy producers? The "market" had nothing to do with this.

You think coal got the short stick over the last decade? Try finding a decent video rental shop these days. Thanks Obama.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[GLMDesigns]

People hear different things. The coal miners (and others) heard that Trump was going to try to bring back middle-class blue collar jobs. They don't care if it's a coal mine, installing solar panels, an oil pipeline, building refineries - what counts are blue collar jobs.

And not the BS trope but forth by the high-almighty that we're going to train you to become code monkeys (and then triple the approved H1-B visas) .

The Dems used to be the party of labor. Not anymore. The Dems abandoned labor in favor of identity politics and other progressive Shibboleths.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true, natural gas combined cycles are far more efficient, produce much less CO2, require fewer operators and maintenance techs, and can be dispatched more easily with faster ramp rates. Design and construction times are much shorter, and the equipment is very robust after decades of optimization. They also require much less land and water (but that depends on whether they are air cooled or not). Modern control systems can be programmed to start up the plant at the push of a button with little operator interaction, or even operated remotely for some natural gas simple cycle plants.

There are drawbacks - modern heavy industrial gas turbines do have unique problems requiring extensive outages during major inspections (and often more unplanned outages depending on the design of the unit and age). Natural gas is more variable in price than coal, but operating companies and owners have gotten better at dispatching combined cycle plants to coincide with demand (some plants start up twice a day). Flexibility is important where natural gas power plants operate.

There will always be some fossil fuel plants in operation for the next century, if at a minimum to maintain voltage and VAR support. But coal has definitely seen its last decades. Few engineers I work with have done design work on a coal plant now, and those that have are all in their 50s or older. At some point that knowledge is going to be lost.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[Ranbot]

It's true, natural gas combined cycles are far more efficient, produce much less CO2, require fewer operators and maintenance techs, and can be dispatched more easily with faster ramp rates. Design and construction times are much shorter, and the equipment is very robust after decades of optimization.

Another big advantage of Natural Gas is it can distributed more efficiently through pipelines.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[KiloByte]

No, coal still receives massive subsidies. It gets to ignore the pollution costs, medical costs, causing up to 1/3 deaths, and so on.

For comparison, nuclear, beside all the regulation coal doesn't have to cope with, is required to store every bit of its waste for hundreds of years. Please tell me when coal plants have to put condoms on their chimneys that collect all the CO2, sulphur, nitrogen oxide and even radioactive isotopes, and instead of dumping them into the air stores them underground. Only then you can talk about a fair competition.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[erapert]

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

For someone whose handle is "DickBreath" it seems to me that you have... bigger... issues to worry about choking on.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[CaptainDork]

And it has all natural ingredients.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[MightyMartian]

I'm sorry, there are unlikely to be any substantial amounts of power generated by fossil fuels by 2100. Storage technologies will almost certainly have overcome any difficulties like that. This is little more than the absurd claims of people who just want to believe investing in fossil fuels is a long-term viable way to use your money.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[CaptainDork]

And "er," has side effects.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[barakn]

Liar.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[tquasar]

China is trying to close coal fired power plants but coal still provides much of the electric power.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[Anonymous Coward]

If anything else, this is a big point against the "free market" if anything else.

There is little benefit to anyone from burning coal. Its dirty, disgusting, and creates a fuckton of soot.

If promoting things like NatGas, then Solar + Wind + Geo Thermal are the product of a mixed economy, than it speaks for the strength of the mixed economy.

The mental gymnastics I hear is mindboggling. On one hand we hear "invisible hand has spoken", on the other hand we hear "damn crony capitalism preventing us from using really terrible fuel sources".

What the actual fuck?

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[Anonymous Coward]

For someone whose handle is "DickBreath" it seems to me that you have... bigger... issues to worry about choking on.

Can't make a rational, well-thought-out argument for why it's a great idea to fuck up the environment, so instead you mock their username? Here's an idea: How about you start a nice unvented coal fire, right inside your home, and see how long it takes for you to change your mind (or let Darwinism take its course).

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[zifn4b]

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.

Campaign promises couldn't bring back the ice or seamstress industry either. It's called Creative Destruction a term coined by John Schumpeter. You can't make promises on something beyond your control no matter who you are.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[zifn4b]

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

Here's a concept, how about instead of asking everyone to do things for you, do it yourself? Outfit your home with solar panels and then sell the electricity back to the power company. Campaign to convince your neighbors to do the same. If enough people do it, bam, community-fueled power grid. But you know, keep on asking the incompetent federal government to solve the problem and see where that gets you.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[DickBreath]

What you suggest is ALREADY happening. It doesn't happen overnight. Like most changes in society it seems to take forever, but the change gradually occurs. See how the automobile displaced the horse and buggy. But not overnight to be sure. Electric cars will gradually become more affordable and have longer range. And please dear God turn the whole idea of dealerships into a smoking crater in the ground in the process.

That said, there still needs to be regulations that choke things that harm everyone. It does no good to preach to me that I should put in a well to get my own clean water when there is a major water polluter in the area that can act with impunity due to lack of regulation. I understand that no analogy is perfect.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[DickBreath]

I have never choked on the other issues, nor do I worry about them when I am thinking of them. And some of those other issues you mention are large indeed. Even though coal or the oxymoronic clean coal may be easier to swallow, it is still an unnatural abomination which needs to be minimized, and hopefully eventually eliminated.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[edtice1559]

I would assume that the plants keep some reserves for this and, if the safety stock is low, bring in backup supplies via LNG tanker. Can you cite some contrary evidence? It would add meaningfully to the discussion.

Re: Market Forces Kill Coal

[Ranbot]

Two types of people burn wood fires in a house.

Rich people for ambiance, not heat.
Poor people who can't afford to live in the modern world.

I'm guessing you are in the angry subset of the second.

Not necessarily. My middle-class parents have a modern house heated by a wood-burning furnace in their basement with ducts that efficiently blow hot air around the whole house. They live in rural New England, so the wood furnace gets a lot of use in the winter. When they crunched the numbers vs other fuels wood was the most economical and renewable. They have a few back-up electric baseboard heaters to keep pipes from freezing if they have to leave the house in the winter for a few days. The rural area they live is relatively close to the forests that supply the wood, so wood a relatively cheap heat source, but wood costs increase in more urban areas such that other fuel types become better. The main drawback is the effort of stacking wood and hauling it to the furnace, which wasn't a problem for my parents for the last 40 or so years, but they are reaching retirement age and are looking into other heating options now.

Re: Market Forces Kill Coal

[MightyMartian]

Unless you have ready access to rather cheap wood, buying properly seasoned wood is fairly expensive, and even where you have access to a ready supply of firewood, cutting, splitting and stacking is a LOT of work. I know, when I was a kid we had a wood furnace in the basement and a fireplace in the livingroom, and in the spring I'd be helping my grandfather and my cousin get firewood, either from clear cuts where my grandfather had a firewood license, or on his own property. To get enough firewood to last through the winter was a fairly significant amount of work, and I remember my old man observing that if we were all being paid minimum wage for the amount of work we were doing (even back in the mid-1980s), it wouldn't have been that much more for oil or electric heat.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[erapert]

What's the matter, can't take a joke?

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[Rakarra]

Can't make a rational, well-thought-out argument for why it's a great idea to fuck up the environment, so instead you mock their username? Here's an idea:

Here's an idea, if you don't want to get mocked, regardless of the conversation topic, then consider not using a sex joke as a username.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[Rakarra]

Here's a concept, how about instead of asking everyone to do things for you, do it yourself? Outfit your home with solar panels and then sell the electricity back to the power company.

That's fine, and I heartily encourage people to do so. But this doesn't stop coal burning from affecting my health or my climate.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[zifn4b]

That's fine, and I heartily encourage people to do so. But this doesn't stop coal burning from affecting my health or my climate.

Let me walk you through this. You live in a community where electricity is primarily supplied by a dirty coal power plant. You and your neighbors all decide to get solar panels. You generate enough electricity that you don't need the electricity from the coal burning power plant. The coal burning power plant loses its revenue stream and cannot pay its workers or bills. What happens? That's a real CHOKE. Vote with your wallet. Just remember, when you do this, don't whine and complain about the job losses. You decided your health and wallet is more important than getting a paycheck from the coal burning power plant.

Re:Market Forces Kill Coal

[zifn4b]

That said, there still needs to be regulations that choke things that harm everyone. It does no good to preach to me that I should put in a well to get my own clean water when there is a major water polluter in the area that can act with impunity due to lack of regulation. I understand that no analogy is perfect.

Doesn't matter. The government is incompetent. What are you going to do about it? Just whine and complain? That's going to help the situation fo sho.

Re: Market Forces Kill Coal

[Agripa]

Sorry. Software on an inverter can handle volt var from excess PV. And power electronics a work better than rotating machines. Respond faster and more precise isely.

Which is more economical to build per watt? An inverter which supports VAR operation or a synchronous condenser?

Make Gasoline instead

[avandesande]

We have lots of both...

http://www.wvcoal.com/research...

No long term stratergy

[del_diablo]

So based on this article:
1. Price on gas lowers
2. Gas plants gets built
3. It turned out once built en mass, that gas plants was cheaper than coal before price collapse, but nobody knew until economy of scale kicked in
====
That said, the statement in the article do not have to ring true at all.

Then again, per Wikipedia, Owners:
-U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (24.3%)
-Salt River Project (21.7%)
-LADWP (former) (21.2%)
-Arizona Public Service (14.0%)
-NV Energy (11.3%)
-Tucson Electric Power (7.5%)
So 4 out of 6 want it shut down, in the mid term future. Which one? And why?

Negiotiating tactic

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a tactic to get the best deal on the renewal of the plant. Happens all the time. Clean coal is cheap.

Re: Negiotiating tactic

[Anonymous Coward]

"Clean" coal. Uh huh.

Re:Negiotiating tactic

[MightyMartian]

Sure there is! They have this magic smokestacks that take coal smoke and turn it into magic rainbows! It's true. It works on much the same principal as cigarette filters do, filtering out the nastiness and leaving only the cool, sweet smoke that leading chiropractors have determined is actually healthy!

Re:Negiotiating tactic

[DickBreath]

I laughed out loud the first time I heard Trump say "clean" coal.

Re:Negiotiating tactic

[MightyMartian]

That are at the best 90% effective. It doesn't reduce all the sulfur dioxide and other noxious compounds, and does little or nothing to reduce CO2 emissions.

Burning coal is just plain bad.

Re:Negiotiating tactic

[amicusNYCL]

They "take out" the harmful pollutants? Where do the harmful pollutants go? Just, poof, they're gone?

Re:Negiotiating tactic

[amicusNYCL]

I laughed out loud

That had to smell terrible.

There's also a nuke plant out there....

[sconeu]

About 60 miles west of Phoenix. The Tonopah plant.

Re:There's also a nuke plant out there....

[amicusNYCL]

Palo Verde is the largest power plant in the country, and the only large nuke plant in the world not near a major body of water.

Re:There's also a nuke plant out there....

[Packgrog]

My understanding from my stepfather (who works in the nuclear power industry) is that the low price of natural gas, and low price of startup on the requisite power plants, is killing the nuclear power industry as well. Renewables (solar, hydro, wind) are taking over, with natural gas plants as the back up for lag times.

No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[rahvin112]

This plant is one of the worst polluters in the west. It was exempted from the mercury limits rule when they went into effect and it's responsible for 90% of the air pollution and haze in the Grand Canyon. This plant should have been shut down as soon as viable alternatives existed and market forces are finally doing it in.

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.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[Anonymous Coward]

Market forces do not include externalities on their balance sheets. Market forces created slavery, because freedom is an externality that markets do not value. The US Constitution values the General Welfare, but market forces do not.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[Uberbah]

Bullshit. Slavery was the default option for human labor

...for capitalists and other oligarchic shitbags. WYP?

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[Anonymous Coward]

. 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.

Yeah, but Reagan the actual politician would be classified as a communist RINO by modern republicans. It's only Reagan the legend that's a conservative icon.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[Barsteward]

why don't you gain some credibility and log in. spewing from behind AC is gutter talk

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[MightyMartian]

I really do feel that, in this Age of Trump, the days of the AC should come to an end. I know that a pseudonym isn't much better, but in general, the quality of posts is at least a little higher from those who have actually taken the time to create an account and log in to it.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[j-beda]

Market forces created slavery, because freedom is an externality that markets do not value.

Bullshit.
Slavery was the default option for human labor long before there was anything like market forces or even money.

To be fair "market forces" is a term that can encompass every economic exchange - under any political or economic system. Like "natural selection", it is part of any system. When Ug and Fug were deciding if they should steal the meat from Mug or barter for it some other way - "market forces" were in action.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[WindBourne]

why do you ACs trolls post here and prove that the far right are a bunch of idiots?
There was NOTHING that O did to kill Coal in any way. Yeah, he blocked mining on public land and prevented rate cuts that the GOP wants to give big coal (big coal already pays less on public land, than any other nation charging miners).
But,there is little doubt that it was Nat Gas being so low, combined with the Mercury emission cuts, that killed off the coal so far.
And with wind being cheaper than coal, it is also stopping new coal.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[WindBourne]

OMG. I hope that you are being sarcastic, but I know better.
I wish that I had used my mod points instead. I would have modded you down.
Reagan was the WORST. With Watts, and Gorsuch were total FUCK-UPS and did even more damage to our environment than all of the previous presidents before.
It was NIXON, followed by Carter that cleaned up things. EPA was created by Nixon while reagan tried hard to kill it off and sell our public lands.
reagan and W were 2 of our presidents, until Trump came along.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[WindBourne]

Well, totally agree with you on this. I am amazed that /. has NOT changed their policy in all these years.

Re:No more Haze in Grand Canyon

[WindBourne]

i worked at CDC and then DARPA under reagan. I was on the ground floor of HIV and know the stuff that NEVER made the 'historical' book, the band played on.
I can tell you that reagan and his cunt wife were personally responsible for allowing HIV to spread in America. Why? Because CDC went to him asking for 50 million to track those who had it. At the time, we KNEW that there were fewer than 500 ppl with an infection (turned out later, once known, that it was less than 200). We could not have stopped its spread, but we could have put it back DECADES. reagan, nancy and a PRIEST made the choice to NOT FUND THIS. 50 fucking million dollars.

And I worked at DARPA later and saw how reagan's ppl operated then. reagan was the start of the GOP that HATE AND DISTRUST SCIENCE.
The reason is that logic/science could be used to stop them from the fucking raving of the world that he was doing.

reagan was the worst. W make reagan look good. And trump? Well, we will have to see. The fact that he has Thiel and Musk is a DAMN GOOD THING.

Re:wow... just that?

[bjb_admin]

All we need is 1.21 Jigawatts, any more is unnecessary.

Just one market force - Fracking

[SuperKendall]

It should be noted that the whole reason coal is more expensive is because we have so much more natural gas from fracking. You can thank Fracking for yet another environmental victory.

how empty the campaign promises to bring back coal were.

No-one said they would be coal jobs... plus maybe those jobs are not going away, from article:

it's at least possible that the tribes could work out a deal to keep the plant running under a different ownership arrangement.

Never underestimate the power of an aggrieved minority. Question of the day, do you think Democrats will vote for anything that keeps this plant running? The answer is yes, as you will see.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[amicusNYCL]

No-one said they would be coal jobs

The only argument you could possibly have for that statement to be true is to argue that Trump's speaking style is so vague as to be meaningless. He did say this:

"We're gonna open the mines"

And this:

"Let me tell you: the miners in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week and Ohio and all over, they’re going to start to work again, believe me. You’re going to be proud again to be miners."

He told the miners to get ready to "work their ass off". He made several statements like those after Clinton said that, if she were elected, a lot of coal miners would be out of jobs. Naturally, Trump sensed a weakness and attacked. And people responded to him with statements like this:

One of [West Virginia's] delegates, donning a coal miner's hat, used the state's time to complain about how President Obama has wrecked the state's economy: "It has been devastating what has happened all across Appalachia and this country," the delegate said. "Tens of thousands of coal miners have lost their jobs over the last seven-and-a-half years under this administration - it's time we change course with a man named Donald J. Trump."

And this:

"I did vote for Donald Trump," Moeller says. "It's really hard to even say that because I so dislike his rhetoric. But I voted for him on one singular issue, and that was coal."

And this:

"I voted for Trump - I mean, a coal miner would be stupid not to," Hathaway says.

And this:

"He is a whacko; he's never going to stop being a whacko," Hathaway says. "But I mean, the things he did say - the good stuff - was good for the coal mining community. But we'll see what happens."

And this:

“I have said to Mr. Trump on a couple of occasions, 'Please temper your commitment to my coal miners and your expectations of bringing the coal industry back.' It cannot be brought back to what it was,” said Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., the nation's largest coal producer. “The destruction is permanent,” said Mr. Murray, a Trump supporter.

So, SuperKendall, why do you think all of those people would say things like that if Trump never promised to bring back the coal industry? Do a search for "Donald Trump coal jobs" and go and look at all of the articles going back to last May. Notice him standing on stage with a sign saying "Trump Digs Coal". He's got the CEO of the largest coal producer telling him to temper his promises to bring the coal industry back.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[SuperKendall]

You didn't read what I wrote at all, did you? And to boot, you seem to have an absolutely terrible grasp of geography....

Sigh. So it goes these days, impossible to have rational debate when the left area only about talking points regardless of facts.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[JustNiz]

>> it's at least possible that the tribes could work out a deal to keep the plant running

God I hope not. The air quality is a major problem in Phoenix. They could just open yet another Casino on their land so they can avoid paying taxes, and probably employ just as many people and make just as much money.

>> do you think Democrats will vote for anything that keeps this plant running?

Of course. Especially if it means another donation to the Clinton Foundation.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[JustNiz]

>> It cannot be brought back to what it was,

If Trump gives it enough subsidies anything could happen.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow anything to win an argument? He provided tons of cites, you respond with some slippery bullshit you know is wrong. Did it make you feel good to write that? Did you smile to yourself? Did you gently, gently stroke your neckbeard and say "still good...I'm still good..." while choking back a tear and a little bile from the self-doubt? God damn it must suck to be you.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[dunkelfalke]

To be fair, burning coal for electrical power production is only a part of the coal indursty. The other part is steel production from iron ore.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[amicusNYCL]

Yeah, I did read what you wrote, you wrote this:

No-one said they would be coal jobs

That's an alt-fact, SuperKendall, Trump did promise to bring back coal jobs. But, just like Trump himself, if the facts on the ground start to look different the easiest way out is to just claim that you never said that, right?

And to boot, you seem to have an absolutely terrible grasp of geography....

I would question how that statement has anything at all to do with whether or not Trump promised to bring back coal jobs, but I'm sure you'd like to move the goal posts and distract from the fact that your statement is factually incorrect.

So it goes these days, impossible to have rational debate when the left area only about talking points regardless of facts.

I like that alt-statement, because I responded with a bunch of quotes from Trump and Trump supporters. Apparently those are left talking points in your alt-world.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[Rakarra]

So, SuperKendall, why do you think all of those people would say things like that if Trump never promised to bring back the coal industry?

What I've noticed with Trump is that people hear what they want to hear, and they react appropriately.

But the other thing I've noticed is that Trump very often lies about a problem and/or its severity, but he can be surprisingly truthful about what he plans to do to solve that problem based on a lie.

So coal jobs declined most due to the glut of natural gas, so it doesn't make any financial sense to have coal miners work their asses off. But who knows, he might do what he says and try to push it through anyway.

Re:Just one market force - Fracking

[amicusNYCL]

What I've noticed with Trump is that people hear what they want to hear, and they react appropriately.

I think he makes that pretty easy. Take a few examples from his latest press conference:

We've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare. Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It's a disaster. I know you can say, oh, Obamacare. I mean, they fill up our alleys with people that you wonder how they get there, but they are not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.

or...

It's all fake news. It's all fake news. The nice thing is, I see it starting to turn, where people are now looking at the illegal -- I think it's very important -- the illegal, giving out classified information. It was -- and let me just tell you, it was given out like so much.

I bet 5 different people could read those and come up with 5 different things that he means.

Oil Gets Subsidies Too

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't look for crony-free capitalism in big energy. It won't and can't exist. Like capital itself, energy is too important to leave to the whims of the market. And where you don't see in-your-face subsidies (like Ethanol/corn producers), there's back-end subsidies like tax breaks, easements, or permits for getting rid of toxic waste for free. Coal ash is a particularly nasty nasty toxic waste, for example, full of heavy metals and even radio-active materials, that has to be dumped in horrid "ponds" that look horrifying from the air and that the companies promise will NEVER leak into the ground-water while there are ANY family-members of the board of directors still living within 1000 miles of there.

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[gtall]

Yeah, just like cleaning up the smog that cities used have. Yep, the invisible hand of the Ghost of Ayn Rand did that.

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[Crashmarik]

The liability would have destroyed the oil companies.

But if you want to give credit to Richard Nixon who am I to argue.

So....

[quantaman]

Is Trump going to appear with the CEO to take credit for this one as well?

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[martinX]

The liability would have destroyed the oil companies.

How would that have worked?

Re:Coal plant up for repairs?

[Pascoea]

Natural gas can be used for cars, airplanes, etc., which coal can't. (emphasis mine)

That's not entirely true. You can turn coal into natural gas, and a bunch of other things. It's expensive, smells horrible, and requires a significant amount of energy, but it can be done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:wow... just that?

[amicusNYCL]

The largest coal plant in the country is 3.5GW. The largest nuclear plant is 3.9GW. That will power around 4 million homes, it's not that insignificant.

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[skam240]

Personally, I do. He did it in a wonderfull past in which conservatives actually did things that helped tue country

Not unexpected - newest unit in 1976

[dbIII]

This story has been "spun" in all kinds of directions, but when it gets down to it the newest unit was built in 1976 and it's getting increasingly expensive to replace parts piecemeal and keep it running. The lease on the land has come up and the choice was to either pay that new expense on top of the ongoing increasing running costs or give up.
A lot of units of that type from that time were designed for a 20 to 25 year life.

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[Crashmarik]

https://www.theatlantic.com/te...

I'd love to live in a wonderful present where liberals actually deal in facts, instead of just shouting down other people's conversations.

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[Cmdln Daco]

The world still hasn't gotten rid of slavery. It may never.

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[skam240]

For starters, I fail to see how I "shut down a conversation". Second, what was the point of posting that link? are you confirming my point that Republicans of this era actually did things?

Good idea

[Applehu Akbar]

The Navajo plant outgasses into the Grand Canyon, where sunlight acting on it produces smog. Let's close it and add another unit to Palo Verde.

Re:Good idea

[WindBourne]

it is the single largest emitter of pollution in the west through all the mid/south forest.
Rocky Mountain Forest is loaded with Mercury and lots of pollution due to Navajo.
It will be nice to have this end.

Re:Good idea

[WindBourne]

Kayenta is where the coal mine is located.
NGS is located in Paige right off the Colorado (read GRAND CANYON), which it uses for cooling.

Re:What do you know the invisible hand acts

[Smidge204]

Just like the liability of all those oil spills devastating the environment have destroyed the oil companies, right?

I'm sure BP will be filing for bankruptcy any day now after paying out $50-some-odd billion for cleanup, fines and lawsuits. Aaaaaany day now...
=Smidge=

Re:They're not saying anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just repeating what they heard without knowing what it means. It's a kind of libertarian mantra, like the Buddhist "Ohm".

Watt?

Energy companies declare war on coal!

[whitroth]

And under the Invisible Hand of the Free Market (tm), which also declared War on Coal!!!

Oh, yeah, what "government war on coal"? I must have missed that in the corporate change to mountaintop removal, cutting 90% of mining jobs....

Re: What do you know the invisible hand acts

[Crashmarik]

By comparison, about 11.1 million people are enrolled in ObamaCare exchange plans, with 9.4 million of them getting premium subsidies.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...

by 99% you mean less 3%

major polluter of the west

[WindBourne]

THis has been being researched for some time. China is the single largest polluter in western America, EXCEPT for this coal plant. This one has been polluting our forest and western cities for decades.
Now after this, China is the west's single largest source of pollution. Yes, it make all the way to Denver. The question is, what will the west, or even the world do, to stop them.

Re:We've been down this road before

[WindBourne]

totally, except that we need to drop all fossil fuel. Fission (and Fusion in the future) along with geo-thermal makes a great baseload power.

Natrual Gas and Trump

[WindBourne]

Trump is very likely going to allow the major exporting of oil and nat gas. We will see these go WAY UP IN PRICE in America.
As long as we invest into nuke power, America will be OK. Otherwise, we are going to see our electricity and nat gas prices go WAY UP, and lose a bunch of our chemical industry jobs.