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hatrack

(59,584 posts)
Wed Feb 15, 2017, 09:01 AM Feb 2017

Navajo Coal Plant, Biggest In Western US, Will Close - Despite President Shitstain's Promises

EDIT

In the past three weeks, owners of two of the nation’s biggest coal-fired power plants have announced plans to shut them down, potentially idling hundreds of workers. One plant in Arizona is the largest coal-fired facility in the western United States.

“[We’re] bringing back jobs, big league,” President Trump said Tuesday after signing legislation that would scrap requirements for natural resources companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. “We’re bringing them back at the plant level. We’re bringing them back at the mine level. The energy jobs are coming back.” Yet even with his efforts to roll back Obama-era energy regulations, a lot of coal jobs won’t ever return, mainly because of harsh economic realities.

Case in point: The decision this week by the utilities that own the Navajo Generating Station outside Page, Ariz., to decommission the plant at the end of 2019, decades earlier than expected.
The 2,250-megawatt plant has faced increasing financial pressure in the face of record-low natural gas prices, which have made it more expensive to produce electricity at the facility than to purchase it from cheaper sources.

“The utility owners do not make this decision lightly,” said Mike Hummel, deputy general manager of Salt River Project, which operates the plant and owns it along with several utility companies and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. “NGS and its employees are one reason why this region, the state of Arizona and the Phoenix metropolitan area have been able to grow and thrive,” he added in a statement. “However, [its owners have] an obligation to provide low-cost service to our more than 1 million customers, and the higher cost of operating NGS would be borne by our customers.”

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/14/the-wests-largest-coal-fired-power-plant-is-closing-not-even-trump-can-save-it/?utm_term=.3ae2806b3ebd

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Navajo Coal Plant, Biggest In Western US, Will Close - Despite President Shitstain's Promises (Original Post) hatrack Feb 2017 OP
Maybe 45 can tweet them into staying open and increasing WhiteTara Feb 2017 #1
The cloture of any coal plant is to be applauded, but replacing it with dangerous natural gas... NNadir Feb 2017 #2

NNadir

(33,515 posts)
2. The cloture of any coal plant is to be applauded, but replacing it with dangerous natural gas...
Wed Feb 15, 2017, 10:52 AM
Feb 2017

...is still stealing from the future.

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