Progress Energy -- A Huge Story

(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel

This in today's New York Times about Progress Energy closing down coal-fired power plants. Look for pin-action for Duke Energy, Southern Company, perhaps AEP and AYP.

With natural gas now so plentiful, this switch can be done to save the atmosphere.



By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: December 1, 2009
WASHINGTON — A large Southern utility said Tuesday that it would close 30 percent of its North Carolina coal-fired power plants by 2017, a step that represents a bet that natural gas prices will stay acceptably low and that stricter rules are coming on sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain.
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The utility, Progress Energy, based in Raleigh, said it would close 11 coal-fired power plants built between the 1950s and 1970s.
“Some of these plants are quite old,” said Bill Johnson, the chief executive of the company. But, he added, “They have a lot of useful life left in them, absent the need to put emissions control units on them.”
Mr. Johnson also said the company was taking a risk by reducing its output of carbon dioxide, which is not yet regulated, in the near term. He and others expect that Congress will eventually impose a limit on carbon dioxide emissions, possibly in the form of percentage reductions based on a baseline year. By closing the plants now, Progress is effectively cutting its baseline, meaning it may have to reduce emissions even further in the future.
“We need to do the right thing, regardless of that, and this is the right thing,” he said in a telephone interview. If there is a control system added later, he said, “we’d be making a strong argument, ‘Don’t penalize us for doing the right thing.’ ”
While the short-term substitute is natural gas, the long-term plan is a nuclear backbone for the company’s generating system, he said.
The plants being closed, at four sites, have a combined capacity of nearly 1,500 megawatts. Progress has spent more than $2 billion to put state-of-the-art controls on 2,500 megawatts of coal generation, the company said. And it has already announced plans for one new gas-fired plant and will soon announce additional plans, the company said. Progress is also planning to build two nuclear reactors in North Carolina and two more in Florida, but none will be in use by 2017.
Gov. Bev Perdue said in a statement that the announcement by Progress was important for the state’s air quality. “The transition toward cleaner sources of energy is good for the environment and the economy,” she said.
Progress said it might repower some coal-burning plants with wood waste. It does not anticipate large-scale wind or solar power in the near future, Mr. Johnson said. There is good wind offshore, but the area routinely experiences hurricanes that are stronger than existing wind machines can handle, he said.
Duke, another utility that operates in North Carolina, is closing some coal plants but is building a new one.
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From British Blog No Hot Air

(c) F. Bruce Abel

This from the British blog No Hot Air. Replacing coal-fired with natural gas plants for baseload is seemingly inevitable, with all the shale gas now coming available. The rest is a quote from No Hot Air today:


Gazprom goes green
Interesting Bloomberg report on Gazprom wanting to push up gas supplies
- OAO Gazprom, the world’s largestnatural gas supplier, joined BP Plc’s call to replace some coal-fired power plants with natural-gas utilities to battle globalwarming. Replacing about half of Europe’s existing coal-basedgeneration with modern gas-fired combined-cycle power stationswill cut carbon dioxide emissions by the same amount as usingwind power, while costing one third of the price, Gazprom ChiefExecutive Officer Alexei Miller said, according to an e-mailedtranscript of his speech at the World Gas Conference in BuenosAires yesterday.
Fossil fuels will provide most of world’s energy needs inthe “foreseeable future,” said Miller, the head of the world’sbiggest producer of the natural gas. Gas consumption willincrease for power generation and as a transport fuel, he said. “So far, the main goal pushed forward by some politiciansamounts to nothing more than just a decrease in hydrocarbonconsumption,” according to Miller.
No comment!
Posted at 08:56 AM in LNG, Next Big Things, Shale Gas Permalink Comments (0) TrackBack (0)
No Kingsnorth coal, but more gas for Eon
News this morning that the Kingsnorth Coal generator is to be postponed to 2016. So much for the lights out in 2016 theory then.
Apart from the game changer of shale gas, we also see the paradigm shift of falling electricity demand. The drop in demand is fundamental and although accelerated by the economy, the downward trend in energy consumption operates outside of it. An economic revival won't reverse the permanent long term efficiency savings caused by the big power of lots of small things using significantly less energy than we used to.
But if the economy is so bad that we don't need the Kingsnorth power, what to make of the news that Eon is building a big new gas plant?
E.ON UK is planning to revamp the decommmsioned High Marnham coal plant in Notttinghamshire, England as a 1600 MW combined-cycle gas fired plant.
A 945 MW coal fired facility at the same site closed in 2003. To produce power in a cleaner way, says E.ON, the new gas-fired power station will use latest combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) technology.
So what is it? The economy sinking Kingsnorth? An unhealthy environment for energy investment that will make Eon go elsewhere? Or Eon facing up to reality? Kingsnorth's coal capacity was 1600 MW. That isn't needed by the market but 1600MW of new gas to replace coal is? Someone isn't saying something!
Posted at 08:11 AM in Current Affairs, Prices and Politics Permalink Comments (0) TrackBack (0)
Oct 07, 2009