PGE moves to close Boardman coal-fired power plant early

Portland General Electric Co. would accelerate the shut down of the state's only coal-fired power plant by twenty years under a plan it hopes to finalize with state and federal environmental regulators in coming months.

In a letter sent to the Oregon Public Utility Commission Thursday, the state's largest utility said it was pursuing an alternative to its existing operating plan for Boardman, which calls for PGE to invest a half billion dollars in pollution controls at the plant between 2011 and 2017 to comply with federal and state clean air regulations and keep it running until 2040.

Instead, the company hopes regulators will allow it to make a $45 million investment next year to partially clean up its emissions of mercury and oxides of nitrogen, and run the plant until 2020.

The plan needs approval from the Oregon's Environmental Quality Commission and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The company said it would spend the next 60 days seeking input from all stakeholders, then seek formal approval of the plan.

"We went and met with the DEQ in November and they indicated some willingness to consider it," said PGE chief executive Jim Piro. "They couldn't guarantee how the EQC would decide, but we're making progress."
Based on its analysis of carbon and natural gas prices, PGE believes a 2020 shutdown would be the low-cost, least-risk plan for utility ratepayers and shareholders. Both face the risk of making the huge investment to control haze causing pollution -- which does nothing to control the plants carbon emissions -- then seeing the plant's electricity become prohibitively expensive if lawmakers implement some form of carbon tax as part of global warming legislation.

The earlier shut down has been urged on PGE by a variety of environmental and ratepayer groups, though some environmentalists still feel the utility should be forced to shut the plant even earlier.

Boardman has long been an environmental black eye for the state's largest utility, but it also provides a stable source of low-cost electricity. The plant burns strip-mined coal shipped in by train from Wyoming's Powder River Basin, and accounts for about 25 percent of the power generation owned by PGE, and 15 percent of the energy consumed by its customers.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2010/01/pge_moves_to_close_boardman_co.html

if we take infrastructure offline, it needs to be replaced with something. we need to add to our electrical producing capability every year.

if they were to shut down the coal plants in my own state, i'd expect as many new nukes to be built, if not more.

and if we want electric cars, we need a LOT more electrical infrastructure.