
Xcel Energy Says It Will Close Two Coal-Fired Power Plants a Decade Early - ga-vu
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/xcel-energy-end-coal-upper-154800947.html
======
duxup
Natural Gas prices have done a great deal to reduce coal usage. Shutting down
a plant is no easy decision.

It is clear coal is just being priced out of the equation.

------
atonse
Imagine how much faster we'd go if we actually had the help of the federal
government (via grants, etc) instead of fighting these utilities tooth and
nail and forcing them to make these upgrades under court settlements and to
wait until they haven't exhausted every penny of profits before moving to
renewable energy?

~~~
crisdux
Be careful what you wish for. Look at Germany for the best example of what you
are asking for. Ignore the PR and look at the data. They have increased solar
capacity, but are closing natural gas and nuclear plants to build new lignite
coal plants(the worst of the coal burning plants). Since their focus on solar,
Germany's CO2 reductions have actually slowed!

~~~
kerbalspacepro
It seems like the biggest problem is the retreat from nuclear, not the focus
on solar.

~~~
crisdux
Or the fact that the sun doesn't shine that much in Germany? Look at a world
solar potential energy map. They are throwing money down the drain.

~~~
new4thaccount
A combination of shutting down nuclear to just import from France's nukes down
the road and use solar where they don't get much sun I would guess.

------
Causality1
Good, leave it in the ground where it belongs. Here in the US coal plant
closures are more due to the rise of natural gas plants rather than
renewables, but even natural gas only has half the carbon emissions and
doesn't produce toxic coal ash.

~~~
jpollock
American coal won't stay in the ground any more than Australia's does. There
are plenty of coal burning power plants in the world, and while it may not be
economic to burn it for electricity in the US, there are countries which
import a lot of coal.

[https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-market-
pricing](https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-market-pricing)

~~~
pastor_elm
Environmentalists should buy the coal, artificially inflate the price, and
store it permanently so it never gets burned.

~~~
esarbe
That would just increase demand, raising prices only until the coal mining
companies caught up with their production.

No, the only solution is to get away from coal consumption.

------
mschaef
Germany made a similar announcement recently, and I have the same questions
here as for there.

Although there has been progress to use coal plants as variable output plants,
they tend to be used base load plants that run all or most of the time. The
same thing is true for Nuclear plants, and to the extent that power prices
occasionally go _negative_. (This essentially means that the utility is
willing to pay people to take their power for a brief time at low system
loading, so that they can avoid turning a plant down or off.)

Renewables are used differently, in that there's a lot less ability to rely on
them to generate power. So they're not really a replacement. This makes me
think the ability to shutter these coal plants is a lot more dependent on the
decision to extend the life of the nuclear plant and buy the NG plant than it
is to do with the renewables they're adding.

~~~
war1025
Our municipal power plant where I live converted from coal to natural gas
recently. My understanding was the decision was based solely on the (now
cancelled?) Clean Power Plan, and the inability to make the existing plant
meet those regulations.

Given the instability of US politics, I'd guess most utility companies are
operating under the assumption that those laws could quickly be put back in
place after any given election cycle.

~~~
jsight
According to a utility in South Carolina (Santee Cooper):

"Related to cost — in 2008, natural gas generation was as low as $55/MWh and
coal was about $22/MWh in our most efficient units. In 2018, the comparable
prices were $26/MWh for natural gas and $34/MWh for coal."

~~~
hef19898
Thong in Germany is that CO2 certificates are so dirt cheap that the
incremental cost of power generation puts coal plants second behind wind and
solar with basically zero variable cost (I'd have to look up where hydro power
stands). So gas effectively gets squeezed out of the market.

The easy fix would be cutting the available CO2 certificates or making them
more expensive. But for some reason that ain't happening.

~~~
war1025
Doesn't Germany get most of its natural gas from Russia, which is a bit
contentious for political reasons?

~~~
village-idiot
Yes.

Fun fact, all of the natural gas that Germany bought from Russia used to flow
through former Warsaw Pact nations like Poland. Now the gas goes at least
partially through the undersea Nord Stream pipeline and the under construction
Nord Stream 2. It's generally believed that this transition has made Russia
much more bellicose in the region, as they can now threaten to turn off
Poland's gas supply without also harming Western Europe at the same time.

------
SlowRobotAhead
This was a legal settlement to shutdown two old coal plants earlier than
expected so they could buy a large natural gas plant. With the _promise_ that
they will build solar and wind too. But keep the coal plants on the books
until 2035-2037, but I expect the truth of the matter is those plants would be
cost ineffective by then anyhow. A lot could change in their plans.

I only read the legal page briefly but my guess is if you are looking at this
as entirely Hope and Change, you should probably be more a little more
skeptical.

~~~
josefresco
Linked legal agreement:
[https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/05/21/document_ew_01.pdf](https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/05/21/document_ew_01.pdf)

------
antisthenes
Note that a _decade early_ is pretty misleading in this context, because the
headline gives no baseline - someone could erroneously assume that this means
they're shutting it down now, instead of in 2030.

Since no baseline is given, it's up to the reader to look at the content of
the article.

In reality, it seems they were planning to shut down the big plant in 2040,
and will now do so in 2030, which means it'll still be polluting for 10.5
years.

Any progress is better than no progress though.

------
WhompingWindows
This headline should be changed to "Will Close Its Coal-Fire Powered", as the
announcement is really just for 2028 and onwards. They haven't shut down the
coal-fired power yet, thus the present form of the verb is overly charitable.

~~~
dang
Ok, we'll put that above.

Edit: actually, let's change the URL from
[https://e360.yale.edu/digest/a-major-u-s-utility-is-
closing-...](https://e360.yale.edu/digest/a-major-u-s-utility-is-closing-its-
coal-fired-power-plants-a-decade-early) to the press release it points to,
which is actually more informative. Being less informative than a press
release is maybe not the greatest quality for an article...

------
umeshunni
In the spirit of saving you a click to find our the name and location of the
"major utility":

Xcel Energy Inc. announced it will close its remaining coal-fired power plants
in the Upper Midwest a decade ahead of schedule and add 3,000 megawatts of new
solar capacity by 2030.

~~~
dang
Ok, we'll put that name in the title as well.

------
Iwan-Zotow
"and add 3,000 megawatts of new solar capacity"

And what people supposed to do during evenings/nights/no sun? Fornicate?

~~~
esarbe
That's a splendid idea.

Oh, wait. There exists such a thing as batteries. Dang!

