Big Utility to Close 11 Plants Using Coal
Dec 2, 2009 – Matthew L. Wald writes “Big Utility To Close 11 Plants Using Coal” in The New York Times. 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. 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.”
