Earth Equity News

Utility to Close 11 Coal Plants in North Carolina. By Matthew L. Wald, NYTimes, December 1, 2009. "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... While the short-term substitute is natural gas, the long-term plan is a nuclear backbone for the company's generating system, said Bill Johnson, the chief executive of the company. 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."