Southern
California Edison to sell Nevada Mohave plant
Los Angeles
Business from bizjournals - 1:41 PM PDT Monday
Southern
California Edison and three other owners will not try
to reopen the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin,
Nev., and instead will try to sell it, the company announced
Monday.
Due to a
variety of challenges, including clean-up and supply
issues, the owners decided to sell it because added
together the challenges became insurmountable.
With environmental
and other upgrades, the company told media that it would
take until 2010 at the earliest for Mohave to reopen,
and an internal estimate is that those upgrades and
a needed pipeline for a coal slurry would cost about
$1 billion.
The coal-fired
plant that was built in 1971 has drawn opposition from
environmental groups because it is not using "clean
coal" technology that makes newer coal plants pollute
less, and it was one of the most polluting power plants
in the United States until it closed at the end of 2005.
The 1,580-megawatt plant capable of serving more than
1 million residential customers failed to meet a court-sanctioned
consent degree to clean up the plant by the end of 2005.
The plant
was also having trouble securing coal and water rights
with Southwestern Native American tribes. During the
35 years it operated, the Peabody Energy Corp.,the biggest
non-government coal company in the world, mined coal
on tribal land in Arizona, crushed it and mixed it with
water to make a slurry that traveled on a pipeline to
the plant. The water involved came from the Navajo Aquifer
in Arizona, but the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe said
the plant could not continue to use the aquifer's water
because it was being depleted. Peabody's mine closed
when the Mohave plant closed.
Southern
California Edison is the majority owner at 56 percent,
or 885 megawatts, and operates Mohave for other owners
including Salt River Project (20 percent or 316 megawatts),
Sierra Pacific Resources Corp.'s Nevada Power Co. (14
percent or 221 megawatts) and the Los Angeles Department
of Water and Power (10 percent or 158 megawatts).
Southern
California Edison is a unit of Rosemead-based Edison
International (NYSE: EIX).
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