A study of clean energy alternatives led by the Pueblo Innovative Energy Solutions Advisory Council (PIESAC) finds that only advanced nuclear energy can save communities “whole-body” from the consequences of the closure of the last unit of the Comanche coal-fired power plant The loss facility is located in Pueblo, Colorado, while ensuring a just transition.
PIESAC is a diverse 11-member committee of Pueblo community leaders formed by Colorado-based Xcel Energy to evaluate and recommend future clean energy generation strategies to replace Comanche’s eventual coal-fired units as the company transitions to providing 100% carbon-free electricity to power Colorado customers and communities by 2050. The plant, located approximately 177 kilometers (110 miles) south of Denver, consists of three coal-fired units: Unit 1 (335 MWe) will retire in 2022, Unit 2 (315 MWe) will retire in late 2025, and Unit 3 will retire in 2022. The unit (750 MWe) will be decommissioned in 2025. MWe) will retire no later than January 1, 2031.
The Comanche 3 nuclear plant was originally expected to operate until 2070, but its closure will have a “devastating impact” on Pueblo’s economy unless the community, Xcel Energy and other stakeholders start planning now to replace it, the study says . The 2031 closure will cost Pueblo more than $845 million in tax revenue that funds schools, fire districts, libraries, conservation areas and city and county operations. “We urgently need to reduce the emissions that drive climate change, but we must also provide a path forward for coal communities like Pueblo that rely on high-paying technical jobs and taxes at coal-fired power plants,” the study found.
PIESAC’s new report is the culmination of ten months of work to evaluate clean energy generation strategies to replace Comanche Generating Station’s existing coal-fired units while ensuring a “just transition” so that “coal communities not only do not suffer from the closure of coal facilities, While replacing coal-generated power with high-paying, high-skilled jobs and losing its tax base, coal communities have the opportunity to thrive, grow and reimagine their local economies.”
The committee looked at “substantial” power generation possibilities that Pueblo could achieve by 2034, including a variety of energy storage and battery technologies, hydrogen as a primary fuel, construction of additional solar facilities, carbon capture combined cycle natural gas, and advanced nuclear . Among them, it suggested that Pueblo should only consider the latter two — new natural gas plants with carbon capture or advanced nuclear power.
A new natural gas power plant with carbon capture technology will provide 20 to 25 jobs with a salary range of $80,000 to $120,000 and an annual tax bill of approximately $16.5 million, while an advanced nuclear power plant will provide 200 to 300 jobs , with a salary range of $60,000-$20 million per year and $95.29 million in taxes, states: “Of all the technologies we examined, only advanced nuclear power generation would complete Pueblo and provide a path to The path to prosperity.”
Coal will account for about 27% of Xcel Energy-Colorado’s 2022 generation mix, with natural gas supplying about 31% and wind supplying 36%. The company aims to have 81% of its electricity generation carbon-free by 2030 and 100% carbon-free electricity generation by 2050.
Xcel Energy-Colorado, part of Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy, serves eight states in the Western and Midwestern U.S. with a generation portfolio that includes the Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear plants in Minnesota.