Colorado to retool some Coal plants to burn NG

This is primarily a move to improve air quality. With the coal fired Comanche 3 750 MW IGCC plant due to come on line soon (once they can get the deafening whine out of the cooling fans), the state is looking to retrofit some smaller and considerably older coal plants with natural gas. This would have the benefit of cleaning up the air quite a bit along with a reduce in CO emissions as well. Naturally the Coal industry is none too pleased, but the NG industry is so I suppose they cancel each other out.

The CO energy mix is dominated by coal. NG is the second largest contributor. Wind also plays a pretty big role. There's some hydro, but it accounts for less than 10%, if I recall. There are plans to build a 212 MW CSP plant in the SW of the state starting in 2012.

 

and these are older, dirtier plants that they're converting. The Comanche 3 facility should be considerably more efficient and cleaner because it's an IGCC plant.

 

Colorado has pretty good NG resources (we also have some coal) and there is currently a fair amount of excess supply.

The coal fired plants that this proposal would convert or deactivate are located in the Denver metro area and have a significant impact on air quality... which means that there's a sizable impact on human health. That in turn means that the metro area probably incurs millions of dollars in healthcare costs each year that are directly related to coal fired pollution. So we may well save money. Yeah, as some point our NG prices might climb, but we'll be spending less on emergency room visits for asma (sp?) etc. Coal only looks cheap because society pays the external costs associated with it.