Friday, November 16, 2007

Xcel Energy Targets Cameo Power Plant for Closure

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel - November 16, 2007
By Bobby Magill
Posted by Landon

Cleaner energy eyed to replace outdated plant

Concerns about global warming might cost 35 people their jobs in Mesa County, Colorado.
Xcel energy is proposing to shut down its 73-megawatt Cameo Generating Station in
DeBeque Canyon before December 2010. This will lay off 35 employees in the process.
Xcel is looking to go green. They say this will reduce Xcel's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10 percent by 2017. Xcel pans to replace the Cameo and the Arapahoe (near Denver) coal fired generating plants with cleaner burning natural gas plants.
Plans by the energy giant include the addition of 800 additional megawatts of wind power, 225 megawats of solar power, and 800 megawatts of other "mostly renewable" power to its portfolio over the next decade.
Xcel's efforts to "go green" aren't the only reason for terminating the Cameo power plant. It is over 50 years old, inefficient, and reaching the end of its useful life.

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