The Arizona Republic
As if an activist Environmental Protection Agency were not enough of a threat to Arizona’s water future, California’s zeal for clean energy now is creating serious complications, too.
In January, the EPA announced it would require the 2,250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station near Page to add “best available retrofit technology” within 10 years that theoretically would reduce nitrogen oxides emissions by 45 percent.
At $500 million to $1.1 billion, the cost of such an overhaul could threaten the future of the enormous coal-fired power plant, which provides the juice to deliver Arizona’s share of Colorado River water — about 1.5 million acre-feet annually — uphill to its metropolitan and agricultural destinations.
It simply may not pencil out to install such cleansing equipment on a power plant fired by the world’s least environmentally friendly fossil-fuel source, coal.
If you’d like to discuss energy issues, contact Court Rich, Co-Chair of Rose Law Group’s Renewable Energy Department at crich@roselawgroup.com
