The Navajo government is racing to extend the life of one of the biggest coal-fired power plants in the country.
If the government and plant owners finalize a lease extension by Saturday, the Navajo Generating Station in northern Arizona will stay open through 2019.
If they don’t, the plant will start shutting down this year.
NAVAJO MOUNTAIN, Utah — Officials in remote areas of Utah and Arizona say the recent decision to shut down a coal-fired power plant in northern Arizona is expected to cause about 1,000 job losses in an area already struggling with high unemployment.
Owners of the Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, voted earlier this year to close the plant and the coal mine that supports it by 2019.
Coal has long had a grip on American politics. That's why politicians worry about its fate. They tout the fossil fuel's contribution to the U.S. economy, but lately they've also been trying to find a way to clean up coal's image.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — One of three coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region of the southwest has been partially shut down and the other two could close in the next five years.
The change likely means cleaner air in the region where the borders of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet. But it also means hundreds of lost jobs for plant workers and coal miners, many of them members of the Navajo and Hopi tribes, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' highest court on Friday cleared a major obstacle to the long-delayed construction of a big, new coal-fired power plant, rejecting an effort by an environment group to force the state to regulate emissions linked to climate change.
The state Supreme Court upheld a 2014 decision by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to give Sunflower Electric Power Corp. the go-ahead for its project.
The speaker of Montana’s House is hoping to extend the life of the coal-fired power plants in Colstrip by offering their operators loans to keep them running for at least the next five years.
Austin Knudsen’s Senate Bill 338 would allow the state to give up to $10 million a year in loans, if the money is used to keep the coal-fired plant’s two older units open until their scheduled close date of July, 2022.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Donald Trump promised to bring back coal jobs, but even the country’s third-largest coal producer appears to be hedging its bets on a comeback. Kentucky is on the cusp of doing what was once unthinkable: opening the door to nuclear power.
