TXU Wants 11 New Coal Plants, Also Pledges To Improve Air Quality

[hatrack]

HOUSTON, July 27 (Reuters) - TXU Corp. (TXU.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which wants to build more than 9,000 megawatts of coal-fired generation in Texas, asked state regulators late on Thursday to put a cap on key air emissions from its existing and proposed coal plants in an effort to quell rising opposition.

In a letter submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Dallas-based TXU said it wants to formalize its announced goal of reducing overall emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury from its coal-fired fleet by 20 percent while increasing its generation capacity to nearly 15,000 MW.

TXU said it will spend $2.5 billion of its $10 billion coal investment on pollution controls to meet its goal. The company said its program will remove 55,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 9,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 1,000 pounds of mercury from the environment annually. "TXU is serious about clear air," said company spokesman Chris Schein.

ED. - Uh-huh.


Since announcing an ambitious plan in April to build 11 pulverized-coal units at nine sites in north and central Texas, TXU has seen opposition grow from environmental groups and local elected officials. Until Thursday, TXU had given little detail of how it planned to make the reductions. Environmentalists claim the concentration of new plants will hurt long-standing efforts by the Dallas-Fort Worth area to meet federal clean air standards. The groups also worry about unregulated emissions of carbon dioxide, thought to cause global warming, and mercury, which contaminates lakes and can cause brain damage in unborn children. TXU wants the state to extend the same standard to other power plant developers that seek to add coal-fired generation in the state.

EDIT

http://today.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCompanyNewsArticle.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-07-28T001933Z_01_N27221069_RTRIDST_0_UTILITIES-TXU-TCEQ.XML&rpc=66

[adarling]

1. man when iget back to Dallas from school i will try and fight this

its the stupidest thingi have ever heard!!! CLEAN COAL!!!!!! I feel like they should be paying like the tobacco companies are for lying and poisoning people for decades and centuries. You would think since Dallas has been very progressive with trying to get new sources of energy they wouldn't stand for this. INvest in hydrogen people, i don't care if it doesn't work now, it will when we put the money into it!!...rant off now :):rant:

[NNadir]

2. There are choices to be made.

The coal fight will be the greatest war in human history: And there will be victims of this war, enough deaths to dwarf the Second World War.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. *SPOINK* Cognitive dissonance strikes ...

Burn more coal ... improve air quality ... does not compute ...