Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Nevada doesn’t need coal-fired plants, ‘green’ report says

Are EPA coal emission standards strict enough?

Hundreds of citizens from Nevada and Utah came to Mesquite City Hall to appeal to the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection and speak out against a proposed coal plant.

Nevada’s largest utility could meet the state’s growing energy demand without coal-fired power plants, according to a California environmental group.

Sierra Pacific Resources, parent company of Nevada Power, could keep the lights on with energy efficiency improvements and by developing renewable energy, long-distance transmission lines and natural gas plants, according to a report released Wednesday by The Energy Foundation in San Francisco.

The report was completed by Aspen Environmental Group’s Carl Linvill, who was energy adviser to then-Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn and a member of the Nevada Public Utilities Commission from 2003 until May 2006.

Linvill said the state’s need to develop alternatives to large, centralized fossil fuel plants was highlighted by the November announcement that Sierra Pacific Resources would accelerate plans to develop a 500-megawatt, natural gas-fired generating station 25 miles north of Las Vegas because of delays in permitting for a coal-fired power plant near Ely.

The report says the utility by 2013 could develop 1,442 to 2,337 megawatts — enough power for 1 million to 1.75 million homes — by building a transmission line to tie the Northern and Southern Nevada power grids together for the first time; developing geothermal, wind and solar power; increasing efficiency measures; and creating 300 to 500 megawatts of natural gas-fired power, enough for 225,000 to 375,000 homes.

Sierra Pacific Resources has said transmission between the two regions of the state is too expensive to be feasible without a large coal plant. The company plans to build a 250-mile power line from eastern Nevada to Las Vegas in conjunction with its 1,500-megawatt Ely Energy Center, but delays to the Ely plant are also holding up the transmission line.

Linvill said there are enough benefits to building the $600 million line that it should be proposed separately and constructed as soon as possible. Those benefits include access to Northern Nevada and out-of-state power resources and the ability to more easily develop the most inexpensive renewable energy resources.

Dan Geary, a representative of the Pew Environment Group, said growing popular and congressional support for legislation limiting carbon emissions, especially from coal-fired power plants, will make developing plants such as the one proposed in Ely more difficult.

“There will be strong incentives for the development of resources being talked about in the (Energy Foundation) report and disincentives for those that Nevada Power is talking about,” Geary said Wednesday.

Mario Villar, Sierra Pacific Resources transmission executive, said the company has not reviewed the entire report, but that “initially it doesn’t appear to be inconsistent with our company’s diversification strategy.”

Sierra Pacific Resources President and CEO Michael Yackira has described that strategy as a three-pronged approach of efficiency measures, renewable energy development and traditional fossil fuel plants such as the Ely Energy Center.

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