Power industry construction has been paralyzed by a public hysteria, commonly known as Global Warming.
The Greenies have effectively put a stop to virtually any electric utility expansion. Coal, in many ways our best choice is out because of the Carbon Dioxide boogeyman, Natural Gas is just too expensive to fuel, nobody will touch Nuclear, Renewables are fun to talk about but hardly significant.
Looks like it's going to take a major blackout to shake this monkey off our backs, all this at the same time the headline was that electricity use went up approx 10% for the first week of Jan over the same week a year ago.
You would think with all the Global Warming grief out there that those carbon capture startup companies would be making their investors very rich.
Costs, GHG fears kill or delay 31 coal plants in 2007: group
Portland, Maine (Platts)--9Jan2008
Thirty-one coal-fired plants totaling about 24,250 MW were canceled or delayed in 2007 because of rising construction costs and concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, according to Resource Media, a public relations firm representing Western environmental groups.
"Strong public opposition, combined with uncertainty over the future costs of complying with carbon dioxide emission caps and concerns about global warming's environmental and economic impacts, forced many utilities to cancel--or regulators to reject--plants from Florida to Washington," the group said late Monday.
New regulations in Oregon, Washington and California limiting greenhouse gas emissions also scuttled proposed plants, Resource Media added.
Anticipated costs for the canceled and delayed plants totaled about $45.3 billion, the group said. The estimate includes Houston-based TXU's agreement to cancel eight projects totaling about 6,860 MW. It also includes six integrated gasification combined cycle plants totaling 3,360 MW.
Four projects were canceled in Florida: Tampa Electric's 630-MW IGCC plant, Florida Power & Light's 1,960-MW Glades plant, the Florida Municipal Power Agency's 800-MW Taylor Energy Center and Seminole Electric Power Cooperative's 750-MW Seminole 3 Generating Station.
Increasing capital costs were a key factor in same of the cancellations and delays, the group said. Resource Media cited a June report by Standard & Poor's that found capital costs for new generation climbed by more than 50% in the past three years.
Price escalation may continue with continuing worldwide demand for building power plants possibly driving capital costs well above $2,500/kW for supercritical coal plants and approaching $1,000/kW for combined-cycle gas turbines, according to the S&P report.
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