Austin will keep running Fayette coal power plant, missing key climate goal

[TexasTowelie]

Austin Energy will not retire its stake in the Fayette coal power plant next year, the publicly owned electric utility announced Monday. Shutting down its portion of the plant by 2022 had been a key part of the city’s climate goals.

Austin Energy said it was unable to reach an agreement on the closure with the Lower Colorado River Authority, which co-owns the plant.

“We’ve been talking to LCRA for a while,” Pat Sweeney, Austin Energy’s vice president for power production, told KUT. “At the end of the day, we just couldn’t come to terms that both parties could agree to, to allow us to exit at an affordable basis and at the timeline that was contemplated.”

Sweeney said he could not discuss details of the negotiations because they were confidential.

Carbon dioxide is the No. 1 contributor to the global climate crisis. Five years ago, Austin’s share of the Fayette coal plant was found to be responsible for “80 percent of the utility’s greenhouse gas emissions and 28 percent of all Austin’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

Read more: https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2021/11/austin-will-keep-running-fayette-coal-power-plant-missing-key-climate-goal/

[Vogon_Glory]

1. Meanwhile at least one of the South Texas Nuclear Project's reactors

Should be on-line.

I’m an outlier when it comes to nuclear power. I’m FOR it, at least when the reactors are well-designed, well-built, and built and managed by people who know what the hell they’re doing (Which did not seem to be the case with STNP). But to give the thing it’s due, it seems to be generating power without emitting greenhouse gasses.