Xcel Energy’s chief executive urged mining executives Tuesday to support the company’s efforts to study and potentially develop a clean-coal power plant in Colorado.
Xcel wants to build a demonstration plant in the state to prove technology for burning coal more cleanly than current methods. The technology – called integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC – is used at several plants on the East Coast but not at high altitudes burning lower- grade Western coal.
IGCC reduces or eliminates carbon-dioxide emissions by converting coal into gas before burning.
“We need your support to get this done,” Xcel chief executive Richard Kelly told mining officials at the National Mining Conference in Denver.
Mining companies are among the state’s biggest users of electricity.
But, Kelly added, “it’s an untested technology, and we’re not really sure it will work.”
Xcel, the state’s biggest energy utility, is behind proposed state legislation to finance a feasibility study costing $3 million per year over the next three fiscal years on the technology. If the study shows the technology can work in Colorado, it could help Xcel secure up to $200 million in federal money to build a demonstration plant.
Company spokesman Tom Henley said the plant would produce at least 300 megawatts of electricity and cost $500 million to $1 billion to build. Xcel is looking for utility partners to join in the project.
Also Tuesday at the mining conference, Phelps Dodge Corp. chief executive Steven Whisler said the company could decide within six months whether to reopen the Climax molybdenum mine near Leadville.
“Clearly, we’re looking at the potential to open that property,” Whisler said.
Molybdenum prices are near record highs, but Phelps Dodge is waiting to see how quickly China reopens several closed molybdenum mines, Whisler said.
If China brings those mines back up soon, it could increase moly supply enough to make opening Climax uneconomical, he said.
If Phelps Dodge decides to reopen Climax, which closed in 1987, the mine could be up and running within 18 months, Whisler said.
Climax was once the world’s largest underground mine and employed about 3,200 people until the price of molybdenum plummeted in the 1980s.
Staff writer Greg Griffin can be reached at 303-820-1241 or ggriffin@denverpost.com.
This story has been corrected, online. In print, due to a reporting error, it stated that the proposed state appropriation for a feasibility study into clean-coal technology would be $3 million. In fact, it is $3 million during each of the next three fiscal years.
