DENVER—Xcel Energy has delayed for at least two years a decision on whether to build a costly “clean coal” power plant in Colorado that would capture its carbon pollution and bury it underground.
Xcel does not currently need the power the plant would generate, Chief Executive Dick Kelly said Tuesday.
He also said the company would need a partner to build the plant because it would cost “way over $1 billion.” He declined to give a specific amount.
“We’re not abandoning it,” Kelly said. “It’s an important part of our future. We’re just delaying (a decision) for a couple of years.”
Minneapolis-based Xcel, the largest electric and natural gas utility in Colorado, proposed the plant last year. Xcel had said construction might begin in 2010.
On Tuesday, Kelly said Xcel would decide between 2009 and 2011 whether to propose the project to regulators. If the plant is built, it could open by 2016.
The plant would convert coal to gas, which burns cleaner and more efficiently than raw coal. The carbon dioxide produced by the gasification process would be injected into the ground, instead of released into the atmosphere..
A handful of plants using coal gasification have built in the U.S. and around the world, but the Xcel plant would have been the first to capture the carbon emissions and inject them underground.
Kelly said the delay in the decision did not signal a retreat from Xcel’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, which many scientists say are causing or contributing to global warming.
He said Xcel’s growing reliance on wind generation and other renewable energy provided enough power to make the new coal plant unnecessary for the time being.
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