Gregory E. Abel

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Gregory E. Abel is president and chief executive officer of MidAmerican Energy, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, and chairman and chief executive officer of PacifiCorp. He also serves as chief executive officer of CE Electric UK, a company that distributes electricity to approximately 3.7 million customers in England. Additionally, he is chief executive officer of MidAmerican Funding LLC, which is the holding company for MidAmerican Energy.

Abel is also a director of Kern River Gas Transmission Company and Northern Natural Gas Company. Previously he was executive vice president of CalEnergy.[1]

Power portfolio

Out of its total 14,411 megawatts (MW) of electric generating capacity in 2005 (1.35% of the U.S. total), MidAmerican produced 71.3% from coal, 15.3% from natural gas, 7.9% from hydroelectricity, 2.6% from geothermal, 2.5% from wind, and 0.4% from oil. MidAmerican owns power plants in California, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.[2]

New coal plant proposals

Existing coal-fired power plants

MidAmerican Energy is the 6th largest coal-fired energy producer in the U.S.[3]. The company (and, through them, Berkshire Hathaway) owned 29 coal-fired generating stations in 2005, with 10,282 MW of capacity. Here is a list of MidAmerican's coal power plants:[2][4][5]

Plant Name State County Year(s) Built Capacity 2007 CO2 Emissions 2006 SO2 Emissions
Jim Bridger WY Sweetwater 1974, 1975, 1976, 1979 2318 MW 16,500,000 tons 20,055 tons
George Neal IA Woodbury 1964, 1972, 1975, 1979 1686 MW 5,974,000 tons 37,979 tons
Hunter UT Emery 1978, 1980, 1983 1472 MW 10,600,000 tons 7,338 tons
Huntington UT Emery 1974, 1977 996 MW 6,170,000 tons 17,405 tons
Council Bluffs IA Pottawattamie 1954, 1958, 1978 856 MW 6,010,000 tons 17,523 tons
Dave Johnston WY Converse 1959, 1961, 1964, 1972 817 MW 6,959,000 tons 22,351 tons
Louisa IA Louisa 1983 738 MW 5,340,000 tons 15,937 tons
Naughton WY Lincoln 1963, 1968, 1971 707 MW 5,778,000 tons 20,664 tons
Wyodak WY Campbell 1978 362 MW 3,475,000 tons 6,514 tons
Carbon UT Carbon 1954, 1957 189 MW 1,243,000 tons 6,121 tons
Riverside IA Scott 1949, 1961 141 MW 981,000 tons 5,275 tons

In 2006, MidAmerican's 11 coal-fired power plants emitted 69.0 million tons of CO2 (1.15% of all U.S. CO2 emissions) and 177,000 tons of SO2 (1.18% of all U.S. SO2 emissions).


References

  1. Gregory E. Abel, MidAmerican Energy Holding Company, accessed December 2008.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2005, Energy Information Administration, accessed April 2008.
  3. Existing U.S. Coal Plants
  4. Environmental Integrity Project, Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants, July 2007.
  5. Dig Deeper, Carbon Monitoring for Action database, accessed June 2008.

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