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Navajo Generating Station

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This article is part of the Climate change portal on SourceWatch.

This article is part of the Coal Issues portal on SourceWatch, a project of CoalSwarm and the Center for Media and Democracy.

Navajo Generating Station is a 2250 megawatt coal-fired power plant located on the Navajo Indian Reservation near Page, Arizona.

The plant consists of three 750 MW units that provide power to Arizona, Nevada, and California. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power owns 21% of the power generated by the plant. The station has three 236 meter high chimneys, which are the tallest structures in Arizona. It was assembled during the 1970s and began producing commercial power in 1975. The construction costs were $650 million, with an additional $420 million for new environmental scrubbers.[1]

Navajo Generating Station

The plant releases more than 19 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. In 2004, it was the nation’s fifth largest power plant emitter of carbon dioxide and eleventh largest emitter of nitrogen oxides.[2]

The power plant is served by coal mined at the Kayenta Mine near Kayenta, Arizona and hauled by the Black Mesa and Lake Powell railroad. The Kayenta mine ships about 8 million tons of coal each year to the power plant, which uses up to 25,000 tons of coal per day when all units are fully running. Each year the plant also uses nearly 8 billion gallons of water from Lake Powell for cooling. [3]

The Navajo Generating Station is located about 25 kilometers from the Grand Canyon National Park. In 1987, a National Park Service study demonstrated that the plant impacts the air quality at the park and contributes to the wintertime haze at the Grand Canyon. In 1991, as a result of years of litigation by environmental organizations and citizen activists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency required a 90% reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions from the plant. [4]

<googlemap version="0.9.4" zoom="13" lat="36.903333" lon="-111.390277" type="satellite"> </googlemap>

Contents

Plant Upgrades

Currently the Navajo Station is debating whether or not to install scrubbers to help reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2), a pollutant discharged from the burning of coal which is regulated by the U.S. EPA and can contribute to acid rain. Costs could reach $600,000 million to $1 billion to install these scrubbers at the Navajo Station.

The EPA has proposed the scrubbing system which uses ammonia to reduce SO2. The Salt River Project, Navajo's managing partner, says this could add about $13 million a year to the plant's operating budget and those expanses would be passed on to customers. The ammonia must be injected into the system after the coal is burned. To reach the plant, the chemical would be delivered to Flagstaff by railroad and then trucked to Page, where the only service is a direct rail line from the Kayenta coal mine that produces coal for the plant.

"It would be a very significant capital investment and challenging to do the work," said Glenn Reeves, SRP's manager of power generation. "We would have issues just getting approval from all the owners. There are a lot of uncertainties around coal plants right now."

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power holds a 21 percent interest in Navajo and under California law, faces strict rules about putting money in coal-fired plants and is currently deciding whether or not to walk away from Navajo if the expenses and risk of a future closure are too high.

The final decision will likely be made by the middle of 2010. The proposal is still open to public comment.[5]

Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club are pressuring owners of Navajo Generating Station through talks to clean their emissions, or close regardless of a cleanup effort.[6]

Navajo ranked 8th in terms of largest carbon dioxide emissions

According to a 2009 report by Environment America, "America's Biggest Polluters," the Navajo Generating Station is the eighth dirtiest plant in the nation, releasing 20.1 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2007. Ranking is based upon Environmental Protection Agency data.[7]

Plant Data

  • Owner: Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement & Power District
  • Parent Entity: State of Arizona
  • Plant Nameplate Capacity: 2,409 MW
  • Units and In-Service Dates: 803 MW (1974), 803 MW (1975), 803 MW (1976)
  • Location: Hwy. 98, Page, AZ 86040
  • GPS Coordinates: 36.903333, -111.390277
  • Coal Consumption:
  • Coal Source:
  • Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

  • 2006 CO2 Emissions: 20,071,581 tons
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions: 3,843 tons
  • 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
  • 2006 NOx Emissions: 34,744 tons
  • 2005 Mercury Emissions: 273 lb.

Articles and Resources

Sources

  1. ↑ Salt River Project power company, operator of Navajo Generating Station
  2. ↑ “Clearing California’s Coal Shadow from the American West,” accessed July 2008
  3. ↑ “Clearing California’s Coal Shadow from the American West,” accessed July 2008
  4. ↑ “Clearing California’s Coal Shadow from the American West,” accessed July 2008
  5. ↑ “Cleaning dirty air risks costlier Arizona water,” Shaun McKinnon, Arizona Republic, November 1, 2009
  6. ↑ “Year in Review, Energy: Major wind and solar projects still in development,” Arizona Daily Sun, December 28, 2009
  7. ↑ "America's Biggest Polluters: Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Power Plants in 2007" Environment America, November 24, 2009


Resources

References


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External Articles

Wikipedia also has an article on Navajo Generating Station. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.

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