Rocky Mountain Power has taken a decisive step toward bringing more clean energy to the grid — although not with renewables.
The company announced Friday a memorandum of understanding with two climate technology firms, who together have now begun the initial phase of a plan that hopes to implement a unique carbon capture technology at an existing facility, a move that could extend the lifespan of aging power plants and keep the state’s mineral industries relevant long into the future.
Alongside a South Korean investment group and North Carolina-based 8 Rivers, who holds the patent for an Allam-Fetvedt Cycle technology able to capture and reimplement CO2 in combustion processes, the utility now sets off to evaluate carbon capture feasibility for one of two potential brownfield sites — the Wyodak coal-fired power plant near Gillette, or the Dave Johnston coal-fired power plant near Glenrock.
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The MOU comes in response to a legislative mandate that requires utilities to pursue carbon capture solutions on fossil energy plants that would otherwise be retired — including older facilities like the Dave Johnson plant in Glenrock.
Opponents have called the legislation a heavy handed governmental overreach with a steep price tag: Early estimates found that the ballpark cost to strap a carbon capture and storage system to an existing coal-fired plant in Wyoming, according to figures cited by the Office of Consumer Advocate, is around $1 billion, an expense that would inevitably find its way to ratepayers.
State officials, however, say it is a necessary response to tightening environmental standards that make fossil energy harder to justify. The carbon capture mandates, advocates say, will help the state’s bedrock industries survive.
Rocky Mountain Power has not offered estimates of how much the potential project could run ratepayers, but it expressed confidence that it can be done at a justifiable cost.
“Rocky Mountain Power has been diligently engaged in the process to comply with Wyoming’s desire to implement carbon capture at the company’s coal generating units in Wyoming,” said James Owen, Rocky Mountain Power vice president for environmental,