Aging coal plants turn into a midterm fight over energy costs
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly ordered coal plants in Colorado, Michigan and Indiana to keep operating past their scheduled retirements, citing grid reliability under a Depression-era emergency provision last used mainly for short weather events. The Craig Unit 1 plant in Colorado, which wasn't even running when first ordered to keep burning coal, has had its life extended four times, most recently through Christmas.
A unanimous D.C. Circuit panel ruled in September that the first two orders for Michigan's Campbell plant were illegal, finding no genuine emergency existed to override state regulators. Consumers Energy put the net cost of keeping Campbell running at $295 million, against the nearly $600 million in savings its retirement was supposed to deliver, with federal regulators allowing those costs to be spread to ratepayers as far away as Wisconsin and North Dakota.
The fight has become a midterm flashpoint in Michigan's 4th District, where a Republican incumbent blames the plant's critics for high bills while Democrats blame the forced extension itself. Michigan's attorney general has challenged all six orders, and the race to succeed her has turned partly on whether the state keeps fighting.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.