Trump's "ready, fire, aim" administration has ordered an aging coal-fired power plant in Colorado to stay open on Tuesday, a day before it was set to be retired. Because he wants all you hippie climate change worrywarts to know who's in charge here! Via CNN:
The order from Energy Secretary Chris Wright will keep the nearly 50-year-old Craig Generating Station Unit 1 in northwest Colorado operating until the end of March, with an option to extend it further.
It’s the Department of Energy’s sixth such move this year; Wright has also ordered two coal plants in Indiana, one in Michigan and one in Washington state to stay open past their retirement dates, as well as a Pennsylvania power plant that runs on oil.
“Keeping this coal plant online will ensure Americans maintain an affordable, reliable, and secure supply of electricity,” Wright said in a statement.
Colorado’s governor and its top energy official pushed back on Wright’s claim that keeping Craig open would boost affordability, saying it would only raise electricity prices.
In a statement, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said the order would pass “tens of millions in costs to Colorado ratepayers, in order to keep a coal plant open that is broken and not needed.”
According to Polis’ statement, Craig 1 “isn’t even operational right now” and would require repairs costing millions of dollars to get it up and running before it could even produce power. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the power supply co-op that owns Craig 1, said the unit has been offline since a critical part broke on December 19.
