Advertisement
The demolition capped off another tumultuous year for coal power. The industry helped build the modern West, but it’s collapsing as utility companies turn to natural gas, solar panels and wind turbines for lower-cost electricity, and as voters demand cleaner energy to reduce air pollution and confront the climate crisis.
New Mexico’s Escalante Generating Station produced its final coal-fired electrons in August, and Portland General Electric shut down Oregon’s last coal plant in October. Those facilities will be joined in retirement in the next few days by one of two units at Washington’s Centralia coal plant and one of four units at Arizona’s Cholla coal plant. PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway empire, expects its Cholla unit to come offline around noon today, Christmas Eve.