CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.The operator of a Minnesota nuclear power plant said the facility would be taken offline Friday to repair a new leak near the Mississippi River, an announcement that came a week after the company and state officials belatedly acknowledged a separate leak that occurred in November. Market holidays and trading hours provided by Copp Clark Limited. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices Copyright S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and/or its affiliates. Standard & Poor’s and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Chicago Mercantile: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. US market indices are shown in real time, except for the S&P 500 which is refreshed every two minutes. Your CNN account Log in to your CNN account “The math is pretty tough if you lose nuclear,” Fowke said. The Xcel Energy CEO also said that nuclear power plants will be essential if the United States wants to achieve sharp declines in emissions. “We’re going to need natural gas to make that transition,” Fowke said. That’s why for now it will continue to rely on natural gas, a cleaner-burning fossil fuel. Xcel Energy insists it’s focused on affordability and reliability as it moves away from coal. “We learned a hard lesson in Australia,” Zibelman said. There are also concerns about the variability of renewable energy, namely the fact that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.Īustralia suffered blackouts in 2016 after wind generators there tripped off unexpectedly during a major storm, according to Audrey Zibelman, CEO of Australian Energy Market Operator. “Cost is such an overwhelming importance to them that we have to be careful about 100% decarbonization,” Ralph Izzo, CEO of PSEG, said at BloombergNEF. Power executives stressed that customers want cleaner energy – but not if that means their utility bills skyrocket. They are not these people who say it’s a commie plot,” Bloomberg said.Īmericans want clean energy – but not at any costīut that doesn’t mean that delivering zero-carbon electricity will be easy. “When you talk to people that run big energy companies, they understand the world is changing. The billionaire business leader announced a Decarbonization Tracker aimed at keeping power companies honest as they transition away from fossil fuels. “You’re saving the whole world,” said Bloomberg. “You could kill everybody in the whole world someday if you’re not careful,” billionaire Michael Bloomberg said, referring to climate change broadly, at the BloombergNEF Summit in New York on Monday.īloomberg congratulated Xcel Energy, as well as French power company ENGIE, for leading the way in the transition to cleaner energy. The shift by Xcel, and to a lesser extent by the industry at large, reflects growing concerns about climate change. "The math is pretty tough if you lose nuclear," Xcel CEO Ben Fowke told CNN Business. Xcel Energy will rely on natural gas and nuclear power as it moves away from coal, which once accounted for half its power. The utility has been approved by local authorities to retire 23 coal units between 20 – or about half its capacity. Xcel is rapidly moving away from coal, which supplied 46% of its power of 2013. “We have some of the best wind resources in the entire country – right in our backyard,” Fowke said. The company plans to build 12 new wind farms across seven states. To do it, Xcel is rapidly expanding its vast renewable energy portfolio, which is expected to make up more than half its power by 2024. And it has pledged to get to 80% by 2030. Xcel, which delivers power to 3.6 million customers in eight Western and Midwestern states, has already slashed its carbon emissions by 38% from 2005 levels. Xcel is retiring 23 coal-fired power plants Wind and solar costs have plunged so rapidly that 74% of the US coal fleet could be phased out for renewable energy – and still save customers money, a report published this week by nonpartian think tank Energy Innovation found. Wind is already beating fossil fuel alternatives – even with low natural gas prices,” Fowke said during an interview from the sidelines of the BloombergNEF Summit in New York.įowke estimated that Xcel’s wind costs have plummeted by more than two-thirds over the past decade, while solar is down by about 80%. Ben Fowke, chairman and chief executive officer of Xcel Energy Inc.
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