EDITORIAL
2 • The Southwest Portland Post
October 2009
PGE should go green, close its Boardman coal-fired plant in 2011
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
By Don Snedecor
The Southwest Portland Post
On the outside, Portland General
Electric’s green campaign appears to do
what the company’s liberal customers
want it to do. PGE says it is encourag-
ing customers to pay extra for sustain-
able power that comes from renewable
resources.
And although the utility can’t dif-
ferentiate between the green power and
the polluting power, we are asked to do
the right thing.
But what the fresh-faced youths at
PGE’s outdoor booths aren’t telling you
is that the executives at the government-
regulated monopoly have no intention
of giving up the coal-fired plant at
Boardman, the worst of the utility’s
polluting power plants.
According to PGE’s Integrated Re-
source Plan (September 2009), the utility
can no longer depend on previously
abundant hydro-electric power. “The
Boardman plant currently serves about
15 percent of our customers’ electricity
needs and provides a reliable, low-cost
source of power.”
The PGE report goes on to say, “From
a portfolio perspective, the [Board-
man] plant provides important fuel
diversity and benefits from the relative
abundance and stable pricing of coal.
An early closure would trigger the
need to consider a major replacement
resource during a timeframe in which
additional resource needs are already
considerable.”
Too bad! Community pressure is
what caused PGE to move up closure of
its Trojan nuclear plant, and community
pressure is required to force the utility
into closing the Boardman plant.
“PGE’s coal-fired power plant in
Boardman is the single largest source
of air pollution affecting the Columbia
River Gorge National Scenic Area,” said
Michael Lang, Conservation Director
for Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
“Pollution from this power plant is
obscuring views, damaging ecosys-
tems, and causing acid rain and fog that
are likely harming Native American
cultural resources. PGE should pull the
plug on this aging polluter and move
toward greater energy efficiency and
renewable sources,” said Lang.
It’s true that new Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental Quality regula-
tions call for $600 million in pollution
controls to keep the Boardman plant
operating until 2040.
However, according to the Sierra
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Club, none of these new emission
controls will curb the 5 million tons of
carbon dioxide released by the plant
annually. That carbon pollution will
become increasingly costly as more
laws mandate reductions.
Some environmentalists are calling
for a closure of the Boardman plant
by 2020. But PGE officials have been
quoted as saying the utility can’t con-
sider the 2020 closure because of the
new DEQ regulations.
Forget about 2020. Closing the Board-
man plant in 2011 would help save the
planet, Oregon’s environment, and save
the utility the $600 milllion it would
spend over the next 30 years in DEQ-
required pollution control equipment.
From an environmentalist’s per-
spective, this is a no-brainer. The cost
difference is approximately one half
of one percent per year over 30 years.
PGE should put its money where its
mouth is.
If the utility is really serious about
transitioning from coal-fired and gas-
fired plants to the utilization of renew-
able resources, then it should close the
Boardman plant immediately and put
(Continued on Page 6)
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