It says that Xcel is reluctant, and would prefer to invest more in combined cycle natural gas plants.
But natural gas combined cycle is not a system of emission reduction.
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Natural gas emits 29% less carbon dioxide than oil and 45% less than coal, and it can be used in high-efficiency combined cycle power stations.
Legge notes that newer fossil fuel plants use the heat that was once wasted to turn an extra steam turbine, a process known as combined cycle.
To those concerned about emissions, it emphasized that the 400, 000-barrel-a-day refinery, plus an integrated gasification combined cycle plant, could sequester carbon more cheaply than a coal plant.
The EPA is saying with a straight face that natural gas combined cycle is an emission reduction system that has been adequately demonstrated for coal power plants.
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While the state law took effect in 2006, its efforts to minimize mercury began before that with Xcel Energy converting older coal plants to combined cycle natural gas facilities and by using modern technologies.
The proposal lumps gas turbines and coal boilers into the same source category, and it holds coal power plants to a CO2 performance standard that nearly all natural gas combined cycle plants and exactly zero commercial coal power plants can meet.
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Italy's largest combined-cycle plant opened on June 22nd on a site that was once prepared for a nuclear reactor.
The hydrogen produced in a fully integrated, combined-cycle plant like FutureGen promises to be 25% cheaper than today's hydrogen.
That will result in the closing of a cadre of coal plants and the construction of numerous combined-cycle natural gas facilities.
Thanks to a 30% federal tax credit, that works out as much the same as a combined-cycle gas-turbine plant but without the noise and fumes.
Perlman says the process consumes about 15% of the energy contained in the coal going in, far more efficient than the integrated gasification combined-cycle plants promoted by General Electric.
Meantime, the oldest coal units built in the middle 1900s are being forced to retire and they are getting replaced with combined-cycle natural gas plants that are both more efficient and cleaner.
Combined-cycle gas turbines, which use hot exhaust gases from one turbine to generate steam to turn a second one, can transform 6, 800 Btu of gas into a kilowatt-hour of electricity, enough to light one lightbulb for ten hours.
Perlman says the process consumes about 15% of the energy contained in the coal going in, far more efficient than the integrated gasification combined-cycle plants promoted by General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ).
To supply the extra juice, utilities turn on inefficient single-cycle gas turbines, which turn 25% of the fuel's energy into electricity, as opposed to 45% for combined-cycle plants that use turbine exhaust to make steam to run a second generator.
More than 125 different groups are running ads this cycle, more than the last two cycles combined, the study concluded.
He said the measure would help "break the cycle of offending", with tough community sentences being combined with efforts to address the root causes of crimes.
But again, it's really a combined effort across Baghdad to neutralize this threat and eliminate and disrupt the cycle of violence that's going on.
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