Fire traps workers beneath Colorado power plant
Five contractors were working in an underground penstock, or pipeline, at the Cabin Creek Station, where the fire broke out. Xcel said the workers climbed to a safe distance from the blaze and were communicating with plant operators by radio.
The 48-inch diameter pipe was opened to get air into the pipe, Xcel spokeswoman Ethnie Groves told reporters at a news conference.
Firefighters from the Clear Creek County Fire Authority were battling the blaze. The plant was shut down for routine maintenance at the time, the company said. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
The pipeline is between 1,500 and 2,000 feet (460 and 610 meters) below ground and carries water from a reservoir to power turbines inside the plant.
The power station, which is west of Denver, has two turbines and a generating capacity of 324 megawatts.
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How Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble
LONDON - The University of Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) studies the burgeoning business of cryptocurrencies.
It calculates that Bitcoin's total energy consumption is somewhere between 40 and 445 annualised terawatt hours (TWh), with a central estimate of about 130 terawatt hours.
The UK's electricity consumption is a little over 300 TWh a year, while Argentina uses around the same amount of power as the CCAF's best guess for Bitcoin.
And the electricity the Bitcoin miners use overwhelmingly comes from polluting sources.
The CCAF team surveys the people who manage the Bitcoin network around the world on their energy use and found that…
