Wisconsin commission rejects proposed coal power plant
The PSC decided that the $1.26 billion project was too costly when weighing it against other alternatives such as natural gas generation and the possibility of buying power from existing sources. Concerns over construction costs and uncertainty over the costs of complying with future possible carbon dioxide regulations were all contributing factors to the denial.
The PSC said Wisconsin Power and Light's effort to burn up to 20 percent renewable biomass at the Nelson Dewey site was laudable, but it found the cumulative costs and risk associated with the project were unacceptable to the utility's ratepayers.
Commissioners said the proposed plant is not in the public interest, adding that there are alternatives that could prove more financially and environmentally sound.
Wisconsin Power and Light filed an application with the PSC for permission to build the 300 MW coal-fired electric generation facility in early 2007. The utility identified two possible locations for the power plant – their Nelson Dewey Generating Station property in Cassville and the Columbia Energy Center.
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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…
