Georgia Power now says it will cost $8.96 billion to shut down its 29 coal ash storage ponds and 12 landfills, up from its original estimate of $7.6 billon while environmentalists fight the company’s plans to make customers pay for cleanup and closure.
佐治亚州上诉法院于10月26日拒绝了塞拉俱乐部对州公共服务委员会的上诉，该委员会的裁决使南方公司的电力公司能够将补救费用通过纳税人并赚取回报率。新利18备用官网登录塞拉俱乐部东南部区域主任戴维·罗杰斯（David Rogers）告诉ENR，“佐治亚州的权力数十年来不应该因煤灰的不良赚钱。”新利18备用“如果做某事，成本将要低得多。”
The group has asked the appeals court to reconsider its decision and may file a new appeal to the state Supreme Court , continuing to challenge of further cost-shifting proposals before the commission, he says. The approval was for past costs only, a total of $525 million.
Georgia Power has now spent $856 million on coal ash closure efforts, it said in an October filing to the commission. The total to close all coal ash ponds, which contain less than half of the utility’s legacy coal ash generation, is now estimated at $7.1 billion, and the cost to close site landfills is $1.9 billion. “The current forecast applicable to retail customers over the next 60 years or more is approximately $8.96 billion,” the utility said.
公用事业发言人说，该公司“采取了早期行动，可以快速安全地开始关闭其所有灰池，关键的优先事项是保护水质。...正在完全挖掘19个灰烬池塘，其余10个是使用经过验证的工程方法和封闭技术封闭。该公司在9个设施的22个灰池中取得了封闭建筑的进度。”
佐治亚州的环境保护部批准了六个许可证和两项煤炭燃烧残留（CCR）垃圾填埋场的许可证。环保顾问Stantec咨询服务，Geosyntec，Oasis和GEI是六个项目的顾问。新利18备用网址脱水计划已批准为八个站点。
Closure plans for the landfills are site-specific, and each project is progressing with design, dewatering and construction based on site-specific schedules and are at different stages of progress, the October report says.
Engineering, dewatering and permitting activities have advanced and groundwater monitoring and reporting is ongoing as more sites move into active construction, the report says, with project work locations depicted in the graphic below:
Source: Georgia Power
Georgia officials issued draft permits for two landfill closures during the summer, both challenged by the Sierra Club, which said that leaving coal ash in landfills on karst terrain is unsafe, even if they are lined. “They don’t protect the groundwater,” Rogers says.
佐治亚州Power发言人说：“该公司与第三方专业工程师和地质学家合作，逐步设计计划，特别是包括该地区的地质学等。”他认为，“封闭式设计为稳定”，之后，他认为。“设计元素包括诸如基础改进计划，结构完整性监控以及持牌专业工程师在关闭期间和关闭后进行的检查。”
The spokesman says there are about 90 million cu yd of ash in Georgia Power ash ponds, with the utility set to close 19 ponds by removal and excavating 50 million cu yd of ash from them.
该公用事业公司预计，煤灰许可将持续到2023年，在2051年最终填充填充封口。它正在考虑在封闭地点增加太阳能发电。
The company has said it made construction progress at 22 ash ponds at nine plants, including dewatering, ash excavation and site restoration. It does not yet have construction permits from Georgia regulators for the sites. The company is adding dewatering projects at seven coal ash ponds but has not submitted dewatering plans for other sties. All ash ponds are expected to close by 2037.
十月的报告称，佐治亚州电力公司在灰池和垃圾填埋场上监视地下水，并在其发电厂安装了全面的地下水监测网络，其中包括600多井。
It partnered last year with the Electric Power Research Institute last year to open the Ash Beneficial Use Center, which will test pilot project technologies in ash beneficial reuse, says the Georgia Power spokesman. Her adds that the company already recycles more than 83% of fly ash produced from current operations and more than 93% of all ash and gypsum, including for reuse such as in concrete production and other construction products.
The utility firm's first large-scale beneficial use project using stored ash in existing ash ponds is underway at Plant Mitchell, near Albany, Ga.
Georgia Power is negotiating with bidders who responded to a request for proposals for beneficial use of stored coal ash and expects to make a selection later this year or early 2022.
"We are in the process of finalizing the RFP process to select successful bidders," says the spokesman.
法院还裁定S.C. Ash
Meanwhile, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld that state's Public Service Commission decision to reduce utility Duke Energy’s reimbursement for coal ash remediation from state ratepayers, limiting it to the cost of following federal regulations rather than following a more stringent cleanup law in North Carolina.
杜克在北卡罗来纳州和南卡罗来纳州拥有发电厂。该公用事业公司要求两国从两个州提供54亿美元的煤灰修复，并根据一项历史性的成本分配计划为南卡罗来纳州分配了15亿美元。州委员会将这笔款项降低到7.09亿美元，使用联邦煤炭燃烧规则要求覆盖了补救成本。新利18备用官网登录
North Carolina plants had more stringent cleanup requirements under a state law enacted in response to the massive 2014 coal ash spill into the Dan River.
Duke historically shares costs between the two state jurisdictions, with North Carolina paying 75% and South Carolina paying 25%, but the court said the commission, when cutting the coal ash reimbursement in half, followed its past policy of not allowing the sharing of costs related to state-specific laws.
The commission "explained its consistent past practice was to disallow costs incurred as a direct result of one state's laws, which are specific to that jurisdiction," the court said. "Reasoning the Dan River spill was the impetus behind the North Carolina ... enactment of [the law], the [commission] concluded it would be unreasonable to require South Carolina customers to pay costs incurred because of Duke's admitted criminal negligence and the resulting unilateral action" of North Carolina.
该委员会还表示，北卡罗来纳州法律没有向南卡罗来纳州的纳税人带来任何利益，也无法影响北卡罗来纳州立法者。
