Duke may retire coal units at Buck

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

Rather than installing equipment needed to meet new pollution controls, Duke Energy might close two coal-fired units at Buck Steam Station by 2015.

The Buck plant is a four-unit coal-fired generating station located on the Yadkin River in Rowan County.

In an annual planning document filed Wednesday with the N.C. Utilities Commission, Duke said it might shut down seven units in North and South Carolina as new federal environmental regulations go into effect over the next five years.

Duke will face tougher limits on pollutants that form smog and acid rain. Refitting old coal-fired plants with sulfur-dioxide controls called “scrubbers” could prove to be cost-prohibitive.

If the company determines it is not economically feasible to install scrubbers, Duke will retire the units, spokesperson Jason Walls said.

Walls said he didn’t know when the company would make a final decision about closing the Buck units, but “now that it’s part of this planning document, we are moving in that direction,” he said.

The units, 5 and 6, already were slated to close as part of an agreement where Duke received a state permit to build a new 825-megawatt unit in Rutherford County in exchange for retiring 800 megawatts of older units.

But faced with upcoming emission control requirements, the company’s new strategy would hasten the retirement at Buck, Walls said.

It is not clear how many jobs would be affected.

“It’s too early to tell what type of employment changes would result,” he said.

Duke is scheduled to open a new natural-gas fueled combustion turbine unit next year at Buck, which currently has three other gas-fired units. Displaced employees might find work at the new unit or at other plants, he said.

“We could reallocate some jobs in our own company,” Walls said.

Walls said he doesn’t know how many people work at Buck.

The plant was Duke Energy’s first large capacity coal generating plant built in the Carolinas and was named for the company’s co-founder, James Buchanan “Buck” Duke.

The Buck station has been in operation since 1926.

The company is also considering shuttering units at the Riverbend plant in Gaston County and Lee plant in Anderson County, S.C.

Contact Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.