LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Mohave Generating Station in southern Nevada, a coal power plant that was among the most polluting in the United States when it was shuttered in 2005, will be dismantled and decommissioned, its four owners announced on Wednesday.
The decision ends any chance that the coal power plant in Laughlin, Nevada, within several miles of both Arizona and California, will return to operation. The site may host a renewable energy center to take advantage of existing transmission infrastructure, said its former operator and majority owner, Southern California Edison.
Mohave was shut at the end of 2005 for reasons including a court decree initiated by environmentalists and the expiration of contracts for coal and water supplies.
Now, the 2,470-acre plant site may be sold for any purpose a new owner chooses or developed into a renewable energy project, said Gil Alexander, spokesman for SCE, which owns 56 percent of Mohave. The plant is also owned by Arizona public utility Salt River Project (20 percent), Sierra Pacific Resources Corp.'s NV Energy (14 percent) and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (10 percent.
The area of southeastern California, southern Nevada and western Arizona is seen as good for solar power. SCE said some of the Mohave land could be used for solar generation, but more study is needed to see if solar is workable at Mohave.
The dismantling effort will begin in the fourth quarter of 2009, and will cost about $30 million, SCE said.
In February 2007, Arizona public utility Salt River Project dropped plans to reopen Mohave when it and SCE failed to agree on a purchase pact.
SCE is the biggest unit of Edison International and is one of the biggest U.S. utilities, distributing electricity to about 4.9 million customers.
About a year after Mohave closed, California created rules prohibiting the import of significant amounts of new coal-fired power contracts involving out-of-state plants. California has no big coal-fired power plants.
Mohave operated as a major -- 1,580 megawatts -- coal-fired power plant from 1971 to 2005.
Mohave was blamed for smoke that hung over the Grand Canyon. It produced about 10 million tons of carbon dioxide and about 400 tons of mercury annually. It also relied on water and coal from Native American tribal territory in Arizona by a 273-mile slurry pipeline.
(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by David Gregorio)
