City of Farmington abandons carbon capture project at San Juan Generating Station

It was always a long-shot with New Mexico’s hostile political climate, but the effort (led primarily by the City of Farmington) to embark upon a carbon capture project that would save San Juan Generating Station while preserving its electricity generation capabilities for New Mexico, has been abandoned.

PNM was never interested in the plan and neither were MLG or the so-called environmental groups who oppose fossil fuels regardless of their CO2 emission impact. Farmington (a minority stakeholder in the plant) had a strong economic interest in keeping the plant open.

According to the Farmington Daily-Times, Duckett wrote. “Unfortunately, profit and the (Energy Transition Act)  have taken precedence over the livelihoods of real people and families.  It is with a heavy heart that we withdraw from the arbitration efforts and Carbon Capture Project at SJGS.”

Evidently PNM and other plant owners had already begun to dismantle key parts of the facility during decommissioning which would have been necessary to reopen the facility for use with carbon capture technology.

With PNM having expressed concerns about keeping the lights on throughout its service area this summer it would have been nice to have San Juan’s baseload power, but anti-fossil fuel sentiment reigns even if the vast majority of CO2 would be captured.