I was provided the opportunity to sit in on a meeting with Arizona Public Service President Ted Geisler last week and while a lot of the information was familiar, he also touched on some details that are of specific value to those of us in proximity to the Cholla Power Plant in Joseph City. You may (or may not) know that the plant will be shutting down coal-fired energy production in April of next year. It’s been a slow roll towards closure for nearly a decade now, but this will be the grand finale. But before you start trying to envision the horizon without those giant smokestacks or the massive light display in the evenings that have caused more than one tourist after a long day’s drive to speculate why there is a ship in the middle of the dessert, hold up. It’s true that the decommissioning plan requires the land be restored to its original use prior to the plant being built but they’re not done out there and I don’t think they plan to be for many years to come. No, it won’t be coal fired energy and likely not hydrogen or biofuels, but it will be something in the clean energy realm.
The plan according to Geisler, is to in effect “mothball” the site until it is repurposed. My guess, and Geisler speculated as much, is advanced nuclear technology but that’s a field still in its infancy and time will tell if that will be viable. Time meaning, five to 10 years. In the interim, Cholla will continue to operate as a transmission site for the companies generating solar and wind energy which are dotting our landscape more and more, and its transmission lines are carrying broadband fibers for the huge broadband expansion project that we’re hearing so much about.
Unfortunately, what they will not be doing is providing direct jobs or property tax anytime soon. That’s a hard hit for us, but the communities in this region were here long before Cholla and I have little doubt that resourcefulness will overcome the obstacle. We need to remember that APS has been and will continue to be a good partner for our region, and Geisler himself said that if there’s an opportunity to repurpose aspects of the facility for something other than power production that may benefit Joseph City he would be up for a discussion. We’re not done yet. We, like Cholla Power Plant, just need to decide how to repurpose ourselves to keep up with the changing times and flourish.
