The Department of Energy last week ordered a damaged coal-fired power plant in northwestern Colorado to remain online, escalating President Donald Trump’s divisive push to revive fossil fuels across the U.S.
The almost 50-year-old Craig Generating Station Unit 1 must remain operating through the end of March under Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s order. DOE also included an option to extend the life of Tri-State Generation and Transmission’s 427-megawatt plant. The order arrived a day before the plant was slated to close.
Wright justified the move as an emergency. Closing the Craig plant, he warned, could “lead to the loss of power to homes, and businesses in the areas that may be affected by curtailments or power outages, presenting a risk to public health and safety.”
The order cites a 2024 assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corp., which found about 5 gigawatts of baseload generation are slated to retire by 2028 in the Western region that includes Colorado, much of which will be replaced by wind and solar. The NERC report raised concerns about “supply chain issues” that could prevent the construction of battery energy storage systems in the area.
