Exelon CEO: 'Even Tea Party People Don't Like Mercury in Their Tea'

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In the recent third-quarter earnings conference call, John Rowe, the CEO of Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC) (Chicago, Illinois), expressed the belief that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) increased regulation of hazardous emissions will be quick in coming.

"At the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act last month, Administrator Lisa Jackson reiterated her commitment to move forward with hazardous air pollution rules on schedule. The comment period for EPA's transport rule expired on October 1, clearing the way for EPA to move forward with developing its final rules on nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides," said Rowe. "Now of course some of my colleagues in the industry contend that this timeline must shift, and there may be a case or two where that happens, but it is a very different thing to delay climate legislation than it is to prevent the enforcement of hazardous air pollution regulations. Even Tea Party people don't like mercury in their tea. We do not believe EPA's enforcement activities will be greatly delayed.

"The change in EPA's authority to regulate hazardous air pollutants would require congressional action to overturn the Clean Air Act. Absent that sort of congressional action, and absent its approval by the president, EPA's regulation goes forward. Now while many people say this cannot be, generators are already planning for this future. We have already seen announcements of more than 4000 megawatts of coal to be retired or mothballed in [the PJM interconnection] in the next five years. This, of course, includes our own units at Cromby and Eddystone, which will be retired by mid-2012."

Industrial Info is tracking more than $2.14 billion in Exelon projects, including several planned maintenance outages, additions and upgrades. Although approximately 92% of Exelon's fleet is nuclear, Exelon seems to be practicing what it's preaching, as two of the company's larger projects involve the addition of combined-cycle units at existing fossil-fueled power stations.

The gas-fired Mountain Creek Power Station in Dallas, Texas, and the Eddystone Power Station in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, are scheduled to receive combined-cycle units. The projects have an estimated combined value of $1.1 billion, and both are tentatively scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2012. Requests for Quotations (RFQs) are expected to be issued in mid-2011.

Exelon plans to retire the two coal-fired units at Eddystone. Unit 1 will be retired in 2011, followed by Unit 2 in 2012. The 358-megawatt Cromby Generating Station in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania--mentioned by Rowe in the conference call--is planned for retirement in 2011.

Information on these and other Power Industry projects can be found in Industrial Info's North American Industrial Database.

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