Calpine – Enviro Updates

Constellation Energy completes $26 billion acquisition of Calpine, major operator at The Geysers

January 26, 2026

Jeff Quackenbush, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

But Earthjustice, together with Public Citizen, PennFuture and Clean Air Council, petitioned federal regulators to block the combination, claiming it would increase electricity costs by reducing competition and it would increase pollution via the natural gas plants.

The biggest operator of geothermal power plants at The Geysers field straddling Sonoma and Lake counties is now under new ownership.

Constellation Energy Corp. (Nasdaq: CEG) has finished its $26.6 billion acquisition of Calpine Corp., which has been involved with The Geysers 36 years ago and expanded its holdings to become its top producer a decade later.

The transaction, originally announced a year ago and completed early this year, finalizes one of the largest power-generation deals in U.S. history and creates what the company describes as the nation’s top producer of electricity.

It brings together Baltimore-based Constellation’s zero-emission nuclear fleet with Houston-based Calpine’s natural gas and geothermal assets, positioning the combined company to meet rapidly rising power demand driven by data centers, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and electrification. They collectively serve about 2.5 million customers nationwide and operate 55 gigawatts of capacity across nuclear, natural gas and geothermal resources.

Climate Change & EnergyCalpine, Constellation Energy, geothermal, Geysers geothermal field

Constellation Energy nears $30 billion deal for Calpine, major player in Geysers geothermal

January 9, 2025

Ryan Gould, Dinesh Nair, Matthew Monks and David Carnevalli, BLOOMBERG

Constellation Energy Corp. is nearing an acquisition of Calpine Corp., people familiar with the matter said, in what would be one of the biggest ever deals in the power generation sector.

Baltimore-based Constellation is in discussions with Calpine’s private equity owners about the terms of a transaction that could value the company at about $30 billion including debt, according to the people. A deal may be announced in the coming weeks, they said.

Calpine operates the majority of power plants in The Geysers geothermal field straddling Sonoma and Lake counties in the Mayacamas mountains.

Climate Change & EnergyCalpine, Constellation Energy, electricity, Geysers geothermal field, renewable energy

Santa Rosa wastewater quandary linked to Kincade fire could get worse as rainy season ramps up

January 3, 2020

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Nearly two months after the Kincade fire was fully contained in northeastern Sonoma County, Santa Rosa is struggling with an after-effect of the massive blaze: its wastewater disposal pipeline at The Geysers was disabled for six weeks, backing up the Sebastopol-area plant with about 400 million gallons of treated wastewater.

As a result, by February city water officials anticipate nearing maximum capacity at the plant’s storage ponds, forcing them to release treated effluent into the nearby Laguna de Santa Rosa, a step that would put customers on the hook for an estimated $400,000 in environmental charges.

The wastewater quandary is one of the lingering repercussions of the county’s largest ever wildfire, which scorched about 77,000 acres and more than 170 homes after igniting near a faulty PG&E transmission line in late October.

A clearer picture of its impact on The Geysers geothermal field — the complex of power plants near where the fire erupted — and the city’s wastewater system, which sends most of its recycled daily output to The Geysers, emerged over the past several weeks in public records and in interviews with city water staff and representatives of PG&E and Calpine, which operates most of the power plants.

PG&E has restored power to most of the lines that went down due to the Kincade fire, but it is still weeks away from reactivating the transmission line where equipment broke shortly before the start of the wildfire, a PG&E spokeswoman said.

That same high-voltage line previously powered the city-owned pumps that deliver water about 40 miles from Santa Rosa’s Laguna Wastewater Plant to The Geysers as part of the city’s wastewater disposal system, in operation since 2003.

Without electricity from that line, Santa Rosa found itself sidelined for six weeks — without the ability to pump the 15 million gallons of wastewater it regularly sends per day on average to help sustain steam power at The Geysers, said Joe Schwall, the city’s deputy director of water reuse operations. The Laguna Road plant is one of the largest sewer operations in the North Bay, serving more than 200,000 people not just in Santa Rosa but in Rohnert Park, Cotati, Sebastopol and parts of Sonoma County.

Climate Change & Energy, WaterCalpine, fire damage, Geysers pipeline, Kincade Fire, PG&E, wastewater, wastewater overflow