Jamestown Coal Power: Stay or Go?

Opinion in The Buffalo News
Scuttling the coal plant - 8/21/2009
Jamestown project draws questions, Praxair shifts sites to Michigan

The U.S. Department of Energy has questioned whether Jamestown is the rock upon which someone should build a so-called clean coal power plant. So Praxair, the industrial gas company trying to cook up the technology, and earn a share of the $2.3 billion the Energy Department has available for such experiments, has shifted its focus from the city in Western New York to another proposed project in western Michigan.

Politics cannot be absent, with big names in the Democratic Party lobbying a Democratic administration for the money and the jobs that follow. But the reason for Praxair's shift is about as reasonable, scientifically speaking, as can be imagined. And it demonstrates that the Jamestown Board of Public Utility's (BPU) long-time belief in the project is on shaky ground indeed.

The Jamestown BPU and Praxair, a Connecticut-based company with a plant in the Town of Tonawanda, have had their heads together on a plan to reimagine the coal-fired power plant Jamestown has wanted to build for six years as a demonstration for carbon capture technology. That is something that could, if it works, go a long way to mitigate the environmental damage done by the burning of coal.

The problem with letting Jamestown call its 50-megawatt plant a clean-coal facility is that there is, so far, no assurance that the technology will work. If it doesn't, Jamestown would be sitting there with an expensive, pollution-belching power plant that will cost town residents a lot more money than they would have spent on a similar level of greener power from any of a number of existing or possible alternative sources. Read the full Editorial in The Buffalo News.

But Jamestown isn't quitting. They're scutlling Praxair and applying for Federal funds! See the article below.

A Calculated Long Shot - 8/22/2009
BPU, OxyCoal Alliance To File Funding Application Without Praxair

The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities and members of the New York OxyCoal Alliance have decided to file their own funding application for an oxycoal project at the BPU's Samuel A. Carlson generating plant on Steele Street.

The Post-Journal learned of the decision Friday afternoon, just days before the Monday application deadline for funding through the U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Coal Power Initiative.

The decision comes two weeks after Praxair, in a stunning move, decided to demote Jamestown to the alternate slot for an oxycoal project behind Holland, Mich. Praxair said its decision - which came just 12 days before the DOE's application deadline - was made because the Michigan location has ''better geological formations and a more solid financial position.''

Thanks to a boost from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the DOE has over $1 billion to spend on clean coal projects. It has already agreed to spend $408 million on two carbon capture and sequestration projects - an existing power plant in Beulah, N.D. and a new facility in Kern County, Calif. - that use different technology than the BPU's proposed project.
Read the full article by Kristen Johnson in the The Post-Journal.

[UPDATE: 8/25/2009]
Council Backs Project
City Promises $145 Million For OxyCoal Plant

The Jamestown City Council has thrown its weight behind the funding application filed Monday night by the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities and members of the New York OxyCoal Alliance for an oxycoal project at the BPU's Samuel A. Carlson generating plant on Steele Street.

Council members voted unanimously to approve a resolution that not only expressed the council's firm support for the project but also promised that - should the U.S. Department of Energy fund the Jamestown project with Clean Coal Power Initiative funds - the city would either issue $145 million worth of municipal bonds or guarantee the repayment of $145 million in revenue bonds issued by a special purpose entity. Read the full article by Kristen Johnson in the The Post-Journal.

Earlier articles, viewpoints and letters to the editor:

• Hopes rise for coal plant in Jamestown - 3/15/2009

• Seek sustainable energy, not more coal plants - 3/21/2009

• Jamestown coal plant project is good investment - 7/28/2009

• Jamestown coal power plant is both costly and unneeded - 8/03/2009

• Carbon storage is unproven, too costly for Jamestown - 8/04/2009

• New coal plant will increase electric rates in Jamestown - 8/05/2009

• Schumer should drop plans to pursue ‘clean coal’ plant - 8/20/2009

What do you think about proposed coal power plant in Jamestown...
Should coal stay or should it go?

Ponder this question while listening to The Clash:

New Coal Power: Advance or Big Mistake?

NY Governor Paterson today announced State support for an 'advanced coal' power plant in Jamestown. The plant is intended to be a demonstration facility for carbon dioxide capture and permanent underground storage, a still unproven technology.

'Advanced coal' is a new name for what the coal power companies have been calling 'clean coal'. To date, there is no such thing. It is not known whether this unproven technology will be commercially feasible, cost effective and environmentally safe. Electricity costs will certainly rise since 'clean coal' power plants will be expensive to build and operate.

Climate activists and environmentalists were not happy with the Governor's support for the initiative. “This power plant is ill-advised from both environmental and economic points of view and does not deserve to go forward,” said Walter Simpson, co-founder of the Western New York Climate Action Coalition and leader of a coalition of groups opposed to the plant. He criticized the Governor for "acting before an $800,000 New York State Energy Research & Development Authority-funded study to examine the geological and legal issues associated with carbon capture and storage in the Southern Tier region has begun". Brian Smith, Western New York Program Director for Citizens Campaign for the Environment said “Investing millions of tax dollars in unproven, highly questionable technology is unwise.”

It is not known whether underground storage of carbon dioxide (carbon sequestration) is safe and permanent. Would you like to have toxic concentrations of carbon dioxide stored underground where you live? Suppose toxic concentrations of the gas leak out? What do you think: Advance or Mistake?

Here's Tom Toles' take on carbon sequestration:

[Click to enlarge]

Clean Coal: More Expensive, Less Desirable

A 'clean coal' technology has been proposed that will provide power to generate electricity without emitting global warming pollution. The idea is that modified coal power plants would capture the polluting gas, carbon dioxide, pump it into open spaces underground, and store it there permanently. The technology has been promoted by coal mining and power companies, and has been supported by President Bush and the three presidential candidates. However, carbon dioxide capture, storage, and safety remain unproven, and the cost of building clean coal power plants is proving to be prohibitive.

The cost of the FutureGen clean coal project in Illinois rose from $1 Billion to $1.8 Billion, including $1 Billion in government subsidies. Fearing that the already high cost would further increase, the U.S. Energy Department canceled the FutureGen project. Another clean coal plant proposed in Edwardsport, Indiana would cost an estimated $2.35 Billion, a $365 Million increase from earlier estimates.

Here in the Buffalo area, an ailing economy and the need for new jobs are driving demands to build a clean-coal power plant in Tonawanda, NRG's proposed Huntley plant. The cost last year was estimated at $1.5 Billion. The current cost and status of the Huntley plant are not clear, and NY State is moving away from coal power to decrease pollution. Recently, in nearby Rochester, NY, a coal-fired power plant was shut down and converted to use natural gas, which generates less carbon dioxide than coal, and doesn't emit mercury pollution.

Coal's future looks bleak on Wall Street. Citigroup and Merrill Lynch have downgraded coal company stocks across the board. Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America said lending for coal-fired power plants will be contingent on utilities demonstrating they would be economically viable under future federal rules on emissions. A federal tax on carbon dioxide emissions is inevitable. Together with the high cost of cleaning coal, the tax will make coal a more expensive and less desirable source of energy.

Fortunately, clean energy sources, like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal, provide alternatives to burning coal. Clean energy sources do not emit carbon dioxide pollution, and are environmentally safe and renewable. Low-cost, reliable hydropower from Niagara Falls is attractive to manufacturing companies and is creating new jobs in Western NY. Wind turbine towers are sprouting up across the region. A national shift to clean energy sources will create millions of new jobs in construction, engineering, manufacturing and other areas, and will reduce global warming pollution. It will be a win-win situation for Americans and the planet.