BigHornRam
Well-known member
Looks like all those dams are not enough to keep up with the demands of rapid growth and large influx of ILLEGAL imigrants!
Gasification power plant planned near Idaho city
By JOHN MILLER Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho - New Mexico real-estate developer Charles High was thrilled when Energy Development Group bought an option on 75 acres near Gallup for $10,000 as the site for a 600-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant. He figured a big economic boost for the region was on its way.
Three years later, nothing's been built. In fact, nothing has been built on at least nine sites in five states where Energy Development proposed new power plants.
"They were waiting for new funding to come," High said. "We haven't heard back from them."
Market conditions changed, making the New Mexico plant unworkable, explained the firm's director, Ramesh Raman. But now Raman is back, touting an $850 million coal-gasification power plant for an abandoned industrial plant near Pocatello, Idaho.
He isn't alone. There are currently more than 100 proposals to build power plants that run on coal in the United States, the most such proposals in three decades, according to Robert McIlvaine, an energy industry consultant in Illinois.
It's similar to the boom of energy wildcatters who raced to build - or at least plan - natural gas-fired power plants during the 1990s and early 2000s. But now it's coal that's driving companies such as Energy Development and San Diego, Calif., utility-owner Sempra Energy to push new projects in Idaho and elsewhere in hopes of luring millions of dollars from investors and new customers.
"There are a number of development companies like this out there," said Jack Hawks, director of the Electric Power Supply Association in Washington, D.C. "Most of them are start-up ventures, project development managers who previously worked at utilities or big construction companies, and have gone out on their own."
The proposals in Idaho have drawn fire from environmentalists, who contend new coal-fired plants or coal gasification plants, which produce synthetic gas that's burned to turn power-producing turbines, are cleaner than those of the 1960s, but still aren't as good as renewable sources such as wind or solar power.
In Pocatello, however, where Raman wants to build his 520-megawatt coal gasification plant on the site of an abandoned phosphorous plant that closed in 2001, officials including Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne have welcomed the project as a way of reviving the moribund economy.
Tax benefits of a new power plant would be "huge for a small county," said Ken Estep, a commissioner in nearby Power County.
Raman is modeling it on Tampa Electric Co.'s Polk Power Station in Florida, a 250-megawatt gasification plant that's been running since 1997 and was built for $609 million with help from a $120 million U.S. Department of Energy grant.
The Florida utility says the plant has become an important part of its business. Electricity produced there is cheaper than that from its natural gas turbines.Still, the Energy Department says construction costs were significantly higher than natural-gas or traditional coal-fired plants.
"For us, being a demonstration plant, having a grant from the DOE was a big help," Tampa Electric spokesman Ross Bannister said.
Raman, who doesn't have a DOE grant, said his project hinges on getting agreements from utilities such as Idaho Power, which lights most of the state, to buy electricity.
Otherwise, investors won't commit, he said - putting him in a bind akin to when his natural-gas fired proposals failed three years ago.
"Unless we have an agreement with one of the utilities, the project isn't going to move forward," Raman said.
Idaho Power officials have met with Raman briefly, said spokesman Dennis Lopez. While the utility's long-term plan calls for an additional 500 megawatts of power from coal-fired plants by 2013, it doesn't mention coal gasification, Lopez said.
West of Pocatello, along the gorge where the Snake River cuts through southern Idaho's Great Basin Desert, Sempra Energy is eyeing at least two sites for a 750-megawatt,
$1 billion coal-fired plant, in addition to projects it's also pushing in neighboring Nevada.
Sempra, with $9.4 billion in 2004 revenue, says technological advances make modern-day plants such as the one it proposes for southern Idaho far cleaner than those built a half-century ago.
"We think we're going to have a very clean facility," said Michael Niggli, president of Sempra's energy development division. "We're going to meet whatever the standards are," he said, using a combination of "control technologies" and using programs that allow utilities to barter pollution rights.
According to the Energy Department, so-called clean-coal projects like this, part of President Bush's Clear Skies Initiative, will slash sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollutants from power plants by more than two-thirds by 2018.
Environmental groups counter that Idaho can meet its energy needs through renewables and conservation. Wind will make up about
5 percent of the Idaho Power's estimated generating capacity by 2013, with potential for much more.
"We don't think Pocatello or Idaho should be a proving ground for this technology," said Ken Miller, from the Boise office of the Northwest Energy Coalition. "We don't need it."
Some Pocatello officials fear even reduced emissions from a coal gasification plant could hurt air quality and hinder efforts to lure high-tech businesses.
"We're going to see what we can do to make this (Energy Development's) project work for our area," said Roger Chase, Pocatello's mayor. "But what happens when I pick up somebody at the airport who's looking at Pocatello and he sees the stacks? That's a tough place to start recruitment."
Still, advocates say the United States has no choice but to build new coal-based plants to meet future energy needs, especially after the Department of Energy cut its 2025 production forecast for natural gas by nearly 10 percent in February.
Gasification power plant planned near Idaho city
By JOHN MILLER Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho - New Mexico real-estate developer Charles High was thrilled when Energy Development Group bought an option on 75 acres near Gallup for $10,000 as the site for a 600-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant. He figured a big economic boost for the region was on its way.
Three years later, nothing's been built. In fact, nothing has been built on at least nine sites in five states where Energy Development proposed new power plants.
"They were waiting for new funding to come," High said. "We haven't heard back from them."
Market conditions changed, making the New Mexico plant unworkable, explained the firm's director, Ramesh Raman. But now Raman is back, touting an $850 million coal-gasification power plant for an abandoned industrial plant near Pocatello, Idaho.
He isn't alone. There are currently more than 100 proposals to build power plants that run on coal in the United States, the most such proposals in three decades, according to Robert McIlvaine, an energy industry consultant in Illinois.
It's similar to the boom of energy wildcatters who raced to build - or at least plan - natural gas-fired power plants during the 1990s and early 2000s. But now it's coal that's driving companies such as Energy Development and San Diego, Calif., utility-owner Sempra Energy to push new projects in Idaho and elsewhere in hopes of luring millions of dollars from investors and new customers.
"There are a number of development companies like this out there," said Jack Hawks, director of the Electric Power Supply Association in Washington, D.C. "Most of them are start-up ventures, project development managers who previously worked at utilities or big construction companies, and have gone out on their own."
The proposals in Idaho have drawn fire from environmentalists, who contend new coal-fired plants or coal gasification plants, which produce synthetic gas that's burned to turn power-producing turbines, are cleaner than those of the 1960s, but still aren't as good as renewable sources such as wind or solar power.
In Pocatello, however, where Raman wants to build his 520-megawatt coal gasification plant on the site of an abandoned phosphorous plant that closed in 2001, officials including Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne have welcomed the project as a way of reviving the moribund economy.
Tax benefits of a new power plant would be "huge for a small county," said Ken Estep, a commissioner in nearby Power County.
Raman is modeling it on Tampa Electric Co.'s Polk Power Station in Florida, a 250-megawatt gasification plant that's been running since 1997 and was built for $609 million with help from a $120 million U.S. Department of Energy grant.
The Florida utility says the plant has become an important part of its business. Electricity produced there is cheaper than that from its natural gas turbines.Still, the Energy Department says construction costs were significantly higher than natural-gas or traditional coal-fired plants.
"For us, being a demonstration plant, having a grant from the DOE was a big help," Tampa Electric spokesman Ross Bannister said.
Raman, who doesn't have a DOE grant, said his project hinges on getting agreements from utilities such as Idaho Power, which lights most of the state, to buy electricity.
Otherwise, investors won't commit, he said - putting him in a bind akin to when his natural-gas fired proposals failed three years ago.
"Unless we have an agreement with one of the utilities, the project isn't going to move forward," Raman said.
Idaho Power officials have met with Raman briefly, said spokesman Dennis Lopez. While the utility's long-term plan calls for an additional 500 megawatts of power from coal-fired plants by 2013, it doesn't mention coal gasification, Lopez said.
West of Pocatello, along the gorge where the Snake River cuts through southern Idaho's Great Basin Desert, Sempra Energy is eyeing at least two sites for a 750-megawatt,
$1 billion coal-fired plant, in addition to projects it's also pushing in neighboring Nevada.
Sempra, with $9.4 billion in 2004 revenue, says technological advances make modern-day plants such as the one it proposes for southern Idaho far cleaner than those built a half-century ago.
"We think we're going to have a very clean facility," said Michael Niggli, president of Sempra's energy development division. "We're going to meet whatever the standards are," he said, using a combination of "control technologies" and using programs that allow utilities to barter pollution rights.
According to the Energy Department, so-called clean-coal projects like this, part of President Bush's Clear Skies Initiative, will slash sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollutants from power plants by more than two-thirds by 2018.
Environmental groups counter that Idaho can meet its energy needs through renewables and conservation. Wind will make up about
5 percent of the Idaho Power's estimated generating capacity by 2013, with potential for much more.
"We don't think Pocatello or Idaho should be a proving ground for this technology," said Ken Miller, from the Boise office of the Northwest Energy Coalition. "We don't need it."
Some Pocatello officials fear even reduced emissions from a coal gasification plant could hurt air quality and hinder efforts to lure high-tech businesses.
"We're going to see what we can do to make this (Energy Development's) project work for our area," said Roger Chase, Pocatello's mayor. "But what happens when I pick up somebody at the airport who's looking at Pocatello and he sees the stacks? That's a tough place to start recruitment."
Still, advocates say the United States has no choice but to build new coal-based plants to meet future energy needs, especially after the Department of Energy cut its 2025 production forecast for natural gas by nearly 10 percent in February.
