Power plant proposal faces concerns (coal gasification plant, IN)

[jpak]

http://www.reporter-times.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=70558&format=html

Duke Energy clients, some 9,500 of whom reside in Morgan County, are the intended beneficiaries of a gasified coal plant project being proposed for Edwardsport. But some consumer and environmental advocacy groups have raised questions about the cleanliness of "clean coal," and the costs they say the general public will have to shoulder.

Opponents of the plant, referred to as intervenors, will file testimony with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission next week, which will be followed by a rebuttal from Duke Energy/Vectren Energy. The issue will be the subject of a hearing held in June.

Energy groups have pointed to coal gasification (also known as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) as a new way to work with coal without producing many of the harmful emissions. Other groups, including the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, say gasified coal is not the cleanest way to produce electricity.

Kerwin Olson, a spokesman for advocacy group Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, said the group's No. 1 reason for opposing the plant proposal is the economic impact on ratepayers. The estimated cost of the plant has risen over the past year from $1 billion to somewhere between $2.1 and $2.4 billion, Olson said. That cost will be absorbed by taxpayers, municipalities, schools and most other public entities that consume Duke's product, he said, so it's more than just an issue about the area surrounding the proposed Edwardsport site.

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[philb]

1. There is no evidence IGCC is any cleaner environmentally than other ways of burning coal

Though theoretically it might be possible to control more of the problems.

Coal plants have major problems with
high levels of CO2 emissions
mercury emissions
thousands of tons of toxic metals including mercury in the fly ash and other ash
uranium and other radioactive elements in the ash
particulate(especially small particles) emissions
high levels of water needed to support the processes


IGCC plants can reduce particulate emmissions, and
theoretically could reduce mercury emissions if the concern was taken seriously
but there is no evidence that this is true of current IGCC plants that I'm aware of.
The coal has thousands of tons of toxic metals per year in the coal and thus either in
emissions or ash, but no effort that I'm aware of has been made to keep any of it out of the enviroment.
A typcial coal plant has at least a ton of mercury per year among the thousands of tons of toxic metals such as
lead, arsenic, cadmium, vanadium, uranium, etc.
Its claimed that IGCCs could more easily deal with these, since the coal is not actually burned but rather
used as a reagent/catalyst to produce hydrogen from water which is the primary fuel.
leaving the other toxics behind potentially.
But there are currently no regulations for dealing with the thousands of tons of toxic metals in the ash
for any type of coal plants, and it takes effort beyond what has been going on to isolate such.
EPA has been in recent years going backwards on level of concern and controls on such. With scientists and some states
protesting but ineffectually so far.

And both types of coal plants use high levels of water to support the process.