Published : January 5, 2010
Controversy over proposed Clark County coal plant heating up

By Bill Robinson
Register News Writer

Temperatures may be below freezing, but the controversy surrounding the coal-fire electrical generating plant that East Kentucky Power Cooperative wants to build across the Kentucky River across from Madison County is heating up.

On Monday, the state Division of Air Quality (DAQ) released the draft of a permit for the 278-megawatt plant that EKPC wants to erect at Trapp in Clark County.

The non-profit utility supplies electricity to 16 distribution co-ops, including Bluegrass Energy and Clark Energy that serve members in Madison County.

Across 87 mostly rural counties, about 500,000 homes, farms and businesses use electricity generated by EKPC. The new plant would be able to supply electricity to about 150,000 homes, according to the utility.

The DAQ will conduct a public hearing on the permit at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at the Cooperative Extension Office. The public also can submit written comments to the agency by mail c/o James Morse, Division for Air Quality, 200 Fair Oaks Lane, First Floor, Frankfort, KY 40601. They also may be e-mailed to: James.Morse@ky.gov.

A copy of the permit is available on the agency’s Web site, www.air.ky.gov/permitting.

If approved, construction of the Smith plant could begin in late 2010, with power generation starting in 2013, according to the utility. The on-site construction workforce would to peak at about 700 workers, with about 60 permanent workers hired for operation.

In addition to the air-quality permit, additional permits would be required from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates releases into streams.

While the non-profit utility issued a news release defending its permit application, three environmental groups put out a release calling the $766 million plant unnecessary, too costly and a danger to public health.

EKPC President Tony Campbell said the permit draft was “an important step forward in our effort to ensure East Kentucky Power Cooperative has the resources necessary to continue providing reliable, affordable power for Kentucky.”

The utility’s generating capacity lags behind the demand for electricity among its distribution cooperative, Campbell said.

Burning coal is the cheapest and most reliable method for generating electricity, said EKPC spokesperson Nick Comer, and the plant, to be known as Smith I, will use the most up-to-date clean-burning technology.

Compared to plants that burn pulverized-coal in traditional furnaces, he said the fluidized-bed combustion method proposed for the Smith plant would emit 99 less sulfur dioxide that causes acid rain, 95 percent less mercury that accumulates in fish and 80 less nitrogen oxide that causes smog.

Elizabeth Crowe of the Berea-based Kentucky Environmental Foundation disputed EKPC’s claims, calling fluidized-bed-combustion plants “some of the dirtiest” in operation. EKPC’s fluidized-bed-combustion plant near Maysville has “repeatedly failed” to meet environmental standards, and the cooperative’s members have had to bear the burden of fines imposed on the plant.

Even if the pollution levels claimed by EKPC can be achieved, fluidized-bed combustion does nothing to reduce the carbon-dioxide emissions blamed for global climate change, Crowe said.

The Kentucky branch of the Sierra Club and the Berea-based Kentuckians for the Commonwealth have partnered with KEF to oppose the EKPC’s Smith plant as its applications have made their way through the regulatory process.

On Dec. 22, the state Public Service Commission, in response to a complaint filed by the three environmental groups, ordered the utility to answer seven of nine issues they raised. Among them are:

• How can EKPC justify a new generating plant after it has lowered its estimated power needs for 2020 by 12 percent?
• Why is a coal-fired plant a good investment as coal prices rise and renewable energy sources are more common?

The PSC also wants to know whether encouraging consumers to reduce energy use would not be more advisable, as the environmental groups claims, than expanding generating capacity.

The agency also wants EKPC to explain why the estimated cost of the Smith plant has increased from $553 million to $767 million.
Comer said EKPC had 10 working days to respond and would withhold comment until then.

He did say that members of EKPC’s distribution cooperatives already had reduced consumption equal to the energy used by 100,000 homes.

“That is one generating plant we didn’t have to build,” Comer said.

Further reductions in energy use still were possible but would be more difficult, he said.

Comer said the reduced demand achieved by other utilities cited by the environmental groups were not attainable by to EKPC.

Those utilities have many more industrial users than EKPC, he said. While EKPC supplies some industries, most members are rural residences and business. Reducing energy use by a single large industry is much easier that reducing energy use by thousands of homes.

Crowe disagreed.

Weatherizing homes, replacing light bulbs and appliances with more efficient types and installing solar water heaters do not pollute and do not require permits from regulatory agencies, she said. And, they would cost less than a new generating plant.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.