IGCC secrets – NOT

April 1st, 2007

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Time to trot out this photo again — NRG has to release the “emissions” info but there’s no requirement, YET, to release any cost/pricing info.  We’ve GOT this info for Mesaba, so NRG’s should be assumed to be about the same until proven otherwise!  Produce, NRG!

“We’re still nowhere near where we need to be, and the only solution to this is to unwrap the entire bid,” said Alan Muller, who directs the environmental group Green Delaware.

Catching up here, this came out while in transit:

Key details concerning NRG plant still withheld
Report lacks information needed to gauge emissions

By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal
Posted Thursday, March 29, 2007

Key details on pollution emissions, costs and environmental risks from a proposed clean coal plant remained withheld Wednesday, a day after a court cleared the way for more information to be made public.

The Public Service Commission released four binders containing hundreds of pages of bid documents from three companies vying to build a new power plant.

But those documents shined little new light on the effects of the proposed plants.

For example, NRG Energy’s proposed 600-megawatt plant would produce 201 pounds of carbon dioxide for every million pounds of energy used, according to the documents. But withheld was information on how much energy the plant would use.

The information means little without access to NRG’s estimate of energy consumption, said John Austin, a retired Environmental Protection Agency scientist who supports a different plan to build windmills.

Carbon dioxide pollution, which is linked to rising global temperatures, has become one of several controversial issues in debate over the process.

NRG’s plan calls for pumping 65 percent of carbon dioxide emissions deep underground. But details about that plan were also withheld.

“We’re still nowhere near where we need to be, and the only solution to this is to unwrap the entire bid,” said Alan Muller, who directs the environmental group Green Delaware.

The fragmented details come a day after NRG lost a Chancery Court case in which it sought a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Public Service Commission from releasing details. The News Journal and others had requested bid information be released because the process for choosing a new plant includes public input and evaluates the proposals based on cost and environmental impact.

NRG is proposing a more-than $1.5 billion plant near Millsboro that would burn natural gas-like fuel made from processed coal. The company is competing with Bluewater Wind LLC’s offer to build a 200-turbine offshore wind farm along the state’s Atlantic Coast and Conectiv Energy’s proposal for a 177-megawatt gas-fired turbine at its complex in east Wilmington.

Conectiv has laid open its entire proposal. Bluewater made some of its plan available to the public, holding back information on price and financing.

The Public Service Commission is scheduled to make a tentative recommendation on the winning bidder in May.

Under a process ordered by lawmakers last year, the winning company would enter into a long-term contract to supply Delmarva Power, the state’s largest electricity provider. The bill, aimed at stabilizing energy rates and supplies, passed after Delmarva raised rates 59 percent for residential customers last year.

Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com

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One Response to “IGCC secrets – NOT”

  1. Mark Says:

    Wind, traditional gas, and IGCC are not at all substitutes. Wind is intermittant, and produces when the wind blows (duh). When the wind doesn’t blow, CO2 emitting fossil fuel makes up the gap.

    Gas is very flexible and can be turned up/down/on/off at need. It also releases CO2 directly to the air.

    IGCC can capture and store the CO2, but, it’s largely a 24/7/365 inflexible resource.

    They are just different … you might need them all, I haven’t seen your integrated resource plan.

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