Comments Overload has made

  • Coal gasification (IGCC) is no panacea

    There is nothing clean about coal.  Coal gasification has been around and has left its legacy - google "coal gasification" and "water contamination" and look at all the hazardous waste sites in Iowa, look at the record of the Beulah Synfuels plant in North Dakota.

    I represent landowners next to the proposed site for Excelsior's Mesaba Project.  Just google Excelsior and coal gasification.  This 600MW plant will cost at least $2,155,680,783, or $3,593/kW, and that does NOT include capture and sequestration.  Capture and sequestration ISN'T being done generally other than in testing, and isn't required for Mesaba -- it's not commercial ready.  Capture alone will cost at least 25% in efficiency (600MW plant is instantly 450MW), plus capital costs for retrofit, hundreds of millions.  The first 30% of capture is easy with IGCC, but to get upto 90%, it's very pricy.  And that's just to the plant gate.  Then add $60k/in/mi for pipeline (600 miles to potential site from Taconite, MN), pressurization stations because it's over 2,000 psi, and then costs of sequestration, IF you can find a site, at $3-10/ton (Mesaba is 616/hr, or 5.4 million tons annually).  Mesaba's emissions profile is very close to SCPC.  Water use is 6,500 gpm, and the Wabash River plant on which it is based "routinely" violated the water permit for cyanide, arsenic, and selenium.  Oh, great...

    Don't be suprised that Obama supports it though, because the Joyce Foundation HQ is there, and it's funding a surprising cadre of organizations to PROMOTE coal gasification, like the Clean Air Task Force ($787k) and the mentioned National Resources Defense Council ($400k+), Clean Wisconsin ($750k), Great Plains Institute ($437k), and othesr.  They're spending millions.  But these organizations are operating with information that is way off, and need to do some investigation before they ruin their good names on this boondoggle.  As does Obama.  Support of coal gasification is a political quagmire, as our Gov. Pawlenty is finding out.

    Up to date information on IGCC & coal gasification can be found at mncoalgasplant.com and the Citizens Against the Mesaba Project at www.camp-site.info.  

    Short version: It's twice the price of other generation before you even start capture, much less sequestration.  Sequestration is not happening.  Water use is high, and system must be zero liquid discharge.  Coal price is fluctuating (tripled in price December 2005, has gone down some) and transportation is iffy.  

    Bottom line: DOn't get diverted -- keep doing the hard work of piecing together renewables, conservation and efficiency.  IGCC is no panacea.

    Carol Overland
    Attorney for mncoalgasplant.com
    legalectric.orgOn With new energy-focused bills, Stevens delights enviros and Obama disappoints posted 2 years, 10 months ago 14 Responses

  • Enviro buy-in and sell-out is too real

    Oh, it's real, all right.

    Coal Gasification is real.  I represent some folks who will have the Mesaba coal gasification plant, trains, transmission, gas and HUGE water pipeline in their yard, on a pristine site right by Bovey, MN, up north in the woods.  Greenfield site chosen when legislation required brownfield.  Developers get every perk in the book and then some.  Don't have to prove "need" and legislature mandated a power purchase agreement because there's no market.  We all get to pay for it.

    It's real, emissions are good, BUT water is a serious problem, the predecessor plant, Wabash River, is "routinely" in violation of it's water permit, selenium, cyanide, and arsenic.  Mesaba will use 6,500 gallons a minute.

    Enviro/Coal COALition is real, it's a sequestration love fest, an excuse to buy in to coal and allow new coal plants to be built for a too small share of transmission capacity -- without having to front the capital for transmission.  See
    http://northfield.org/blogs/caroloverland/archives/ ...
    They're relying on sequestration, but sequestration ain't happenin' in the granite up north!  And meanwhile, there are so many coal plants waiting in the MISO queue, Big Stone II is applied for and moving forward; new Waterloo, IA plant proposed; maybe Durand, WI; Belfield, ND, etc., so it's not as if Mesaba (with no sequestration) or any other coal gasification is replacing old coal or eliminating new.  So why sell out and accept less than optimum?  Something that isn't workable in MN?

    ...and also search my site for Mesaba, gasification, "Two Lobbyists and a Wife" and "Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell" (SF 1368) !!!

    Here we've got more generation than we need, we're in the enviable position of being able to choose our sources, and look what's happening.

    It's all connected, and it's all too real.

    Carol
    northfield.org/blogs/caroloverlandOn Climate campaigners warm to "advanced coal" and sequestration, despite Bush backing posted 3 years, 11 months ago 11 Responses