The Big Stone II coal fired power plant project is providing fresh fodder for environmentalists to use to continue to confuse the general public regarding the use of coal. There are articles all over the internet with headlines that say the Obama administration is signaling that it is opposed to the use of coal.
On January 15, 2009, the Minnesota Public Utility Commission approved construction of power lines for the Big Stone II project that are needed by the Big Stone II power plant to distribute generated electricity to the people in the state. On January 22, 2009, the new EPA administration sent a letter to the State of South Dakota’s Public Utility Commission stating that it opposed the issue of the air permit for the construction of the Big Stone II power plant. The EPA letter lists the reasons for the opposition to the issue of the air permit.
The Big Stone II power plant is an expansion project at an existing power plant and is based on super critical pulverized coal technology. Pulverized coal technology is a coal burning technology and the smoke produced is vented to atmosphere. Coal gasification technology is different; it produces a syngas stream that is not vented to atmosphere and can be ciriculated through equipment and cleaned much the way a refinery processes petroleum products. Environmental groups will not go out of their way to clear the air regarding the differences between pulverized technology and gasification technology. It’s in their favor that all coal technologies get lumped into a single pile. They can continue posting pictures of out-dated technology with smokestacks and billows of white smoke in the sky.
The only problem is that this is not a correct depiction of coal gasification technology. The United States has always been a world leader in technology and science. Eventually the facts of the technology will win out. Coal gasification with carbon sequestration or enhanced oil recovery is an environmentally responsible approach for producing power and fuel.
The Obama administration supports clean coal technology. The whitehouse.gov website states on the energy and environment page that the Obama/Biden administration will “develop and deploy clean coal technology”.
This articles sports a picture of the Tampa Electric Company (TECO) power plant that is based on coal gasification technology and is representative of a coal gasification plant. There are no plumes of smoke and, in fact, no large smokestacks. Interested parties know that the issue is not cleaning the syngas stream, but what to do with the CO2 after it’s removed. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Energy Laboratory and Technology (NETL) have the answers and the science cannot be blurred by special interest groups forever.
