EPA denies the Sierra Club petition to reconsider the Gasification Rule. The Sierra Club and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network filed a petition with the EPA on April 11, 2008 asking the EPA to reconsider the “Gasification Rule”. The Gasification Rule was adopted by the EPA in December 2007 and allows refineries to process oil bearing hazardous material such as sludge and petroleum coke to produce synthetic gas using a gasification process.

With this rule the EPA allows refineries to gasifiy petroleum coke and sludge as a routine refining process. The gasification process is added to the already approved processes distillation, catalytic cracking and fractionation as recognized refinery processes for converting oil waste products. The process allows refiners to convert waste products to valuable products such as fuel. The process does not contribute to the creation of additional hazardous pollutants. Actually, syngas is easier i.e. cheaper to clean and there may be applications where the refiners will clean the syngas and, in this case, the volume of hazardous material may be reduced.

This rule is a logical and intelligent decision by the EPA. However, the Sierra Club and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network did not agree and petitioned the EPA to reconsider the Gasification Rule.

The EPA disagreed with the assertions made in the petition and found that the Sierra Club and Louisiana Environmental Action Network did not submit any new information to the EPA. Since the petitioners did not submit any new information, the EPA did not find that there was a valid reason to go back and reconsider the matter.

For these reasons, the EPA denied the petition to reconsider the Gasification Rule.

The Sierra Club files for communication records between Governor and Duke Energy after losing in federal court. The Duke Edwardsport Project is on a schedule to become the first coal gasification plant built since the Wabash Power Plant in Terre Haute, Indiana and the Tampa Electric Polk Power Plant near Tampa, Florida. But, first the Edwardsport Project had to survive a desperate legal attack by the Sierra Club.

The Edwardsport project has received it’s air permit and construction of the Edwardsport power plant has begun. Groundbreaking was in June 2008. The project is a 630 MW coal gasification power plant that will convert high sulfur coal to Substitute Natural Gas (SNG) and the SNG will be used to power gas turbines and produce electricity. On May 1, 2008, Duke Energy reported that the cost estimate has increased $235 million from $2 billion to $2.235 billion. The reasons cited by Duke for the increase is global competition for materials and equipment and increased construction labor rates.

On April 3, 2008, the Sierra Club filed a legal challenge to the project in federal court in Indiana on the grounds that Duke has not included the best pollution control technology (BACT) on the project. Duke is shutting down the old, existing ‘pulverized coal’ techology Edwardsport power plant and constructing a low emission ‘coal gasification’ technology power plant at the site. Ironically, the Sierra Club doesn’t want Duke to receive credit for lowering emissions at the existing site and is challenging this in court. The lawsuit also challenged the cost of the plant and sought to halt the construction on the basis of the cost to the rate payers.

On October 16, 2008, the federal court issued a 25 page opinion and ruled against the Sierra Club et al, and ruled in favor of Duke Energy. Apellate Judge Elaine Brown wrote that complex evidentiary issues and policy are best decided by agencies with technical expertise i.e. the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

After the Sierra Club lost in the lawsuit in federal court, on October 29, 2008, the local Sierra Club chapter and other environmental groups filed papers demanding copies of all correspondence between Indiana’s Governor Daniels and Duke Energy. This appears to be a desperate attack by a minority group to delay the construction of the Edwardsport Plant.

Sunflower Electric Power Corporation is seeking an air permit for construction of a pulverized coal technology power plant in Kansas. The Kansas Division of Health and Enviroment (KDHE) would not approve the application for the air permit on the grounds that it did not evaluate the effect of CO2 emissions. The KDHE Secretary Roderick Bremby made a decision that the CO2 emissions should be considered a hazardous pollutant contrary to EPA guidelines. Secretary Roderick Bremby speaking House Select Committee on Energy and Global Warming said “The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA was a key consideration in making the Sunflower Electric decision.” He summarized “The most critical challenge facing the states is policy uncertainty at the federal level.”

The Sunflower skirmish has become a major battle ground. Sunflower Power issued a press release stating that the KDHE Secretary illegally used his authority to withhold the air permit. Peabody Coal entered the fray and provided $200,000 funding for an advertising campaign in favor of the pulverized coal fired power plants.

Sunflower filed a lawsuit in district court against KDHE and the court ruled in Sunflower’s favor. The district court dismissed the case. This means that the case can go directly to the Kansas Supreme CourtK without having to go through the appeals process. Sunflower executives are pleased that the case was dismissed by the District Court so it can be heard by the Supreme Court if the court chooses.

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit to stop the plant saying that a environmental impact study should be first conducted. The Federal government attempted to have the Sierra Club lawsuit dismissed. However, a State District judge ruled against the Federal government and denied the dismissal of the lawsuit.

Governor Sebelius supports the KDHE decision and is in talks with Sunflower regarding a negotiated settlement. Perhaps logic will prevail and Sunflower will build a coal gasification plant and include CO2 capture for enhanced oil recovery.

The Taylorville Energy Center has been approved to receive its final air permit after more than two years of permit and processing activities. The U.S. Appeals Court turned down the Sierra Club’s request the air permit be denied.

The basis for denying the Sierra Club appeal is that the Sierra Club waited too long to voice an objection about the project. The high court decision effectively eliminates the Sierra Clubs sabotage tactics of waiting to the eleventh hour to file a lawsuit and derail thousands of manhours of engineering and millions of dollars of investment.

The air permit now provides a clear path for Taylorville Project to move forward. The project is a commercial scale IGCC facility in Taylorville, Illinois that will gasify coal and produce 630 Megawatts of power for the surrounding communities. The coal gasification process is environmentally friendly. It makes it possible to remove the sulfur from the syngas and therefore the high sulfur coal in the area can be used as a feedstock. The sulfur removal is expected to have an efficiency greater than 99.8%. In addition, mercury, particulates and nitrous oxides will also be removed.