CCIPRA Meeting - August 25

Tom Wray spoke at a CCIPRA meeting in McNeal on Saturday August 25. The gathering was small with ample opportunity for questions and a lot of material was covered.

1. Southwest Power Group (SWPG), the company wanting to build the power station, is wholly owned by MMR Group , a large company specializing in instrumentation and control systems. They have been involved in “siting” several large power plants, including the Gila Bend Power Station, which is a natural gas fired plant currently in receivership but still operating. A private company, not a utility, owning a power plant is a new development – but is becoming more common.

2. I was under the impression that water is recycled after being combined with pulverized coal and oxygen in the gasifier. That appears to be wrong. Carefully controlled amounts of water are used in the gasifier and virtually none is reused. Water used to make steam in the steam turbine is recycled up to 15 times, before going to the evaporation basin.

3. The slag or solid coal ash from the gasifier may be sold as a road base but it will be used mixed with other materials to make a composite asphalt road bed. We were assured it will not be used to coat gravel roads.

4. Carbon dioxide sequestering prompted a lot of questions. Although SWPG is working with UofA researchers in planning seedling greenhouses, the greenhouses will be built by UofA (with grant support?) and will remain their property. So, SWPG is in effect claiming credit for capturing CO2 but delegating the work and financing. Eurofresh was brought up as another use for the CO2 but, as tomato plants are short-lived, they don’t provide permanent CO2 sequestering. Fast growing conifers will be raised in the greenhouses and planted in the field. A distinction was made between on site CO2 capture by the seedlings (no more than 10-15%) and total capture of CO2 over the first ten years of the conifers (40% of the plant’s carbon dioxide output).

5. An area (40 acres - ?) at the Bowie site is set aside for solar power generation – but the land will be leased to another company to generate the power.

6. Gas turbines are less efficient at higher altitudes but there will probably only be an efficiency drop of around 10% at Bowie (3600-3700 ft asl). Tom Wray was quick to point out that the Bowie site is not ideal for solar power generation – but the 10% loss in efficiency they’re incurring with gas turbines is probably comparable to the difference between Bowie and Yuma for solar power.

7. Although ADEQ will be issuing a new certificate of compliance with air quality standards, they have apparently asked SWPG to operate under the permit issued for the proposed natural gas plant, which was to have been much larger (1000 MW vs 600 MW). As ADEQ is not currently regulating CO2 emissions, they should be able to meet this requirement – but oxides of nitrogen could be a stretch. ADEQ will regulate CO2 when directed to by the EPA.

8. The power plant can still use natural gas and probably will when the gasifier is down for maintenance.

9. A large part of the Bowie site was rezoned for the natural gas plant and the current Master Development Plan that is before the Board of Supervisors seeks to rezone an additional 160 acres. Much was made of the fact that they are only after a rezoning of part of the site. However, as the nature of the facility is very different, it is only proper that the whole project be reviewed by the county.

10. Wray spun the facts a bit at the meeting; Mike Jackson has documented a lot of the bloopers at littlebigdog (Scroll down to the Aug. 25 meeting report.). At one point Wray talked about SunZia , which is trying to build a line to carry power from New Mexico to southern Arizona and from there to California. However he got off track when he tried to make that relevant to Bowie and imply that SWPG may sell power to California. California has to meet an increasing amount of its power needs from green sources and imported power must satisfy that requirement as well. I suspect that Californian authorities will not be interested in Bowie power and I doubt the Corporation Commission would be happy to see coal power generated in state and sold out of state. SWPG has been very quick to point out they'll be selling power locally and in state - and that remark of Wray's was a little odd. For more details see the California Renewable Energy Standard (PDF) at Clean California . There was also some confusion about the composition of syn gas (mostly CO and hydrogen) and natural gas (mostly methane).

11. A resident of Bowie, now employed by SWPG as a “Bowie booster,” pleaded the case for the power station as Bowie’s best chance for survival. It was a nice counter point to all the technical material covered but a little myopic on the merits of the power plant. While it will certainly help the town, the power plant probably won’t solve other problems such as the current high crime rate (methamphetamines?) there.