Change of Plans

On Friday August 31, SWPG issued a press release stating that they no longer wished to build an IGCC plant at Bowie and instead were going to pursue the original plan to build a 1,000MW natural gas plant on the same site instead. The press release is given in full along with events leading up to and immediately following the announcement at littlebigdog. Two days later, The Sierra Vista Herald ran a story on the change in plans with reactions from the three supervisors. On September 9 the Herald ran a particularly wrong-headed story about Bowie and the power plant which inflamed things further. The Board of Supervisors voted to extend the permit to build the gas plant on September 18.

On August 25 at the CCIPRA meeting, 6 days before the press release was issued, Tom Wray was still insisting that natural gas was too costly and that they were determined to build an IGCC plant. What happened to change their minds? There hasn't been any major change in natural gas prices so the answer probably has more to do with a political calculation that showed the IGCC plant might not be approved by the Board of Supervisors. Even if it was approved, they realized that if it went to a county wide referendum they would probably lose – hence better to burn natural gas than be turned down for IGCC. SWPG will still have to get ADEQ air quality permits for the natural gas plant, as even though the permits were issued earlier, they have changed gas turbines.

A natural gas plant is perhaps less undesirable than an IGCC plant as there will be no slag dump or evaporation basins but there still be a lot of carbon dioxide emitted and a lot of water used. Although many of the problems with an IGCC plant were aired over the last few months, we weren't able to get a serious consideration of conservation or of the wisdom of having private companies, rather than utilities, building power plants. An article in the New York Times on Sept. 16 stated that the New York State Attorney General has opened an investigation of five large energy companies, questioning whether their plans to build coal-fired power plants pose undisclosed financial risks that their investors should know about. “The AG, Andrew Cuomo, using the same state securities law wielded by his predecessor, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, to investigate corruption on Wall Street, sent subpoenas on Friday Sept. 14 to the top executives of the five companies, seeking internal documents. The companies, which have projects in various states, are AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy, Peabody Energy and Xcel Energy.” The only other power plant in Arizona that SWPG is associated with, Gila Bend Panda, is still operating but is in receivership.

In the last couple of weeks there have been further stories about opposition to coal plants, including serious and growing problems for a proposed plant in Holcomb, Kansas and a more general story by Peter Montague on the turn about that coal companies are facing.

I'll try to post updates on the “progress” at Bowie from time to time but I need to start devoting some time and space to other issues in the county.