Coal Plant Public Hearings next three days

[Fish]

Robert Huston (former Outdoor Show host for Channel 5 in Ft. Smith) wanted me to tell folks about the upcoming public hearings regarding the proposed Shady Point II coal-fired plant. Since we canceled the meeting, I wanted to at least get out a note on the board (our next meeting will be too late). The dates are:

Tuesday, Jan. 27, 7 p.m. at the Sallisaw, OK Civic Center

Wednesday, Jan. 28, 6 p.m. at the Fort Smith, AR Public Library

Thursday, Jan. 29, 6 p.m. at the Poteau, OK Bob Lee Kidd Civic

If you want to voice your opinion about the proposed coal power plant expansion (and if the weather permits safe travel), those are the places to do it. You can email Robert Huston at roberthustonoutdoors@cox.net for more details.

- Fish

[Shark Attack]

It was sure nice to turn the furnace on this morning and have the power for it to run

Wes

[paddledog]

The 320MWe Shady Point co-generation plant is a circulating fluidised bed combustion-based facility and is hard coal-fired. Annually, the plant consumes ~800,000 tonnes of coal. It uses four reheat CFB boilers, and is one of the largest coal-fired, non-utility co-generators in the US, and is claimed to be one of the cleanest solid fueled power plants in the world.

Electricity is sold to Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co and 65,000 lb/hr of 75 pssg steam is used in the adjacent facility that extracts 200 t/d CO2 from plant's flue gas to give food grade CO2. The CO2 is scrubbed from the flue gas stream via an ABB Lummus scrubber system that uses monoethanolamine (MEA) as its solvent. The extracted CO2 is used for food processing, freezing, beverage production and chilling purposes. AES Shady Point Inc own both the power plant and the CO2 processing plant.

Sulphur control for the plant is provided by limestone injection into the bed. ABB Lummus Crest Inc, Houston, was the major engineer/constructor for the plant

Leah Arnold, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said that regulated emissions at U.S. coal-fired plants have been reduced by 70 percent since the 1970s.

"Part of the problem is people think clean coal and think it has to be no emissions at all," she said.

Total carbon capture and storage is the next step in clean coal technology. Arnold said that will require increased funding, research and development.

Coal produces more than 50 percent of the country's energy needs, is plentiful domestically and is affordable.

AES Shady Point spokesman Lundy Kiger said that every coal-fired power plant being built will be a little cleaner than the existing ones due to Best Available Control Technology, the national standard for pollution control.

"I know it'll be the cleanest coal-fired plant in the state and the nation at the time it's constructed," Kiger said.

No one named Abdul will profit from this energy source.

[Fish]

Think about whether you're in favor of expansion of coal fired power and go to the hearings and listen and maybe speak your mind. Don't believe the hype coming from all sides - study it and do your own thinking. I will say that it bears keeping in mind that those who are quoted in the news (and those who quote them) usually have something to gain or lose from the outcome of the decisions in question. Thus I wouldn't necessarily think that spokespeople for the coal and power industries are unbiased (not that environmental activists are either).

- Fish

[tomcat]

I have an honest question with all my fellow environmentalist......if we're against everything (coal, nuclear and hydro) just what are we in favor of to provide our power needs? Just askin..............

[dcheshier]

The Sallisaw meeting has been rescheduled because of the weather:
Due to the impending inclement weather, The Center for Energy Matters public health meeting in Sallisaw has been re-scheduled. The meeting, originally slated for January 27th at the Civic Center, has been moved to Friday, January 30th at 6pm at the "Upper Club" room at Blue Ribbon Downs racetrack in Sallisaw.

We are sorry for the inconvenience but hope to have a better turnout with better weather conditions.
We would ask for you to pass the word as much as possible.

Thanks,
Robert Huston
The Center for Energy Matters

[Tim Eubanks]

I'll jump in on this since I'm getting a snow day and need a substitute for the teaching I'd usually be doing. This is more of an opinion, though.

Someone will no doubt correct me, but in the past when the EPA has set tough limits or standards, the industry affected has driven the technology to meet the limit.

We spend a pitiful amount of research $'s in energy technologies, other than oil, compared to what we spend on health or defense. I'm HOPEFUL that the new administration will begin funding the research engineers and big brains that will come up with technological solutions to the problems any dope like me can ask.

We obviously can't fuel our society on solar or wind(yet), so some acceptable alternative must be sought. The choice comes down to do you want clean air and higher bills or dirty air and high bills?

[Fish]

If you don't like coal for power, I think you have little practical choice but to support nuclear technology. It's one of the biggest mysteries to me why folks who want to prevent CO2 from getting into the atmosphere are often among those protesting against nuclear power. Nuclear produces waste, but it doesn't produce global environmental problems. And nuclear technologies are vastly improved from 30 years ago when we stopped building reactors, and the next generation designs have spectacular promise (advanced breeder-types might even reduce waste by 75% or more while extracting several times as much energy from the same amount of fuel!).

Perhaps the ultimate irony of the US and other industrialized nations moving away from coal is that it would likely create a cheap coal market for industrializing nations who will hungrily burn it, but less cleanly than the US and Europe will. And don't even get me started on "clean coal", which appears to be something politicians can say to make everyone feel good. Coal will only be clean for those rich enough to subsidize cleaning it up. Unfortunately most of the world will remain outside of that category for the foreseeable future.

At least somewhere during this last election cycle the public seems to have finally figured out that biofuels from grain and oilseed crops (corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel) are just another form of farm subsidies that taxpayers and poor consumers around the world pay for...

I do like solar and wind, but we need more R&D in power storage and transmission to make them a major player. And those technologies make things more efficient and reliable no matter what generation technology we use. Hopefully we'll see some serious government dollars flowing in that direction soon...

- Fish

- Fish

[sugarmtngal]

I'd like to know what impact the coal industry will or will have on our rivers in Arkansas? For example: When they build new bridges over the river it sure does impact more pollution, noise, etc.....

[Richard]

Here is my two cents worth. We need energy. We need to cut greenhouse gases. As vehicles move from gas to electricity we will need even more. If coal can truly be greenhouse clean then that is a good choice, but its not there yet. Nuclear needs to be in the mix. Solar and wind need funding. The energy is there, free to be used. We need to spend the bucks to make it usable. So. Forget funding for oil and gas. Spend what is necessary to move to solar and wind. The holy grail is fusion. What are we spending to make that happen?

I agree heartily with Fish when he said, "Don't believe the hype coming from all sides"
So here is a side to start with. I would like to see factual proof showing its not true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdHuB7Ovl2o" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Fish]

All energy on earth is either solar, nuclear, or gravitational (as far as I know). None of it is free when we need it in high concentration. Fossil fuels are the product of concentrated solar energy (concentrated by plants and millions of years of geological pressure-cooking), so they are super cheap. Nature did all the work for us to get the solar energy concentrated like we need it. But since it takes millions of years to make the amount we can consume in decades, it's not "renewable" - we'll use all of it sooner or later. All other forms of solar power we've found so far (sunshine, wind, hydro, waves, and biomass) are simply less concentrated and/or less plentiful and convenient - and getting them into a concentrated and convenient form is the hard part. Sure enough sunlight hits the planet's surface every day to fuel the human race for years, but it's not exactly free for the taking. To drive a car, run a computer, etc, we have to work to collect it and/or concentrate it into a usable form (unless you're just using it to get a tan). That's not easy or cheap at the moment, but it's not a bad bet to put money into it so that the US can eventually be a world leader there and not just a consumer of what others produce.

Geothermal and nuclear fission are the two nuclear sources we have right now. Fusion is the long-term holy grail for nuclear. I listed hydropower (the energy in falling water) as a solar source rather than a "gravitational" source. Why? What's the gravitational power source then? (I was a physics teacher, so I like to ask questions.) :-)

- Fish

[RandyJ]

What's the gravitational power source then?

I'll bite.....Waves?

[Fish]

Waves (except the tsunami variety) are wind driven. I listed them under solar, which drives wind and storms. So can't give you that one. Second guess?

[Zach]

He was probably thinking tides and just mistyped.

[Fish]

That's the one - tides. Any sources of power we missed? Besides of course the hot air generated from the US Legislative branch...

- Fish