Power plant plans shrink
GILLETTE -- Black Hills Power has scaled back its
plan for a 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant to 100 megawatts, according to
the company.
The downsizing is due to a lack of transmission capacity to properly market the
power, and because of ongoing air quality concerns downwind at national parks in
western South Dakota.
Besides, Black Hills Power is used to adding 100-megawatt units at a time.
"That's part of the process," said Fred Carl, environmental manager
for Black Hills Power. "We know we've got the 100 megawatts of new demand
coming up in a couple of years, and we've also got more demand not too far
afterwards, so we'll have to figure out something."
So instead of venturing into the business of
marketing Wyoming-made power, the company is simply going to meet the
incremental demand of its existing customer base.
The company's announcement comes just a week after Gov. Dave Freudenthal
announced a four-state partnership to bolster a high-capacity power line to
California, with a long-term goal of setting up Wyoming as a major power
generator for the West. Freudenthal said last week the idea would require that
new coal-based generation come on the scale of 500 to 1,000 megawatts at a time
while wind adds smaller pieces of power until Wyoming boosts production by 2,000
megawatts or more.
But today, Wyoming simply is not able to pull up those big pants, and Black
Hills Power's setback with the WyGen No. 2 project illustrates the point,
according to officials.
"We are not there yet. We have some issues that must be looked at and
resolved," said Sadrul Ula, energy adviser to the governor.
Black Hills Power officials recently notified the Wyoming Department of
Environmental Quality that they propose to scale back the design of WyGen No. 2,
which it still plans to build at the Wyodak Complex near Gillette.
Carl said the smaller version of WyGen No. 2 doesn't necessarily mean a smaller
number of construction and permanent jobs related to the project. However, it
does have implications for Wyoming's plan to become a major power source for the
West. It brings more attention to the air quality and transmission roadblocks
that lie ahead.
For example, DEQ's Air Quality Division had issued an emission permit to Black
Hills Power in 2002, allowing it to construct WyGen No. 2 at 500 megawatts of
capacity. But the National Park Service appealed the permit; then both Black
Hills Power and the Park Service asked for time to negotiate emission
parameters. The concern for the Park Service is that visibility at Wind Cave
National Park and Badlands National Park is so clear that even a modest addition
of particulates might be detectable and considered a degradation of visibility.
Those negotiations led to an agreement by Black Hills Power to lower the
emission design and build what would be the cleanest coal-fired power plant in
the nation, according to DEQ. But the Park Service still didn't drop its appeal.
Ula said there is still some disagreement between Wyoming DEQ and the Park
Service about the federal agency's estimated visibility impacts related to a
500-megawatt WyGen No. 2. He said the Park Service's modeling includes impacts
from power plants that were proposed in the Powder River Basin, but that were
never permitted and may never come to fruition.
But exactly how much the air quality issue factored into Black Hills Power's
decision to scale back is difficult to measure. Ula said company officials
visited with Freudenthal a few weeks ago and reported that transmission and
marketing concerns were also considerations.
Construction of the smaller, 100-megawatt WyGen No. 2 could begin August.
Meanwhile, other power generators are monitoring the situation. This year, Basin
Electric Power Cooperative announced its intention to construct a 250-megawatt
coal-fired power plant in the same Powder River Basin region in northeast
Wyoming. Acknowledging air quality concerns, Basin said it is considering a
low-emission coal gasification design.
"There's no question that clean coal technology is the future of
coal," said Basin Electric spokesman Floyd Robb.
Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 682-3388 or dzeffer@trib.com.
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