Aug 24 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Rich Mckay and Kevin Spear The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.

Orlando's electric utility committed itself Tuesday to building a $792 million, cutting-edge power plant that will pump out a tiny fraction of the pollutants that typically spew from almost all other coal-fired generators in the world.

If the clean-coal technology works as planned, the plant could place Orlando at the forefront of President Bush's controversial push for the nation to increase use of domestic fossil fuels. The United States has one of the world's largest supplies of coal.

"We're going to have the cleanest coal plant in the country," said Ken Ksionek, OUC's general manager. "We're committed to making it work."

The proposed plant, to be built at the Curtis H. Stanton Energy Center in east Orange County, calls for a $56.3 million gamble by the Orlando Utilities Commission and its customers. That's how much the city-owned utility will contribute for the core technology that the federal government wants to prove as reliable and affordable.

OUC also will pay for more traditional equipment: about $13.1 million for coal cars and $235 million to build a traditional turbine-driven generator that will deliver the power.

The bulk of the plant's expense is covered by a $235 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The rest of the money will be paid by the Atlanta-based Southern Co., the nation's second-largest power producer.

Each of the partners has a different motive.

The DOE offered the grant to encourage the development of the cleaner technology, said Gary Stiegel, a DOE technology director based in Pittsburgh, Pa.

OUC needs a new plant to provide for an expected 20 percent growth in its number of customers. The utility has some key approvals already in place to build a fourth plant at the Stanton complex.

Southern Co. has been developing clean-coal technology for at least two decades and hopes to sell the process in coming years to other utilities.

To win the grant, the energy company needed to find a partner ready to build a new plant -- which turned out to be OUC.

The 300-megawatt plant -- big enough to light about 30,000 homes -- would be one of a handful of such plants in the world and serve as a demonstration model of the technology of coal gasification for power companies around the globe.

The machinery will pulverize coal to fine grains, much like face powder, said Randall Rush, director of research at Southern's pilot plant in Alabama.

Then, using intense heat but not flame, a chemical reaction will break hydrogen and carbon-monoxide molecules off the tiny bits of coal rock. Those gases will be burned in a common type of generator to make electricity.

Meanwhile, most of the pollutants linked to smog, lung-damaging particles, mercury contamination and acid rain -- and are common in nearly all coal plants -- either never form or are captured in the process.

Environmental activists note that OUC's new plant is likely to be far less abusive to the planet's health than conventional coal-burners.

But they contend Bush is headed in the wrong direction by putting so much emphasis on finding more fossil fuel and developing more ways to burn it.

Florida has been particularly concerned about increasing interest at the federal level in exploring the Gulf of Mexico for natural gas -- the fuel of choice during the past decade for powering new electric plants in the state.

Environmentalists contend that Bush should do more to encourage greater efficiency in cars and appliances and to harness other energy sources, such as the sun and wind.

Bob Schulte, vice president of Excelsior Energy Inc. in Minnesota, said coal gasification is now a proven technology. Many of the early development headaches were solved by plants in Polk County and in Indiana, said Schulte, whose company has landed a $36 million DOE grant to build such a plant soon in Minnesota.

"In our mind it's time to get on with it," Schulte said. "This is where the industry and the country needs to go."

Workers will break ground in 2007 on 35 acres at the Stanton complex about 13 miles southeast of downtown Orlando.

Construction is expected to generate 1,500 jobs, and the plant, to open in 2010, will create about 300 jobs.

It's not entirely a done deal.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency must approve the project and is seeking public comments as part of assessing impacts from construction and operation of the new plant.

A public meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Timber Creek High School, 101 Avalon Park Blvd. An informal session will begin at 5 p.m.

 

By Rich McKay and Kevin Spear