Clean power plant meeting in Marshall, Texas, demonstrates wide interest

Nov 4 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Greg Junek Tyler Morning Telegraph, Texas

Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams said that judging by the number of people attending a Thursday meeting on FutureGen, East Texans must really want the project in their area.

Williams, chairman of Gov. Rick Perry's Clean Coal Technology Council and the FutureGen Texas Advisory Board, said the turnout of government and industry officials at the Weisman Center in Marshall was evidence that people in the region are interested in and want to learn more about the project. An East Texas Council of Governments official said more than 105 people attended the meeting.

Williams, state Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and co-chairman of the FutureGen Legislative Task Force, and state geologist Dr. Scott Tinker explained the process to attendees of the luncheon meeting.

FutureGen is a federal government project that will result in a power-generation plant using coal and producing almost no emissions. Carbon dioxide and hydrogen, byproducts of coal usage, would be captured. Hydrogen would be channeled to industries that use the element and carbon dioxide would be sequestered underground.

Williams said he calls FutureGen "a giant science project" developed by the U.S. Department of Energy to build the first near-zero-emissions power plant using coal.

The U.S. Department of Energy, the department from which the project is driven, previously said a FutureGen facility could create 6,000 to 8,000 jobs.

"To say that this is exciting is really an understatement," Hughes said.

"FutureGen will, we believe, be a prototype for power generation in the future." Williams said that although the DOE did not require interested parties to include in their proposals a plan of using the carbon dioxide to enhance the recovery of oil reserves, it will be part of the Texas proposal. Using carbon dioxide to help recovery of crude is decades old and has been proven to be successful, he said.

The railroad commissioner has promoted and shared FutureGen information with groups from across the state, and he maintained his stance that was not biased toward any area.

"My job is to help us make a determination of where is the best place for us to site FutureGen, so that we can win FutureGen and so that we can win in the competition that we're having with some 15 other states across the country," Williams said.

He said "good science, the right technology and sound economics" will drive the determination of where FutureGen would be located in Texas.

But governmental officials from East Texas said they believe their region is especially fortunate by having the resources that fit FutureGen.

"We are a natural fit for this project," said Mark Sweeney, East Texas Council of Governments director of regional development and services. "We are the center of the largest oil field in the state of Texas, we have tremendous coal reserves, we have several power plants in our region, we have a refinery in our region. We are a perfect fit for a project like this.

The economic impact of this could be something unbelievable for our region.

The amount of jobs generated, as well as direct and indirect jobs, will be tremendously significant." Sweeney said the project is also innovative. The technology and the way it would be used in energy generation and oil recovery would amount to a significant economic impact.

Tinker said councils of governments across Texas have untilto express interest in trying to draw the FutureGen project to their areas. On, the COGs will meet with the FutureGen Texas team in Austin and the COGs must present their proposals to the FutureGen Texas team, 2006.

"We were actually approached just a few weeks ago about this whole concept, even though we had heard about it and knew about it," Sweeney said. "Once we realized that the COGs were kind of the mechanism by which to make the proposals, it became very important to us." Sweeney said he and Glynn Knight, ETCOG executive director, were quick to send notices to people in the region. He, too, noted the interest that the large turnout made apparent.

"We had a tremendous turnout today -- over 105 people -- which is the largest meeting they've ever had from any of the regions across the state of Texas, indicating the deep interest that East Texas has in this project," Sweeney said.

The purpose of the meeting was to bring together interested parties. From that group, Sweeney said, ETCOG will form a group that will create a proposal to narrow the selection of an East Texas site.

Group members or the number of members in the group have not been determined.

"There's not a lot of time, but we believe we can get together the right players -- both industry and the local governments -- and I think we can come up with a really good proposal," Sweeney said.

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