Feb 18 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Adrienne Steinfeldt Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

 

The Paradise Fossil Plant will soon be taking bids from local coal companies to supply a generator that uses about 450 tons of coal an hour, plant manager Don Gaston said Friday.

Because of clean air regulations, the plant hasn't been able to burn local coal in its biggest unit because of the coal's high-sulfur content.

But once a new scrubber is up and running this year, the local companies will have every opportunity to compete with low-sulfur coal producers for the TVA contracts, Gaston said.

The scrubber is set to be installed in October, and 35 new employees have already been hired to run it. The new employees' starting annual salaries are about $50,000.

The new technology will cut sulfur output almost in half and clean 98 percent of sulfur from the coal.

"The addition of this latest technology means this plant will be able to fully comply with the Clean Air Act," Gaston said. "It will ensure that this plant is reliable and efficient for many years to come."

Sulfur, regulated by the Clean Air Act, causes breathing problems and contributes to acid rain.

When regulations were tightened on how much sulfur could be put into the air by coal-fired power plants in the 1990s, it devastated the local coal economy.

Power plants installing the technology necessary to burn local coal cleanly is a "win-win" solution and a long time coming, Muhlenberg County Judge-Executive Rodney Kirtley said.

The Paradise plant will "burn local coal again and not be polluting the air," he said. "That's great news for the coal companies. We have about 300 years of coal here. The more coal they sell, it'll create more jobs. We're going to do it and have clean air. That's what we've been looking for for a long time."

The two smaller units at the Paradise plant already burn local coal, with scrubber technology that cuts sulfur output by about 80 percent.