Coal Power Plant Plans Challenged As 'Too Risky'

Coal Power Plant Plans Challenged As 'Too Risky'

Apr 03 - The Daily Oklahoman

Chesapeake Energy Corp. chief Aubrey McClendon, promoting natural gas and gas-fired power plants as the best alternative to coal and other harmful fuels, Monday challenged a new wave of proposed coal-fired power plants in the region.

The natural gas industry should embrace its "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to re-brand itself and promote the fuel's environmental benefits, he said. The effort is especially important in light of the ongoing discussion on global warming in Congress and around the world.

"The risks associated with global warming are too great," said McClendon, Chesapeake's chairman and chief executive officer. "We happen to own the best alternative to dirty fuels. And the benefits to using natural gas are great to Oklahoma and Oklahoma City."

Chesapeake earlier this year helped oppose Texas electric utility TXU's plans to build 11 coal-fired power plants in central Texas. McClendon on Monday reiterated his opposition to a $3 billion coal plant expansion proposed by Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co., Public Service Co. of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority.

Coal is widely regarded as the cheapest source of electricity, but McClendon told his audience at a Society of Petroleum Engineering luncheon those numbers don't tell the whole story.

"I don't think you have to look too very far in the future to recognize that there's going to be some aftermarket costs that one day will come back and make any coal plant today no longer appear quite so cheap," he said. "I think there will be a carbon tax. The United States is taking a different position today about global climate change than has been taken in the past."

OG&E and PSO have promoted their proposed plant as an environmentally friendly solution because it uses relatively new technology designed to use less coal and produce fewer emissions than traditional coal plants. The proposed so-called "ultra super critical" plant heats the coal to a much higher temperature than traditional coal plants.

"That was a very conscious part of the decision-making process on the parts of PSO, OG&E and OMPA," OG&E spokesman Brian Alford said. "We conducted a lot of modeling on the plant, and our data indicate that this is the best option for Oklahoma at this time. We have included in those assumptions estimated costs associated with carbon taxes or other congressional action."

The power plant plans also include about 80 acres that have been left empty for future carbon capture technology.

PSO's parent company American Electric Power Co. last month announced plans for two test facilities for new carbon capture technology, including PSO's Northeastern Station near Tulsa.

"We are continuing to look at ways to take advantage of a resource that is available, plentiful and that we know is a reliable, domestic source for electric energy," PSO spokesman Stan Whiteford said.

Alford and Whiteford pointed out that both utilities rely on natural gas for more than half of their generating capacity.

"Our approach is to diversify the fuels from which we have to choose," Alford said. "I think everyone would agree that putting your eggs in any one basket today is not the wisest choice.

"Much of the generation that has been built in the last few decades has been gas fired. We have to look at diversity. It's simply a matter of maintaining fuel diversity."

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission soon will begin hearings next month on the proposed plant. The commission is expected to deal with the plans in two separate cases.

Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake is the country's third-largest independent natural gas producer and the largest producer of Oklahoma natural gas.

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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.