Study finds need for coal-fired power plant
Oct 23 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Leslie Brooks Suzukamo
Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Minnesota may need a new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant to meet
growing demand, according to a Department of Commerce study that will be
presented to state lawmakers today.
The study by the department's Office of Energy Security is meant to be a
forecasting tool for policy-makers, but environmentalists who oppose
building more coal power plants say the study isn't specific enough to
be of much practical use.
"I am not going to lie awake at night and worry about a new coal-fired
power plant," said Linda Taylor, clean energy director for Fresh Energy,
a St. Paul group that supports wind energy development over coal.
The state Legislature ordered the study when it passed the state's Next
Generation Energy Act in 2007. It is supposed to assess the state's
energy needs through 2025, when most utilities will be required to
derive 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like wind.
The Office of Energy Security fed data for 57 scenarios into a computer
model and highlighted the one it felt was most likely, said Bill Glahn,
director of the office.
That scenario said the state would need a 500-megawatt coal-fired power
plant, which could power a city of 140,000 people.
It also called for eight natural gas-fired power plants to provide
intermittent and peak power upon demand, as well as 4,000 megawatts of
renewable power, which would most likely be wind, Glahn said.
The study makes no recommendations, nor does it identify where a coal
plant would be built. In other scenarios, the models call for no coal
plant.
Those scenarios put more severe penalties on coal plant carbon emissions
that are blamed for speeding up climate change.
The main conclusion of the study, Glahn said, is that the state will
need more baseload power, which typically comes from coal, nuclear or
hydro power plants because of their always-on nature.
Because the study does not identify which utilities might use that coal
power, it is practically useless for planning purposes, said Beth
Goodpaster, energy program director at the Minnesota Center for
Environmental Advocacy.
Goodpaster criticized the Commerce Department for claiming the state
would need an additional 4,100 megawatts of baseload power by 2025.
Only 500 megawatts of that can be considered baseload from coal, while
the rest would come from natural gas plants that, like wind, operate
intermittently, she said.
Leslie Brooks Suzukamo can be reached at 651-228-5475.
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