Arizona's last new coal plant?
Experts wonder if costs, climate issues will
discourage future projects
by Ryan Randazzo - Mar. 18, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Salt River Project customers will begin paying about $6 more on their
monthly bills this spring, most of which will pay for a new $1 billion
coal-fired power plant near Springerville in northern Arizona.
Unit 4 at the Springerville Generating Station began commercial
operations in December and has been running at full throttle since then,
burning about 60 rail cars' worth of coal a day from the Powder River
Basin in Wyoming.
he plant supplies low-cost electricity to the non-profit utility, but
because of the stiff fight required to get it built, cost overruns and
threat of global warming, some experts wonder if it will be the last new
coal plant built in Arizona.
Not only did the plant overshoot its original cost estimate by $350
million, but legislation proposed by Congress to limit greenhouse-gas
pollution could also make running the plant even more expensive, because
coal has more of those emissions than natural gas or other power
sources.
David Areghini, SRP's associate general manager of power, said it would
be nearly impossible to permit another coal-fired plant.
Arizona Public Service Co. has ruled out more power from coal unless
there is a way to handle the carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to
climate change. Tucson Electric Power Co. also is proposing ways to meet
energy demand without new coal plants.
"Most people will tell you, unless something changes, there probably
won't be another coal plant," said Bill Rihs, the manager of major
projects for SRP who oversaw Unit 4's construction. "That depends a lot
on future regulations like cap-and-tax (greenhouse-gas legislation),
which doesn't make it attractive for us or anyone else to develop a coal
plant."
It's clear from the way SRP announced the Springerville plant that
utilities view coal as a necessary evil needed to provide
around-the-clock power, while generating environmental controversy.
When SRP announced Unit 4's commercial operations in December, it simply
sent a press release stating the coal plant was up and running.
It hardly compared with the fanfare that greeted the state's first wind
farm a couple of months prior, even though the coal plant cost 10 times
as much and will generate about 25 times the amount of power throughout
the year.
The Dry Lake Wind Power Project is in the same area and also sends all
its electricity to SRP. The dedication ceremony drew political
dignitaries from across the state and even U.S. Secretary of the
Interior Ken Salazar. But getting Unit 4 built at Springerville was
arguably a much larger accomplishment for SRP, considering the effort it
took.
SRP and Tri-State Generation and Transmission of Denver had to pay to
add environmental controls to Springerville's Units 1 and 2 before
getting the required Environmental Protection Agency permits to build
Units 3 and 4. SRP's share of the upgrades was $28.8 million.
Tucson Electric Power finished the first two units in 1985 and 1990, and
the third opened for Tri-State in 2006.
SRP takes 100 megawatts from Unit 3 and all 400 from Unit 4, which is
enough to power about 100,000 homes.
With the power from Unit 4, SRP has been able to shut down some of its
natural-gas burning plants in the Phoenix area for the winter because
their power is not needed.
"This is much less expensive to run," Rihs said.
Electricity from Unit 4 costs 30 to 50 percent less than energy SRP
would have to buy on the market, according to SRP.
Unit 4 also has a $2 million silo that will use a carbon-injection
system to clean mercury emissions from the plant, but it is not used yet
because it is not required. The expansion with Units 3 and 4 faced
opposition from environmental groups such as the Grand Canyon Trust in
Flagstaff.
To get the new plant built, SRP also agreed to set aside a $5 million
fund for renewable-energy projects in northern Arizona, and the Grand
Canyon Trust is helping the utility decide which projects the money will
fund.
"Even though we intervened to stop the construction and we lost, the
settlement contained important concessions," said Roger Clark, a program
director with the Grand Canyon Trust, which fought the permit at the
Arizona Corporation Commission and also challenged the permit in court.
"They had to clean up the old plants and make the new ones less dirty,
and create the renewable-energy investment fund," he said.
Unit 4 was originally estimated at $643 million but it was built during
a time when labor and material prices escalated quickly, Areghini said.
First SRP added about $78 million in design improvements from the
similar Unit 3 that had just been constructed.
SRP also paid about $100 million more to build the plant on a short
schedule, and the escalating price of labor and materials during the
2005-06 timeframe cost an additional $188 million, he said.
When compared with coal-fired plants that were commissioned and
completed in the same time period, from Arkansas, Wyoming, Kansas,
Colorado, Texas and other locations, Areghini said Springerville's costs
were average and that overruns were common at the time because of labor
and material prices.
"The industry was extremely busy," Areghini said. "Even (Hurricane)
Katrina carryover was sopping up labor."
But critics said the plant was a poor choice.
"From a cost standpoint, they never get it right . . . and it is not
currently needed to meet the needs on SRP's system," said Tim Hogan,
director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest.
Hogan's group acts as a watchdog of SRP's power rates and he also served
as the attorney for the Grand Canyon Trust and the Land and Water Fund
of the Rockies when they challenged the permit for Unit 4 in the early
2000s.
"At the time, it was clear there was going to be some form of additional
expense associated with carbon, and they didn't factor that in at all,"
Hogan said.
Clark said that with coal-fired plants in New Mexico, Nevada and
Pennsylvania struggling with their permits or being canceled, it's
unlikely Arizona will see another after Springerville.
"The cumulative risk associated with carbon that includes everything
from mercury to the water needed to run the plant, to liabilities to
deal with coal combustion waste all are uncertain and increasing
liabilities to existing plants' future," he said. "And they certainly
are there in spades for new plants."
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