OEC - Clean School Buses

AMP-Ohio Conventional Coal: Risk without Reward

A consortium of Ohio communities, led by the AMP-Ohio, plans to build a conventional coal power plant in southeast Ohio. The proposed plant will utilize outdated scrubbing performance to reduce emissions. Years ago, AMP-Ohio’s plant and rationale for building it may have made sense, but the regulatory landscape has fundamentally shifted, and AMP-Ohio has not advanced their thinking.

Out best strategy to address increasing energy demands is to improve energy efficiency and develop renewable power sources. While we are still developing our renewable energy industry, it is imperative that we use the absolute cleanest technology for any new power generation.

AMP-Ohio’s choice of technology leaves municipalities exposed to unmanageable and expensive risk. AMP-Ohio’s proposal is centered on century old technology. Similar conventional coal plants have been turned down in Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma, partially because they are not a cost-effective choice once carbon becomes regulated. When it comes to carbon costs, AMP’s member communities will spend huge sums of money.

AMP-Ohio is hoping to use a future PowerSpan Carbon Capture technology, which is in the infant stages of development and is unproven to effectively capture carbon emissions on a power plant scale. To date, the technology that has been proven effective to control CO 2 at plants like AMP-Ohio’s is staggeringly expensive. Therefore, OEC opposes this AMP-Ohio power plant. Other options, like IGCC or Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle coal power, have proven less polluting and far less expensive in a carbon capture context.

Efficiency and renewables are the priority for the next generation of energy needs. There is no such thing as clean coal. However, if coal is to be utilized for energy production, it must be mined, processed, and utilized with as few environmental, health, and social impacts as possible. For the extraction of coal, this means banning mountaintop removal mining and the most harmful forms of strip mining. It means that mining interests must clean up their mess, restoring the land and waters they have impacted.

When using coal for energy, the best and cleanest technologies must be employed. Right now, IGCC with carbon capture is the better technology. This process can capture most of the harmful emissions from producing energy from coal, including dangerous carbon dioxide and mercury. Until new technological breakthroughs occur, this is a technology that offer strong environmental and efficiency improvements over traditional pulverized coal.

IGCC plants have been running in the U.S. for more than ten years. In Europe, IGCC power plants are used commercially with a variety of fuels, including those even more difficult to process than coal.

Below are links to documents from independent sources illustrating these important points, and to Governor Strickland’s Energy Plan, which would help Ohio transition away from dirty pulverized coal.

When it comes to the financial, public health, and environmental costs of carbon, AMP-Ohio needs to embrace new technology available today, not an old plant design, hoping for some miracle that will make it economically viable. AMP-Ohio can and should do better.

Efficiency is the best option for Ohio’s communities, including the consortium represented by AMP-OH. Renewables offer a second best option. If AMP-OH insists on processing coal, we must demand that the cleanest, most advanced technology is deployed; IGCC is that technology.

(Click on document to read or download.)

AEP on IGCC and Climate Change (PDF)

Carbon Bills Pending in Congress (PDF)

Consol Energy on Global Warming (PDF)

Conventional Coal Turned Down Chicago (PDF)

Duke Energy IGCC Petition (PDF)

Duke on IGCC Plant (PDF)

Florida Conventional Coal Rejected (PDF)

GE on IGCC Advantage (PDF)

Governor Strickland's Energy Plan (PDF)

Great River Drops Conventional Coal (PDF)

IGCC in Indiana (PDF)