Ohio passed over again in bid for jobs; plant finalists picked

The plant will bring scientific innovations nationwide, advocates say.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- The state's failure to land a virtually pollution-free, $1 billion power plant was the second such disappointment in a month.
The FutureGen Alliance, a public-private group backing the project, on Tuesday picked four sites -- two each in Illinois and Texas -- as finalists for the project, dashing the hopes of backers in Tuscarawas and Meigs counties.
The FutureGen project is expected to attract about 1,000 construction jobs and up to 200 permanent jobs. Its goal is to produce electric power by extracting gas from coal and leaving the pollutants behind. Ohio is rich in high-sulfur coal tied to air-polluting sulfur dioxide.
On June 28, Honda Motor Co. announced it had decided to build its new $550 million auto assembly plant in Indiana instead of Ohio. The plant will eventually employ 2,000 workers. Even though Ohio won't get the plant, Honda has conservatively estimated that about 1,000 jobs will be created at its Ohio suppliers to meet demand.
Ups and downs
Tuesday's announcement came as new jobs figures showed Ohio's employment picture has improved slightly in the past year. Unemployment stood at 5.1 percent in June, down from 6 percent in June 2005.
While failing to land FutureGen means much fewer jobs getting away than the loss of Honda, it's another setback for Ohio business.
"Both decisions are disappointing," said Linda Woggon, a lobbyist for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. "Maybe the good news is we're ... No. 2 or No. 3 in getting these projects."
Jo Ann Davidson, a former Ohio House speaker and a coordinator of the state's FutureGen proposals, said backers were "disappointed and equally surprised" at FutureGen's selections.
"We will seek a full debriefing ... on how our sites were rated," Davidson said.
The Meigs site, while suitable for a commercial power plant, didn't make the short list because it was too close to a dam and construction could face delays because of environmental or permitting issues, said Mike Mudd, FutureGen's CEO.
The Tuscarawas site is on land where pollutants injected into the ground would have spread too far for consistent measuring and monitoring, Mudd said.
A meeting will be scheduled with Davidson and others on the Ohio team as soon as possible, he said.
Backers of the Ohio sites spent about $750,000 in private development money, and the Legislature set aside $1.25 million for the proposals. The state money still will be spent on test drilling for how to best dispose of carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning coal, said Mark Shanahan, executive director of the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority, a state government agency that recruits energy producers.
"We believe we've identified about a dozen sites that would be excellent sites to use Ohio coal," Shanahan said.
Residual effects
The FutureGen site will be picked no later than September 2007, and it's expected to begin producing electricity by 2012. However, coal producers and power plants won't have to wait that long for results, said Jacqueline Bird, director of the Ohio Coal Development Office and a leader in the effort to attract FutureGen.
She compared the project to the development of NASA, initiated by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. The program produced leaps in technology for computers and innumerable gadgets and gizmos long before Neil Armstrong's moonwalk in 1969.
"We were reaping benefits long before the first man stepped on the moon," she said.
Bird said Ohio coal producers, power plants and the environment will benefit from technology developed by FutureGen, an alliance of power companies, coal producers and the U.S. Department of Energy, which is putting up $750 million toward design and plant construction.
"The whole point is to be able to use coal with near-zero emissions. That would take away the sulfur penalties, concerns about the mercury that all coal has and concerns about nitrous oxide that all coal has," Bird said.