Construction to begin on coal-burning power plant

The plant would provide enough power to serve about 1 million homes.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Construction on the first coal-burning power plant in decades is scheduled to begin next year and start producing electricity in 2013, even as Gov. Ted Strickland and lawmakers are about to begin pressing the use of alternatives such as wind and nuclear power.

American Municipal Power-Ohio wants to put the 1,000-megawatt plant in economically strapped Meigs County in southern Ohio. AMP-Ohio members include 81 cities and villages in Ohio, 27 in Pennsylvania, seven in Michigan, five in Virginia, two in West Virginia and one in Kentucky.

While backers insist the plant will operate more cleanly than any coal-fired plant in Ohio, detractors say it’s old technology that will create a generation’s worth of nasty pollutants just as the state is poised to write a new, more environmentally conscious energy policy.

AMP-Ohio says it intends to shut down a smaller coal-power plant near Marietta once the new plant goes on line.

AMP-Ohio utilities buy most of their power on the open market, and the price volatility of the market shows the need for AMP-Ohio members to draw power from a more economically stable source, spokesman Kent Carson said. Cities and villages will save millions of dollars with the new plant, coupled with alternative power sources at other sites, such as wind, water and the gas emitted from decaying trash in landfills. The plant’s 1,000 megawatts would provide enough power to serve about 1 million homes.

“What we’re attempting to do is to put all these projects together,” Carson said. “The goal would be to significantly reduce market reliance.”

Construction of the plant, to be built in Letart Falls, about 38 miles south of Athens along the Ohio River, originally was projected to cost $1.3 billion. However, increases in construction costs and other factors have ballooned the price to an estimated $2.9 billion, with warnings from AMP-Ohio that cost could go still higher.

Critics say that now isn’t the time to be building new plants that run on coal, with the alternative technology that’s available today. While the new plant may burn cleaner than those built up to 60 years ago, it still will burn high-sulfur coal. The utility should first look at energy efficiency programs and alternative fuels instead of rushing back into coal technology, said Josh Mogerman, spokesman of the National Resources Defense Council.

“They’re starting from the standpoint that we need a new plant. There’s limited-to-no exploration of energy efficiency programs,” Mogerman said. “Let’s look at the capacity that’s there. Let’s look at some other technologies before starting at the bottom of the barrel.”