Plant becomes model for cleaner operation

Associated Press

HOMER CITY, Pa.

A massive coal-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania is turning from one of the worst polluters in the country to a model for how such a facility can clean up its act.

Homer City Generating Station is expected to make the transformation in a few years. When it does, it will end four decades of nearly limitless pollution from two of its units that long had escaped regulation.

Three years ago, the plant was the first to sue the Obama administration over a rule to force it to reduce its sulfur-dioxide pollution, arguing it would spike electricity prices and cause “immediate and devastating” consequences. None of those dire predictions came to pass, and the Supreme Court has upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule in the case initiated by the plant.

The story of the Homer City plant reflects the precarious position of older coal-fired plants these days, squeezed between cheap and plentiful natural gas and a string of environmental rules the Obama administration has targeted at coal, which supplies about 40 percent of the nation’s electricity.

The latest regulation, the first proposal to curb earth-warming carbon dioxide from power plants, is due next week and will pose yet another challenge to coal-fired power plants. Dozens of coal-fueled units already have announced they would close in the face of new rules.

Homer City also shows how political and economic rhetoric sometimes doesn’t match reality. Despite claims by Republicans and industry critics that the Obama administration’s regulations will shut down coal-fired power plants, Homer City survived — partly because it bought itself time by tying up the regulation in courts. Even environmental groups that applaud each coal-plant closing and protested Homer City’s pollution now say the facility is setting a benchmark for air pollution control that other coal plants should follow, even if it takes decades.

“If there is a war on coal, that plant won,” said Eric Schaeffer, the executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and a former enforcement official at EPA.

The owners of the western Pennsylvania power plant — it releases more sulfur dioxide than any other power plant in the U.S. — have committed to installing $750 million worth of pollution-control equipment by 2016 that will make deeper cuts in sulfur than the rule it once opposed.

GE Energy Financial Services, the plant’s majority owner, now says it can do it — and without electricity bills increasing for the 2 million households it provides with power.

“We believe in the plant’s long-term value, and that installing equipment will enable it to comply with environmental regulations,” said Andy Katell, a spokesman for GE, which has been the plant’s primary owner since 2001 and did not participate in the litigation.