$2B investment solidifies our clean-energy footprint

It’s not every day that the Mahoning Valley stands on the threshold of a whopping $2,000,000,000 in economic-development investment. But that’s precisely where we stand today as two Boston- area energy companies plan construction of two mammoth plants in Trumbull and Columbiana counties.

That’s $2 billion – with a b – in investment. To put that figure in perspective, construction costs for the sprawling General Motors Lordstown Complex were an estimated $75 million. Or, more recently, the multi-jurisdictional expansion of the Vallourec steel-pipe plant that reshaped the landscape of the state Route 422 corridor in Youngstown and Girard cost $1 billion a few short years ago.

Clearly, the $1.1 billion commitment of Advanced Power Services of Boston into construction of a giant electricity-generating plant near Wellsville and the infusion of $900 million by Clean Energy Futures into production of a similar gargantuan facility in Lordstown bode well for the short- and long-term futures of the Valley’s growing energy sector. The investments also reinforce lessons of our region’s natural and geophysical assets that continue to serve as foundations for continued economic-development growth.

ABOUT THE PROJECTS

Advanced Power announced last week its plans to build a 1,100-megawatt natural gas electric generating plant in Columbiana County. The facility will be built on a 150-acre parcel off state Route 45 in Yellow Creek Township. When in full operation, it will use natural gas and General Electric turbine technology to cleanly produce enough power to serve more than 1 million households.

In Lordstown, groundbreaking is expected later this fall for the 34-acre Lordstown Clean Energy Futures plant, also off state Route 45 at Henn Parkway. The state-of-the art clean energy plant will have a steam-energy turbine and advanced emission controls to produce enough electricity to power 500,000 households over a wide territory.

Collectively, both projects will make a significant Northeastern Ohio dent in this nation’s ongoing crusade to replace and shut down dirty energy production at coal-fired and sooty pollution-producing plants. Collectively, too, the two projects strike big bolts of development vitality in our region with more than 1,000 well-paying construction jobs over the three-year timetable of their construction. Dozens of full-time jobs at the plants would then follow.

Both projects also reinforce the Mahoning Valley’s prime location in the Utica Shale, a region rich in boundless supplies of natural gas deep inside the earth. And even though the scope of hydraulic fracturing in our region has slowed due to a variety of factors beyond our control in recent months, these new projects illustrate that that geophysical asset still can be tapped for rich dividends to better our economy and our environment.

THE CLEAN ENERGY FUTURES MODEL

The success of the Clean Energy Futures project in Lordstown also provides Advanced Power with a tailor-made blueprint for carrying its project to fruition. Critical to that game plan is cooperation.

As we editorialized last summer as Clean Energy neared its finish line to reality, cooperation among local government, school district, county and state entities will be critical in planning, tweaking and structuring the many zoning, construction and tax-incentive details to carry Advanced Energy’s economic-development prize to fruition.

The Boston company so far is traversing a clear path to success. It has announced a public communitywide meeting on the project for next Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Wellsville High School. There, it will provide more details of its plans and a timetable for its development. We urge any and all with questions, concerns or simply mere fascination with the project to attend so that any potential roadblocks can be cleared expeditiously. Too much rides on the success of the state-of-the-art power plant to ignore any opportunity to advance its mission.

Part of that mission would be sealing in an additional $1.1 billion in economic buzz for our region. Another part most certainly would be more tightly glueing a regional and national identity for the Mahoning Valley as a center for the growing clean-energy industry to build and thrive.