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BISBEE — “I looked at the company in length online and I don’t believe their evil; they’re just trying to work with what exists, but it’s too late for that.”
So said Cochise County resident Michael Gregory in regard to Southwestern Power Group II during Tuesday night’s town hall meeting held by county Supervisor Paul Newman on the proposed Bowie power plant. The meeting was aimed at getting questions answered and information to the public.
“We should be leapfrogging into new technologies, like solar,” Gregory added.
He knows about solar. He’s been using solar energy to power his home for 35 years.
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Gregory was one of several who spoke out against using coal to create energy, no matter the technological advances of integrated gasification combined cycle that creates a heated synthetic gas from coal to generate electrical power.
David Getts, general manager of Southwestern Power Group II, gave a brief overview of the 600-megawatt electrical generation project, but hit a stumbling block when it came to admitting that carbon sequestering via greenhoused vegetation as has been proposed was an unknown.
“We know we cannot go underground here,” Getts said. “We want to sequester carbon dioxide in tree seedlings or vegetables in state of the art greenhouses. … We are all worried about global warming. We know control of carbon emissions is coming. So we want to develop a strategy of carbon sequestration, but we don’t know what the targets will be or what the hurdles will be. We don’t know how much carbon we will be able to capture and use.”
Getts said he would like to build a solar plant here in Arizona, but utility companies won’t buy electricity generated by the more expensive solar power.
But Nancy LaPlaka, an environmentalist working in her home state of Colorado to fight a proposed integrated gasification combined cycle plant there, said the cost of solar and the cost of integrated gasification combined cycle with the capture additions are pretty much equal, and there is the added benefit of no carbon emissions.
“These things used to be decided by just a few people, but now pollution is a community issue,” she said. “Coal plants are one of the biggest producers of carbon dioxide. They produce 60 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.”
She pointed out how the addition of scrubbers, the cooling systems and the filters to remove contaminants in the system reduced plant efficiency, and so it has to burn more coal to produce more power. In fact, carbon dioxide capture alone decreases output by 20 percent.
“Clean coal is an oxymoron,” she said.
Elna Otter, who represented the Sierra Club, questioned whether the county actually needed a power plant at all.
“We have enough power for our needs,” noted Otter. “Most of the power produced will go to other places. … We can’t be sure the predictions of Arizona growth will come about.”
She suggested that the power plant be built at the coal mines to save transporting it.
“The Sierra Club will support coal only if it is mined responsibly, burned cleanly and meets environmental responsibilities. … We promote clean energy,” Otter added.
Newman granted most of the time to those who wanted to speak and the experts he brought in. And he said to Getts, “I want to give the people a chance to talk and ask questions, since they did not get the chance at the work session we held with you. All your experts got to speak, but even I did not get to ask all the questions I had.”
He said he wanted to hold a second town hall once the results were in from the San Francisco-based firm Eckbo, Dean and Williams, the consultants hired to advise the Board of Supervisors and the county Planning Department on what conditions to place on the rezoning request.
Since the county consultant’s staff received all the material only recently, the tentatively scheduled work session for next Tuesday was postponed until sometime in September, said Jim Vlahovich, the deputy county administrator. That could put the vote on approval of the rezoning request off until October.
HERALD/REVIEW reporter Shar Porier can be reached at 515-4692.
For more on Tuesday night’s town hall meeting on the proposed Bowie power plant, see Thursday’s edition.
Nancy LaPlaca wrote on Aug 16, 2007 10:46 AM: