Letter to Editor, Great Falls
Tribune
July 11, 2006
To the Editor:
A May 23, 2006 opinion item in your
newspaper Ò IGCC may be future of coal-fired power, but not the presentÓ has
been belatedly brought to my attention.
The inaccuracies, exaggerations and omissions in the article require an
informed response.
The tired refrain about gasification
and IGCC Ð ÒitÕs too expensive, not reliable, not provenÓ Ð rings hollow in the
face of commercial and technical reality.
The use by the author of operating statistics from 2002 and a university
study from 2004 are unconvincing.
Gasification is a commercially
proven technology with more than 385 units operating worldwide. A new coal based IGCC plant will have
lower air emissions, lower solid waste generation, less water use and higher
efficiency than a coal combustion unit and produce electricity at a competitive
price. This has been strongly
reaffirmed by an exhaustive report just released by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and available on our web site ( HYPERLINK "http://www.gasification.org" http://www.gasification.org) When the ability of gasification
to capture CO2 emissions at a lower cost than a coal combustion plant is
factored in, IGCC is the coal power technology of choice for today, not
tomorrow.
In the U.S. some 20 plants are
gasifying a wide range of feedstocks Ð coal, lignite, petroleum coke, asphalts,
to name a few Ð at commercial scale and profitably. The two plants cited in the article in Indiana and Florida
are operating successfully as commercial plants. In fact the sgSolutions (formerly Wabash River) plant is partially
owned by a rural cooperative, attesting to its commercial viability.
AEP, Duke Energy and NRG Energy are
in early design stages for IGCC projects in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana,
Delaware, Connecticut and New York.
There are approximately 40 more gasification-based projects in various
stages of planning across the U.S., some of them originally planned as coal
combustion units. IGCC is ready today, not in the ever receding future.
Investors, regulators and citizens
need to ask of any proposal for a coal-based power plant, ÒIs this the cleanest
coal plant for today, and will it be competitive if CO2 limitations are placed
on coal-based power generation in the future?Ó For IGCC the answer is ÒyesÓ and ÒyesÓ.
James Childress
Executive Editor
Gasification Technologies Council
Arlington, VA
1110 North Glebe Road, Suite 610
Arlington, VA 22201