Comments by: Paul Stephens

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006

I'd like to respond to a couple of points made by our elected officials. I doubt that they actually wrote this response to Commissioner Raney, but they are the ones who signed it, thus "covering" for Mr. Lawton, Mr. Gregori, or their paid agents or consultants. City officials have never shown any real understanding of the issues surrounding coal-fired power, and I have long suspected that it is either Mr. Gregori or Alstom, the company which builds these plants (and which will be paid up front for it, without any further financial liabilities) who are supplying the City and SME members with all sorts of misinformation about the plant -- especially those centering around the premise that this is "clean coal" and that it will be "cheap power" for Great Falls and SME customers.

In this particular response, the City denies that it has any intention of making Electric City Public Power (ECP) the "default supplier" for people living in Great Falls. Sen. Joe Tropila would no doubt be surprised at this, since he is carrying a bill for the City which would do precisely that.

Here is what the Commissioners wrote:

"The city's share of the electricity from HGS will be sold to public, tax-supported agencies and to local industries that provide jobs for Great Falls residents. The cost of electricity from the plant must be economically attractive or customers will not contract to purchase it."

Furthermore, the City officials seem to oppose the "default supplier" system of regulated monopolies.

"Montana's default supply rates are among the highest in the region and will soon be higher. Why does Montana, like the proverbial horse, insist on running back into the burning barn of monopolistic electricity control? Is monopoly tempered by the paternalism of government regulation really such a good thing? Where has it got us?"

So they are apparently opposed to the several "re-regulation" bills being prepared for the next Legislature. Apparently, they believe "the market" will take care of everything, so long as they (and others) are allowed to keep building coal-fired power plants. As for a carbon tax, even at the beginning it will roughly double the cost of coal burned in the plant ($11/ton), and thus increase the cost of power by 30% initially, and as much as double it when the carbon tax reaches $30 ton, which could happen even before this plant goes online. Since distribution charges roughly double the supplier cost of power, we could easily see a 4-fold increase of rates by 2011, in real terms.

When I mentioned this at a public hearing held by the PSC in September to decide whether or not to allow the City to become a "trial" default supplier for 20 customers, Mr. Lawton privately asked the PSC people to strike my remarks from the record, and not provide any transcripts of the hearing. Our lawyers petitioned the PSC to release them, anyway.

This illustrates the secret, back-room, underhanded, anti-democratic methods which Mr. Lawton has employed throughout this process of creating the ECP and -- one can only say "conspiring" -- to foist a deadly, expensive, and obsolete coal plant on the people of Cascade County and Great Falls. This is the first time the City officials have ever debated or answered our criticisms and complaints, and they do so here only in response to a higher PSC official. They have repeatedly stonewalled local citizen's groups and our professional experts, evaded important issues, and actually changed the city code so that the people no longer have a right to vote on an issue of this importance and financial commitment.

We don't know what financial or career interests Mr. Lawton might have in the construction of this plant, but obviously he won't be paid off unless it is actually built. If he could give us a figure, someone, whether local taxpayers or others, could surely make an arrangement with him to pay him off. Then, the rest of us wouldn't be stuck with this ecological, financial, and public health disaster.

One other minor point: The City officials correctly observe that this is a Circulating Fluidized Bed plant, not Pulverized Coal. Neither technology has the capability of "sequestering" CO2, thus avoiding or reducing CO2 emissions and carbon taxes. In fact, CFB plants, because they emit more Nitrous Oxide (a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than equivalent quantities of CO2) are actually worse for global warming. Although CFB plants reduce sulfur dioxide emissions significantly over PC, and are capable of reducing mercury emissions by 90%, neither technology is included in the permitting for this plant. In fact, Montana as well as the federal regulators have recently been coerced by the coal industry to further slacken mercury controls until 2018, thus "grandfathering in" massive increases in mercury pollution until that time. We expect that the next Congress might considerably tighten these regulations, but we won't know about that until it happens. Even "coal state Democrats" like Sen. Baucus and Gov. Schweitzer have voted or lobbied hard AGAINST such tighter standards.

Paul Stephens