Nebraska
based Tenaska, Inc. ran over another lump in the road to construction and
operation of its proposed $3.5 billion coal gasification plant in Taylorville,
Illinois, when Illinois EPA acquiesced in USEPA’s request for reconsideration
of the emissions permit for the proposed facility earlier this week. The 716
megawatt generation facility is proposed to provide power for 600,000 homes.
Illinois EPA’s initial permitting determination failed to require carbon dioxide
emissions from the plant to be sequestered, based on IEPA’s determination that
carbon capture and sequestration is not feasible at the site. USEPA says carbon
capture technology is feasible, and asked IEPA to reconsider any site specific uncertainties
before omitting a sequestration requirement from the permit.
Meanwhile,
Tenaska faced another failure in the Illinois legislature to cram down 30 year
take or pay power purchase agreements on the utilities which would buy power
from the proposed plant. During the regular legislative session, Tenaska even
floated the idea of initially operating the power generators with cheap natural
gas until the legislature can agree on compromise take or pay requirements for
the electric utilities. Massive opposition to coal gasification from environmental
groups and to 30 year take or pay contracts from the Illinois business
community sunk the legislative proposal, and Tenaska’s lobbyists went back to
Omaha when the legislative session ended with no resolution to their four year
campaign.
Coal
gasification may be an energy technology whose time has come, but it hasn’t
come to Illinois just yet.
