Wise County supervisors to tour clean coal-burning
power plant in Clover
Thursday, Jul 26,
2007 - 12:15 AM
BY Kathy Still
Staff Writer
WISE – Some Wise County
supervisors will tour a power plant in Halifax County
next week to learn how it uses clean-coal technologies to reduce emissions.
Dominion Virginia
Power’s plant in the town of Clover is
considered one of the cleanest coal-burning plants in the United States. The company hopes to
use similar technologies in its proposed 580-megawatt plant in the Virginia
City section of Wise
County.
The plant could be in
operation by 2012 if the permitting process goes well.
The proposed plant
could create 800 jobs during its construction phase. It will burn only Virginia coal, which
means it could create 350 new mining jobs.
"We hope to see
a state-of-the-art facility and become familiar with what the plant is going to
look like," said Wise
County Supervisor Fred
Luntsford. "To see something is worth 1,000 words. I’d like to see a plant
in operation."
Some supervisors, as
well as County Administrator Skip Skinner, will visit
the Clover facility on Monday and Tuesday.
According to
Dominion’s Web site, one-third of the Clover plant’s $1.2 billion cost went
toward environmental technologies to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides.
The technology also catches flyash, a byproduct of coal burning.
The company’s
proposed $1.6 billion electric-generation plant in Virginia
City is in the permitting stage. Dominion asked the State
Corporation Commission earlier this month to approve construction and operation
of the plant, and to set the company’s rate of return for its investment.
Air quality permits,
which must be granted by the state Department of Air Quality, have already been
filed, and a draft permit could be in place this summer.
Some people in the
region are concerned the power plant will pollute the environment and cause an
increase in strip mining.
Dominion officials
said the facility’s new technology would reduce emissions, and they have a
design to retrofit it with devices to capture and sequester carbon emissions in
coal seams when such technology becomes available.
Circulating fluidized
bed technology is planned to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by using
limestone in the generation process.
State legislation
authorizing Dominion to pursue the plant calls for the facility to burn Virginia coal. Dominion
will use local waste coal and biomass such as wood waste in the fuel load as
well. The waste coal – known as gob piles – is normally of poor quality and is
generally not used as fuel. The technology in the new plant would make using
gob piles feasible.
The plant would
provide electricity to 146,000 of the company’s Virginia customers since state law requires
the power be sold only in the commonwealth.
