New plant to keep up with changing times
Plans are again in the works to construct an electric power plant on property at the former Nemacolin Mine in Cumberland Township, Greene County. In keeping with changing times, however, this plant is to be powered not by coal, but by natural gas.
Hill Top Energy Center has proposed building a 536-megawatt power plant on property off Thomas Road that several years ago was to be the site of a power plant fired by coal refuse. The company, based in Huntington Bay, N.Y., hopes to begin construction early next year provided it has received all the necessary permits.
A public meeting will be held on the project April 25 at Nemacolin’s union hall, and though we can’t predict anything, we doubt this project will face the strong opposition from environmental groups the proposed coal-refuse plant faced a decade ago.
At the time, there were aspects of that project that appeared to be appealing. The Wellington plant was expected to burn more than 3 million tons of waste coal annually from the Nemacolin coal refuse pile and from several nearby coal refuse piles. The company that wanted to open the plant claimed this would help reclaim the coal refuse sites, which cover thousands of acres of land in Greene and surrounding counties and remain in place today. Many of those refuse sites are burning and continue to emit pollutants into the air. Water run-off from the sites also are a major sources of pollution in area streams.
An air-quality permit for the plant was issued in 2005; however, the project faced numerous legal challenges from environmental groups in both state and federal courts. The groups, though unsuccessful in their challenges in court, were successful in delaying the project. The company received a five-year extension on its air-quality permit in 2011.
This newspaper supported the project, realizing there would be a trade-off involved – the plant would burn waste coal, creating pollution, but would also help clean up sites that would otherwise probably never be reclaimed. Of course, all this was before air quality regulations really put the squeeze on coal-fired power, and low prices made natural gas a competitive fuel.
It’s interesting to note that all this wasn’t so long ago.
In 2009, Allegheny Energy, now First Energy, was just bringing on line the $650 million scrubbers it built on its now-closed Hatfield’s Ferry Power Plant.
Two new coal mines were being planned in Greene County by Alpha Natural Resources and, as late as 2012, Consol Energy was planning to expanding its Bailey Mine Complex with a fifth longwall mining machine.
Because it will be burning natural gas, the newly proposed plant will emit fewer pollutants and it also will create jobs.
This sounds like a project the community can support.
That being said, in the ever-changing energy climate, it will be nearly impossible to predict whether natural gas will be an economically viable fuel for electric power plants. Right now, with cheap natural gas prices, it looks like a promising project. But who can say what the energy landscape will look like in just a few years from now?