Highwood coal plant dropped for natural gas/wind

[irishbobcat]

Highwood coal plant dropped for natural gas/wind
BY JAN FALSTAD
Of The Gazette Staff
UPDATE 2:20 p.m. :
Blaming regulatory uncertainty and environmental lawsuits, developers of the Highwood Generating Station near Great Falls are halting work on the planned coal-fired generating plant for now and are going to build one powered by natural gas with wind turbines for additional power.

In a unanimous vote Friday, board members of four south-central Montana cooperatives decided to switch directions in order to get a 120-megawat natural-gas-fired plant up and operating by 2011 to provide electricity for members.

Lawsuits and regulatory delays over coal have delayed the project too long, said Tim Gregori, chief executive of Southern Montana Electric and Transmission Cooperative in Billings, the parent organization formed to provide wholesale electricity to its member co-ops.

"We have been studying relative economical wind and natural gas from the beginning of the project back into 2003. Even though wind and gas isn't a cheaper economic alternative, it's a pragmatic solution," he said.

Plans for the natural-gas plant should be ready in about a month, Gregori said, and will cost about what the same as the $206 million natural gas plant planned in Anaconda. He said financing for the first wind turbines is ready.

"We have $12 million to build six megawatts of wind," he said.

Much of the site work at Highwood done for a coal facility is transferable to the natural-gas project and Gregori said that work that is transferable will continue.

Gregori also heads up a sister and successor company with a similar name, SME Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative. This group was formed last year after one of the original five cooperatives, Yellowstone Valley Electric Cooperative in Huntley, filed a lawsuit against its neighboring co-ops, Southern Montana and the city of Great Falls.

Calling coal a "wonderful fuel," Gregori said that he hopes to build a coal-fired plant at Highwood someday.

"It's our first choice and it still remains a viable choice," Gregori said. "We just have to make a prudent business decision and get something built in a timely fashion to meet the needs of our customers."

Four cooperatives are actively involved in building Highwood now: Beartooth Electric, Fergus Electric, Mid-Yellowstone Electric and Tongue River Electric.



Rural electric cooperative leaders building the troubled Highwood Generating coal-fired plant under construction near Great Falls have done a complete reversal.

Plant developer Tim Gregori said this morning that he was abandoning the controversial coal plant and would build a natural gas-fired plant and a wind farm instead.

Gregori said that due to an "aura of uncertainty," the coal-fired plant "just simply cannot be accomplished."

Gregori is chief executive of the Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative, which is made up of a handful of rural electric cooperatives in south-central Montana.

During an interview with Dave Rye on KBLG NewsTalk 910, Gregori blamed environmental lawsuits, a lack of ready-to-use technology to produce clean coal, and an absence of clarity on national coal policy.

"At this time, we'd just like to move forward with what we can get built," Gregori said, adding that coal remains his first choice for producing cheap electricity, but that would have to wait.

Fergus Electric, Mid-Yellowstone Electric, Tongue River Electric and Beartooth Electric are members of Southern Montana and a sister company with an almost identical name, SME Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative.

These rural electric cooperatives have spent $40 million on the Highwood coal effort over the last five or six years, Gregori said.

Another member, Yellowstone Valley Electric Cooperative of Huntley, said that the pending costs of the plant have nearly doubled from $456 million to nearly $900 million. Yellowstone Valley was part of this effort to build a coal plant near Great Falls until it tried to withdraw last spring, citing its rising costs and other issues. In December, Yellowstone Valley filed a lawsuit against the other cooperatives and Southern Montana G&T over the Highwood effort.

The costs of the natural gas plant and wind farm will be in addition to costs to date for the coal-fired plant, Gregori said, which weren't immediately stated. He said the simple-cycle combustible natural gas facility could be built in 24 months, with another year needed to make the plant more efficient and more time to build the wind farm.

Some 50,000 rural electric cooperative customers in Montana who were going to use the power from the Highwood coal plant will be paying $30 per month for the next 35 years for the project costs so far, Gregori said

"That's significant," he said.


America is finally waking up to the fact that there is no such thing as clean coal!

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Greens

www.ohiogreens.org

www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/