Great Plains Power to Build Coal

Great Plains Power to Build Coal-Fired Power Plant

Great Plains Power may build yet another 750 MW coal-fired power plant along the Missouri River, this one in Atchison County, Kansas. Tom Robinson, a spokesman for Great Plains, said the company hasn’t committed itself to actually building the plant. However, it began filing paperwork for the necessary permits earlier this year. Great Plains, a holding company that owns Kansas City Power & Light, is simultaneously pursuing permits for its 750 MW Weston Bend I coal-fired power plant near its existing Iatan plant in Missouri. “We’re proceeding with both permitting processes,” Mr. Robinson said.

In 2001, Great Plains announced it would build up to five coal-fired plants, each capable of producing 500 to 900 megawatts. Great Plains officials haven’t officially committed themselves to building either plant, Mr. Robinson said. However, the Weston Bend project is much further along in the permitting process. Initially, Great Plains had hoped to open Weston Bend in 2005. It backed off that date in December, saying market conditions weren’t right for the plant. However, Mr. Robinson said the company could begin construction on Weston Bend in 2004 if its permits are approved.

Clark Duffy, director of the Kansas Bureau of Air and Radiation, said he received the project’s air quality application in February but doesn’t foresee a draft permit being issued until next year or later.

L.S. Power's Plum Point Moving Ahead

L.S. Power Associates are ready to begin construction on a $1 billion, 800 MW coal-fired Plum Point (Osceola) plant in Arkansas. All of the necessary state and federal permits have been granted. Ground should be broken next year.

DOE Conference on SCR/SNCR Generates Good Dialog

Some 200 attendees got their money's worth and more from the DOE SCR/SNCR conference last week in Pittsburgh. Most of the news was positive. SCR performance is meeting expectations. SO₃ oxidation can be minimized. Mercury oxidation attributable to SCR is substantial as long as HCl is present. Catalyst cleaning can reduce lifetime costs. In fact, in one installation reactivity was restored to 100 percent whereas SO₂-SO₃ conversion was reduced substantially. This was due to a special cleaning process. The only bad news was the possible failure of the spray drier baghouse using activated carbon to remove mercury efficiently.

Here are the questions which utilities are asking this month:

What are the odds of getting better than 90 percent mercury removal if you burn bituminous coal, have an SCR, and have a wet scrubber with additives to prevent mercury release?
How much mercury removal will you get if you burn PRB coal, have a spray drier baghouse, and inject carbon between the spray drier and baghouse?
What percent NO_x removal will realistically be achieved over the campaign, if the SCR has 90 percent removal at optimum or guarantee conditions?
Are additives or wet precipitators the solution for SO₃ emissions?
What is the cost and availability of catalyst with 0.1-0.2 percent SO₃ conversion?
Will there be particulate reduction requirements and, if so, when? Will they be tied into toxic metals (surrogate)?
What is the quantity of fine particle emissions, and how do you measure them?
How important will HCl, HF, and toxic heavy metals be in your APC planning?
How soon will any of the new multi-pollutant technologies be a viable alternative?
Can you minimize risk by staging, and is this cost effective?

McIlvaine is addressing these questions in the Power Plant Knowledge System and will also be conducting a 4-hour discussion of them at Power-Gen on December 8. (Listed under Discussion Groups in the registration material.)

SCR and FGD Will Remove 90 Percent of Mercury

Tests by CONSOL are providing insights on the ability of SCR to oxidize mercury and of scrubbers to capture the oxidized mercury at plants burning bituminous coals. Without the SCR, 20 percent of mercury is typically unoxidized but with the SCR in place only 3-6 percent is unoxidized. This is an over simplification of the paper presented by Jeff Withum of CONSOL. Of three plants recently tested, the mercury removal was over 90 percent for the spray drier absorbers (SDA). It was less for the wet FGD. But Hans Hartenstein pointed out that this was because elemental mercury was released from the scrubber. If an additive such as TMT 15 is used, the wet scrubber should do a better job than the SDA on mercury capture. Hans points out that mercury is not a concern in Germany where all coal plants have FGD and SCR. Most use additives to prevent mercury releases.

Here are all the headlines from our Utility Fax Alert for last week. It is part of the Utility Environmental Upgrade Tracking System. For more information click on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/energy.html .

UTILITY FAX ALERT

#646 – October 31, 2003

Table of Contents

SCR CONFERENCE

· DOE Conference on SCR/SNCR Generates Good Dialog

· DOE to Fund Research on NO_x