Todd Terrell, the utility’s director of corporate communications, stated that the plant is presently designed to capture 65% of carbon emitted from converting brown coal, or lignite, into gas fuel. The company’s original plan was to capture 50% of carbon dioxide which would be stored underground.
DOE has already released a grant of $270m and an investment tax credits of $133m under the National Energy Policy Act of 2005 was also received by the company. The current change related to the plant was an anticipated move since the next round of DOE grant funding would hold applicants to a 65% standard, informed Terrell.
Terrell, said: “When we looked at the whole project, to go back and try to get federal funds to get to 65% would mean that you’re tearing down new stuff.”
Terrell also revealed that the company was in talks with an oil company to purchase the carbon emitted from the plant. Oil companies pump carbon into oil reservoirs to flood the system and force petroleum to the surface.
The stations would be an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant that converts lower-grade of coal, lignite with a higher moisture content, into a gas to generate lower-emission electricity.
Louie Miller, executive director of the Mississippi chapter of the Sierra Club, informed that Mississippi has 12 “clean natural gas plants,” with a consolidated power production capacity of 7,993MW. The fuel adjustment on customers’ bills was raised by 9% in 2008.
The company added that 4 billion tons of lignite are underground in Kemper County, and the company has an options on 30,000 acres.
As a wing of the Southern Co., Mississippi Power includes Gulf Power, Georgia Power and Alabama Power, with approximately 184,000 customers in the 23 counties of southeast Mississippi.
