Heat still on Somerset power plant gasification plan

Biomass plants "pump CO2 into the air" but the net generation growing biomass takes it right back out. There is a big difference between that and burning coal which is carbon sequestered by nature over millions of years. Biomass power is a quick, sustainable solution that can keep the lights on while we develop other solutions. If the protesters succeed in stopping the conversion their lights will be kept running by coal plants for sure.
www.clrlight.org/cleancoal.htm

Let's remove state aid for incinerators and help reduce the Commomwealth's carbon emissions by signing the petitions to get the four carbon-limiting questions on the ballot! My friends and I, when we're not working at our day jobs, are trying to get www.stopspewingcarbon.com up and running. Check in over the next few weeks and we'll see what comes of it...

Ugh I'll help you guys understand this for the environmentalist who squeal about "dirty" electricity but yet love all the conveniences that comes with electricity.

Gasification technology currently burns the biomass or coal in a hydrogen rich environment. The hydrogen is key along with the temperature used. This produces a reaction that breaks down the long carbon chains and reacts with hydrogen to form mainly methane. Along with methane a bunch of other pollutants are formed, but fear not they will be taken care of later.

Particulate matter is taken care via filters or other scrubbing methods (cyclone, fabric filters, esp, or water scrubbing). Gases such as NOx, SOx, and other forms of gaseous pollutants are removed via cryogenic freezing. That is, bring the mostly gas stream to a very cold temperature and separating out the liquid methane that forms from the still gas pollutants. This liquid methane is then burned to power your smug electric cars. Get used to it people if you produce electricity you're going to have to sacrifice something.

How about a combination of burning nat gas, wind and solar? Maybe we need to think of many sources. I would think any wind turbine would work near the coast line?

How about alt energy to augment the plants output of electricity?
Like wind and solar? I thought most coastlines have mucho wiind???
PV prices are coming down, both alt would create jobs and pay into the future!

Nuclear is the only way to go. France has it right. Lots of people in Mass seem to like France as their role model

toxins for all,
health care for the rich,
democracy be dammed.

Ms. Daley appears confused about the NRG Somerset plant. While ownership and plans have changed, the plant has a permit for coal gasification. It does not have a permit to burn any type of biomass. NRG Somerset is a small plant, less than a tenth the output of coal-fired Brayton Point, also in Somerset.

Some local and environmental organizations have protested that integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology is "untested," reported by the Somerset Herald News on January 24, 2008. While not widely used, IGCC has been tested in two U.S. commercial power plants burning coal. Ms. Daley seems unaware of the background.

A practical problem with IGCC has been poor operating performance, with high costs for downtime and maintenance. Unit 1 (of 5) at Tampa Electric's Polk station and the Wabash plant near Terre Haute, Indiana, run by SG Solutions, were both built with government assistance and would probably not have been built otherwise.

The Wabash gasifier exploded last year, killing two workers. See the Terre Haute, IN, Tribune-Star for April 29, 2008. Nevertheless Tampa Electric has a permit pending to build a new IGCC Unit 6 at Polk station, much larger than the NRG Somerset plant.

The protest groups are right on one issue. IGCC has not been tested in the U.S. burning biomass on a commercial scale. That will present many technical challenges. The 20-year U.S. history of IGCC technology so far suggests that major operating problems will occur and that they will take years to solve.

Another issue of which Ms. Daley seems unaware is the high capital cost of IGCC, currently more than double the cost of conventional, new coal-fired plants using "best available control technology" to reduce pollution. IGCC was supposed to compensate for higher cost with higher efficiency, but so far it has not met that goal unless some of the capital cost is subsidized.

These people are fighting for their neighborhood and their livelihood. The plant is in their backyard. I understand that kind of threat. They are protesting against industrial civilization - which is killing the planet- according to Derrick Jensen.

We're facing a similar situation in Ayer and Littleton, Mass., where big business and big government are partnering to build a 25- acre parking lot over an aquifer that supplies water to 15,000 people to unload Ford vehicles. Pan Am Railways and Ford Motor Company don't care about our neighborhood. Pan Am has a train wreck of an environmental record.
For more info, go to www.cleanwaterwarrior.com.

Pan

You tree huggers need to work it out for yourselves. If you don't want coal burning power plants, move somewhere where they aren't. You're so called alt. sources are a joke, there's little efficiency in solar power or wind turbines. The thing you should consider doing is buying a tent and moving to the wilderness, then there's more electricity for the rest of us.

This is neither the IGCC technology that has been proven in two plants in the United States nor is it the type of gasification technology that generates methane. This project would use plasma gasification in a single cycle (rankine) configuration. Therefore, it would not provide the benefits associated with IGCC, and in fact plasma gasification has not been tested with coal

We do understand the process, and this isn't like the Great Point Energy project which intends to turn coal into methane. This is a plasma gasification that will create a syngas made up of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. And while NRG has projected emissions reductions for some pollutants (they have done so without consulting any of the actual emissions data from operating plasma gasification plants in Japan), they clearly anticipate increases in carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds. Moreover, the assumption that the "biomass" (read construction and demolition debris they plan to use as feedstock) is carbon neutral is far from proven, especially given that they've failed to provide any information on the source or lifecycle emissions of the feedstock they plan to use.

I do not usually comment on any articles but, I must say I got a laugh and two from this "get real you huggers". Now, he must, perhaps, be another Republican, one of those who can't see the forest for the trees. I certainly hope he don't but more than likely will one day, at some point in his life, come across some issue that has to do with clean water, clean air, that will negatively affect him or some one close to him, in one way or another. Let's talk to him then. Lastly but not least, he seems to have no idea of alternative energy like solar power nor turbines or any other alternative energy sources.