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Decision looms on Summit: Officials await word from DOE on funding for clean-coal plant
Odessa American - October 24, 2009

Decision looms on Summit:  Officials await word from Department of Energy on funding for clean-coal power plant in Basin

October 24, 2009 1:13 AM

BY GEOFF FOLSOM

A decision on whether the federal government will fund part of a 400-megawatt coal gasification power plant could come “any day.”



   While an announcement hadn’t been expected until November, Laura Miller, Texas projects manager for Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based Summit Power Group Inc., said the timetable has been moved up for a decision on whether the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Power Initiative will pay for around 20 percent of the project’s estimated $1.75 billion cost.



   The project received a boost recently when two major environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Clean Air Task Force, sent letters of support for Summit’s Texas Clean Energy Project to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Miller said Summit’s project was one of three out of between 15 and 30 applicants for energy department funding to be recommended by the environmental groups. The funding comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is more commonly referred to as the stimulus act.



   Miller, a former Dallas mayor who led opposition to the construction of 11 traditional coal power plants in Texas by TXU Energy, said she is optimistic about the energy department’s decision.



   “Every day it seems more promising,” Miller said. “I hope the DOE recognizes the perfect confluence of elements that make this project so terrific.”



   Summit says it will capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions the plant produces. The recovered CO2 will be used for enhanced oil recovery in the Permian Basin.



   Miller said a major reason the environmental groups got on board with the Summit project was a requirement that the University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology perform monitoring and verification duties for CO2 sequestration at the site. The requirement was part of a law passed by the Texas Legislature earlier this year that awards up to $100 million in franchise tax credits to the first three companies to build coal power plants in the state that capture at least 70 percent of the CO2 they produce.



   Miller gave area representatives including State Rep. Tryon Lewis, R-Odessa, and State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, credit for putting the requirement that the university participate in House Bill 469. She also praised the area’s federal representative for his work in telling the energy department about the environmental group’s support.



   “The person in Washington who took the reins and went off to be the best ambassador for this project is Mike Conaway,” Miller said.



   Rick Carlton, president of the board of the Odessa Development Corp., said his group will have to evaluate what kind of support it will give the Summit project at the appropriate time. ODC has awarded more than $15 million in economic development incentives to industrial companies since 1997.



   “We’re just going to have to take a look at it and see if it fits,” Carlton said.



   Carlton said he doesn’t know how the situation will play out.



   “I think it’s still iffy whether they’re going to get it or not, but more luck to them,” he said.



   Efforts to get comment from officials with the environmental groups were unsuccessful for this story, but Miller said their support would be crucial.