Utah Power Plant Plan Comes Closer to Fruition

A proposed 270-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Sevier County that would sell electricity on the open market reached a major milestone Tuesday when it received its permit to proceed from the state Division of Air Quality.

The approval order means Nevco, a Nevada limited liability corporation with headquarters in Bountiful, can proceed with planning its "merchant plant" near Sigurd, about midway between Richfield and Salina.

"That isn't to say we are going to build. This gives us an environmental permit to build," said Bruce Taylor, one of Nevco's managing partners.

The $350 million Sevier Power Project would burn about 940,000 tons of coal per year using a technology called fluidized bed combustion to power 135,000 homes.

Nevco promises the plant's air-cooling would use less water than a farm growing 50 acres of alfalfa per year, but still has to get Sevier County approval to change agricultural water to industrial use and get proper zoning changes to make it through the Planning Commission and County Commission, which is on record in favor of the plant and its promise of an economic boost.

There still is engineering to be done, coal contracts to procure, coal transportation to arrange and electricity transmission to figure out, Taylor said. Nevco also must find customers willing to sign long-term contracts -- and get past determined residents like Jadie Houchin, a mother of four who hates the idea of 80 trucks a day running coal to fire a 462-foot stack in the middle of the valley.

"We're pretty serious about fighting against it. It's where we live, it's our farms, it's our kids, it's the beauty of our valley," she said.

"The farmers in our town are willing to fight to the dying day because they have to."

Division of Air Quality Director Rick Sprott said his agency consulted with the U.S. Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and the local community, whose concerns included visibility in the national parks and pollution from sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

"Whether the local citizens want that is up to them. But we are confident it meets all the air quality standards and rules," Sprott said.

The plant would emit "a small amount" of mercury, Sprott said, but the air quality permit doesn't allow the plant to trade any emission credits.

Fluidized bed technology uses a heated bed of limestone or other sandlike material suspended in a rising column of air during combustion.

The process has a scrubbing component that strips pollutants and increases combustion efficiency.

Nevco attorney Pat Shea, former director of the Bureau of Land Management during the Clinton administration, said the company wants to sell power to the Wasatch Front, where "the challenge is to find a market where you're up against Scottish Power."

John Nielsen of Western Resource Advocates agreed, especially given a coal plant's life of about 60 years. With growing concern about greenhouse gases, "it is highly likely if not inevitable there will be some future carbon dioxide limitations within the life of these plants," he said.

That would raise the risk for Nevco, and by extension, its customers.

"The reality is, until you have a customer to buy the power, you're not going to be able to build this plant, unless you have some very deep pockets."