Opponents of an effort to bring coal gasification to town proposed some alternative development ideas Wednesday during a rally in the parking lot of Rockland Trust, 100 Slades Ferry Ave.
Al Lima, research director for local environmental group Green Futures displayed his rendering of what the site now occupied by Somerset Station, a coal burning electric plant with plans to convert to coal gasification, could look like.
Last month, the state Department of Environmental Protection approved the plant’s conversion from coal-burning to synthetic gas. It also eliminated a 2010 deadline making the conversion or closing the plant.
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Nearly all envision medium- to small-scale projects: a wind farm on Kodiak Island (total cost: $24 million), a series of “low-impact hydro” projects in Kenai Peninsula streams ($19 million apiece), a geothermal plant at Manley Hot Springs ($880,000).
Towering over them all, however, was a giant from days gone by: an ambitious hydropower project at Chakachamna Lake, about 85 miles west of Anchorage. Total cost: $1.75 billion.
Driving such ideas, developers say, is the increasingly high cost of energy derived from fossil fuels in Alaska and the improving affordability of green alternatives. That and the sudden availability of state oil-windfall cash.
As a result, legislators recently appropriated $25 million to help build a Fire Island wind farm in one bill and authorized spending $250 million on future renewable energy projects in another.
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Samuel Gary Jr. & Assoc., No. 1-4 Wondra etal, 100 feet west, c w/2 ne se of 4-17s-12w; oil well from Arbuckle, interval n/a.
Samuel Gary Jr. & Assoc., No. 1-10 Reif-Wondra, 1870 feet from south line and 1270 feet from east line, sec of 10-17s-12w; oil well from Arbuckle, interval n/a.
Ellis County
Tri United, No. 1 Vine, 3500 feet from south line and 1090 feet from east line, sec of 35-11s-19w; 26 bopd and 58 bwpd from Arbuckle at 3661-3666.
T-N-T Engineering, No. 10 L. L. Austin, 2123 feet from north line and 884 feet from east line, sec of 36-12s-16w; oil well from Arbuckle, interval n/a.
Dreiling Oil, No. 3 Werth, 2190 feet from north line and 920 feet from east line, sec of 4-14s-17w; 45 bopd and 20 bwpd from LKC at 3315-3364. Read more
U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green), who leaves tomorrow on a trip to Alaska to promote oil drilling on federal park lands, again yesterday called for a comprehensive energy strategy that would allow more use of oil, coal, and nuclear power.
Mr. Latta, a freshman congressman, said other countries, notably China and India, rapidly are building coal and nuclear plants while the United States is failing to make use of its coal resources and has not built a new nuclear power plant since 1996.
“The No. 1 issue is energy. If we don’t have energy this country is going to fall further and further behind in the world,” he said.
Tomorrow he joins a fact-finding trip from Washington to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska with 10 other congressmen, all Republicans.
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The Kentucky World Trade Center on Monday will lead a delegation of coal operators from Kentucky on a tour of Australia.
The group will meet with major mine management teams in Brisbane and Sydney, plus tour some of the largest coal mines in Moranbah and Hunter Valley.
The delegation also plans to attend the Australia Queensland Mining & Engineering Exhibition in Mackay, one of the world’s largest exhibitions of products and services for the mining industry.
John Waugh, vice president of marketing for Louisville-based Phoenix Process Equipment Co., plans to join the delegation.
His company has done business with Australia for several years, selling equipment to Australian coal pre-plants. Read more
Five companies and a union affiliated with the polygamous Kingston family are fighting back against a Missouri utility that forced the family’s Emery County coal mine into involuntary bankruptcy last fall.
The six entities filed a lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court for Utah against Aquila Inc., a Kansas City-based utility that provides electric and natural gas service to approximately 900,000 customers in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.
They claimed Aquila’s aggressive efforts to collect a $25 million judgment against C.W. Mining Corp., which operates the Bear Canyon mines in Huntington Canyon, prevented the company from paying for mining equipment needed to cut the coal needed to pay its debts.
The six – World Enterprises, ABM Inc., Security Funding Inc., C.O.P. Coal Development Co., Standard Industries Inc. and the International Association of United Workers’ union – are asking for $217 million in compensatory damages plus punitive damages. Read more
Oil prices fell further today after slumping by more than $10 over the past two days on concern that slowing US economic growth would hurt crude demand, traders said.
New York’s main oil contract, light sweet crude for August delivery, dipped 42 cents to $134.18 a barrel, after slipping $4.14 yesterday.
That followed a dive of $6.44 on Tuesday, the sharpest daily decline since January 1991.
London’s Brent North Sea oil for September dipped 21 cents to $135.60. The Brent August contract expired yesterday down $2.56 at $136.19.
Prices have crumbled since striking record highs above $147 per barrel last Friday.
Losses accelerated yesterday after a bigger-than-expected rise in US crude reserves, analysts said.
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