by Wallace McMullen, Ozark Chapter Energy Chair
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Wind Farm in Missouri
Missouri has its first utility scale wind power project, in Gentry County, Missouri. The lead developer of the 50 Megawatt Bluegrass RidgeWind Project is Tom Carnahan, son of the late Governor. Approximately 12 farms have signed long-term leases with Bluegrass Wind for 24 turbines to be erected on their land. The electricity generated will be purchased by Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. of Springfield, Missouri. The wind-mapping studies led by DNR’s Energy Center are reported to have assisted in getting the project underway.
AmerenUE
AmerenUE is the largest electric utility in Missouri, serving much of the eastern half of the state. It is the largest regulated monopoly in Missouri, with sales in the range of three billion dollars per year. It operates four big coal burning power plants that almost encircle St. Louis, the state’s only nuclear generating facility (Calloway), Bagnell Dam, and the collapsed Tam Sauk “pumped storage” facility at Proffitt Mountain.
Therefore, what Ameren does, has a major effect on Missouri’s economy, the health of its citizens, and a major effect on our environment. Ameren’s coal burning plants are a significant part of the poor air quality problems in St. Louis. (St. Louis has been a non-attainment area for one or more pollutants since the 1970s).
An Economic Impact—Higher Rates for Cleaner Air
In February the company announced its estimated cost to follow federal air quality rules requiring it to cut pollution in the next decade from coal-burning power plants is now $2.1 to $2.9 billion. These regulations will require reductions in emissions of Nitrogen Oxide (Nox), which causes smog, and Sulfur Oxides (Sox), which causes acid rain. The cost estimates may rise if Illinois imposes the tighter mercury-emissions standards which have been proposed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Ameren told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch it expects to raise electricity rates to “recover” these costs from its customers. (February 15, 2006).
AmerenUE is Keeping Secrets
The Public Service Commission, requires all the big monopoly utilities, (also called Investor Owned Utilities), to periodically file a report on their plans for the next 10 to 20 years. This report is called the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), and is supposed to include all options for meeting the public’s need for electrical services. That explicitly includes efficiency options and renewable energy.
Ameren filed its plan in December, 2005. But it declared its whole IRP report is “highly confidential,” a designation which keeps the entire document secret. This has been challenged by the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center (GRLC), representing the Sierra Club, Peaceworks (in Columbia), Missouri Coalition for the Environment, and ACORN. In response to a motion by the GRLC, the PSC ordered AmerenUE to refile the plan by Feb. 10, with everything that was not legitimately a business secret revealed. The second version revealed about half the text, but blacked out virtually every number, chart, and table in the report.
The lawyers for Ameren and the GRELC are now arguing over the refiled version. The public and environmentalists interested in the details of Ameren’s planning continue to be mostly in the dark.
Items gleaned from the February 10 filing, and Ameren’s press announcements:
The company is planning to build another 660 MW coal burning power plant at Rush Island. (When it will start is still secret). It is considering construction of a second nuclear reactor at its Callaway County site in a number of years. The utility’s long-range plans also include renewed consideration of a second pump storage plant on Church Mountain near the collapsed Taum Sauk hydroelectric plant in southeast Missouri.
Citizens who want to ensure that AmerenUE gives full consideration to more efficient utilization of electricity and the generation of power from renewable sources continue to be mostly excluded from taking part in the discussion of the regulated utility’s plans at present.