by Wallace McMullen
AmerenUE is expanding its natural gas retail business. It has purchased from Aquila, Inc. a natural gas distribution facility near Rolla, and is assuming operations from Aquila. The transaction involved transfer of 4,200 customers to AmerenUE, and about 164 miles of natural gas distribution mains, plus some trucks and other equipment necessary to operate the system. The locally-based Aquila employees serving the area became employees of AmerenUE. Source: the Rolla Daily News.
Kansas City Power & Light has asked the Public Service Commission to conduct an “Investigatory Workshop Docket” pertaining to “Future Supply, Delivery and Pricing of… Electric Service.” This appears to be a response to the opposition that their proposal for building two large new coal burning power plants has encountered. Many other Missouri utilities have signed up to participate in the “Workshop”. Noone the author has talked to clearly understands how this process will proceed, but industry observers speculate the utilities would like it to recommend a guaranteed rate of return for building new power plants.
Peabody Coal, doing business as Peabody Energy, has obtained a draft permit for building a large new coal burning power plant (1500 MW) about 40 miles southeast of St. Louis. It would be at the site of a coal mine. The plant would emit large amounts of several types of pollution, including NOx (causes smog), SOx, (causes acid rain), and carbon monoxide (which can kill people). Because the winds often blow from the south on hot summer days, there is considerable concern that this plant would have a negative impact on St. Louis air quality. A number of St. Louis residents spoke in opposition to the project at a recent hearing on the draft permit, including Sierra Club staffer Jill Miller.
The proposed Peabody plant site is approximately two miles outside the border of the St. Louis non-attainment area on the Illinois side. It mimics the proposal by Holcim to build a large air pollution emission source just south of the non-attainment area border in Missouri. Also, Illinois Power is proposing to enlarge its Baldwin power plant with another 750 megawatts of coal burning generation near the Peabody site. These new emissions just outside the non-attainment area may have sufficient negative impact on the St. Louis region’s air quality that businesses within the non-attainment area will be forced to bear the expense of implementing additional emission reduction measures to compensate.