{"id":3442,"date":"2014-01-15T13:13:37","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T19:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3442"},"modified":"2014-03-19T17:09:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T23:09:36","slug":"valley-watch-joins-sierra-club-cac-in-challenge-of-indiana-gasification-permit-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3442","title":{"rendered":"Valley Watch joins Sierra Club in challenge of Indiana Gasification permit extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 14, 2014- by John Blair,\u00a0<\/strong>valleywatch.net editor<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Valley Watch has joined with the Sierra Club in filing a challenge of the recently extended permit for the proposed Indiana Gasification facility in Rockport.\u00a0\"It<\/a><\/p>\n

Valley Watch feels strongly that IDEM did not due it proper diligence in extending the permit to allow an additional six months for construction to begin on the plant that was originally scheduled to be online in 2011. IDEM received a “request” for an extension on December 26, 2013 and grated the extension before the end of the same day. Under the rules of Title V of the Clean Air Act, once a permit is issued, the applicant is required to begin construction within eighteen months. that means the Indiana Gasification permit expired in early December 2013. The reason for the eighteen month \u00a0period is to \u00a0force applicants to use the most current technology for pollution control instead of relying solely on what might be antiquated technology for emissions control.<\/p>\n

The plant, which is designed to convert coal into synthetic natural gas for home heating and industrial uses was said to cost $2.8 billion in 2008 when it first gained support in the Indiana legislature and that figure has not been updated even in light of the huge cost overruns experienced by Duke Energy in their new plant at Edwardsport which has yet to operate at anywhere near Duke’s promised capacity levels. Duke’s plant has just two gasifiers while the Rockport proposal calls for four gasifiers. Duke’s plant was originally said to cost $1.2 billion but now has a construction cost over $3.3 billion.<\/p>\n

\"Indiana<\/a>

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels had no problem betraying his conservative bonifides when it came to pushing to force his constituents to ensure that his good friend, Mark Lubbers got rich from the Indiana Gasification proposal at Rockport. Photo \u00a9 2007 BlairPhotoEVV.<\/p><\/div>\n

Duke’s plant lacks Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) while the Indiana Gasification proposal claims too use that to keep CO2 from being emitted to the atmosphere. However, the US Department of Energy \u00a0(DOE) says that CCS will add approximately 50% to the capital cost of the construction as well as use 25-40% of the energy the plant will produce, reducing the overall efficiency of the technology significantly.<\/p>\n

Indiana Gasification also requires a $2+billion Federal Loan Guarantee which could end up as high as $3 billion if the building of a pipeline from Rockport to Mississippi is included. However, since Duke’s experience showed that two gasifiers alone could not be built for less than $3 billion w\/o CCS it is questionable that an inexperienced company like Indiana Gasification, owned wholly by a New York holding company named Leucadia National could build the plant and the pipeline within a $3 billion Federal Loan Guarantee.<\/p>\n

Further, through a sweetheart deal arranged by former Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels to benefit his friend, Indiana Gasification project manager, Mark Lubbers, the State of Indiana has agreed to become the plant’s only customer and, in turn, will force Indiana gas consumers to buy the gas from the State at a significant premium over the price of natural gas.<\/p>\n

Valley Watch, along with a coalition of other consumer and environmental groups have opposed the project since its inception in 2006 due to tremendous environmental and consumer impacts. I particular, Valley Watch has opposed the project because Rockport, IN is already one of the most toxic polluted places on earth. A town of about 2100 people has two industries which emit more toxic pollution that all the industrial toxic polluters in Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego COMBINED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 14, 2014- by John Blair,\u00a0valleywatch.net editor Valley Watch has joined with the Sierra Club in filing a challenge of the recently extended permit for the proposed Indiana Gasification facility in Rockport.\u00a0 Valley Watch feels strongly that IDEM did not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[276,23,17,38,40,28,29],"class_list":["post-3442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-coal-gasification","tag-duke-energy","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-gasification","tag-mitch-daniels","tag-pollution","tag-valley-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3442"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3621,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3442\/revisions\/3621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}