Before the end of this year the NYS Public Service Commission (PSC) will rule on whether or not the Cayuga Power Plant remains open.  The Lansing Star is featuring a three-part series that will explore the plant's citizenship in Lansing, Tompkins County and the larger community.  Last week we looked at the repowering proposal and what led to it.  In this article we report on the plant's reputation as a clean coal-powered facility.  Next week we'll look at the plant's participation in the community.

Those who had the stamina to stay at the Public Service Commission meeting until the end on July 29th heard several people testify that the Cayuga Power Plant is among the cleanest coal-fired plants in the nation.  Cayuga is one of two plants purchased by Upstate New York Power Producers (UNYPP) after they were placed in bankruptcy by the previous owner, AES.  UNYPP Chief Operating officer Jerry Goodenough says that even under the previous owner the Cayuga and Somerset plants were leaders in clean coal-powered plant operation.

"They're two of the cleanest plants this side of the Mississippi," he says.  "The Somerset plant is extremely clean.  So is this one.  We scrub for NOx.  We scrub for SO2.  We have electrostatic precipitators that remove particulate, and both facilities have intricate water treatment systems."

The Cayuga plant has two units that together are capable of producing 306 megawatts.  Goodenough says both units have scrubbers to remove SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide).  The plant also installed SCRs (Selective Catalytic Reduction units) on Unit 1 to scrub out NOx (Nitrogen Oxide) well ahead of regulations requiring plants to use them.  He notes that the plant has been ahead of the regulations in cleaning technology.

He adds there is no SCR on Unit 2.  On that unit the plant uses a combination of a firing method called low-NOx concentric firing burners and how air is added to keep NOx emissions down.  He says that if the plant were to continue as a coal-fired facility it would have to add an SCR onto Unit 2 to meet future regulations.

Coal is transported to the plant by train, then stored in an enormous pile on the southern end of the property.  The coal pile is lined to prevent ground leakage.

"Any time it rains on the coal pile it's captured in that basin and it goes into that vessel," Goodenough says, pointing to the treatment facilities through his office window.  "Then we treat it.  It goes through our water treatment system."

On the other end of the power-producing process a double-lined landfill contains the waste ash.  Goodenough explains that a network of monitoring wells are placed both upgradient and downgradient of the landfill.  In simple terms, if substances are found in the downgradient wells, but not in the upgradient wells it means the land fill is leaking.  But if substances are found in both, they originated from somewhere else such as chemicals used on neighboring farms, and are simply flowing under the landfill.

"The only way to have leakage is that somehow one of the double liners has been penetrated or water or ash is somehow going around a liner," he says.  "We did find that here about six years ago.  We dug down and found the liner had slipped a little.  We put the liner back in place and we've had no hits on any of our water analyses since then.  The numbers that we saw that told us it was leaking are still not alarming numbers.  And again, it didn't happen up-gradient.  It only happened down-gradient, which tells you that it was coming from the ash site.  And we corrected it."

An August 2010 report by Jeff Stant, Project Director, Editor and Contributing Author to the Environmental Integrity Project (which received support from Earthjustice and Sierra Club accused the Cayuga plant of contaminating ground water with selenium, manganese, aluminum, sulfate, and total dissolved solids exceeding New York State groundwater and federal standards.  The report says state regulators did not take enforcement action.

Goodenough says he has spent a lot of time refuting reports that included the downgradient statistics without mentioning the uptick in upgradient substances.  He says that the levels reported did not reach regulatory caps.

"We reported down-gradient of the landfill some higher numbers.  Nothing that took us out of our permit, but they were higher numbers based on what they were before," he says.  "However, up-gradient also saw that up-tick.  It's water picking up as it flows under our landfill down to the down-gradient wells.  It's not at a high proportion that would hit anybody's permit.  But the point is those substances would be flowing regardless of the landfill."

There is no doubt that a gas-powered plant will burn cleaner than coal.  Plant officials say it will also use less fuel to produce the same amount of electricity, lower the cost to ratepayers, lower CO2, SO2, NOx and particulate matter, and eliminate mercury emissions.

In addition, a 2 megawatt solar array is included in all four of the possible repowering plans UNYPP submitted to the PSC.  The array is to be located on six acres of the plant's lakeside property.  While that is only 2/3% of the total 300 megawatt capacity, Goodenough says it is a start to step up renewable power generation, noting that as solar technology improves solar energy production would increase.

Power plant Project Manager Doug Roll calculates that depending on the layout of the panels it takes about 3 or 4 acres of panels to produce one megawatt.  He says the plant owns over 100 acres that could potentially be developed.  With currently available technology that means it could eventually be possible to generate about 33 MW total in solar power, about 10% of the capacity of the overall plant if it is deemed feasible by the plant owners.  He notes that from a practical standpoint the solar array is not likely to reliably produce its maximum capacity.  He notes that  his own home solar array solar had a 14.5 % capacity factor for July this year.

"A spinning generator is capable( as long as there is no maintenance issues) of generating 24 hours a day 7 days a week," he says.  "Of course the solar can only generate during the day and only if there is direct sunlight."

While that may not be enough for opponents of the repowering plan, the reality is that the PSC is only considering two options: repowering the plant with gas or closing it entirely and upgrading the power transmission grid instead.  Including any solar generation at all opens the door for increasing solar capacity in the future, both by replacing panels with higher capacity ones as they are developed and maximizing the use of the available acreage.

---

Last week: What is the impact of closing or repowering the plant?
Next: How does the plant contribute to the community?

v9i30