Coalition of supporters backs plan for Huntley Station: Plant is competing against four others

The proposed expansion, which would double the facility's generating capacity and create 100 permanent jobs at the plant along with upwards of 1,000 construction jobs, is competing against four other power plant projects for lucrative tax breaks and other incentives under an advanced clean coal initiative launched by the Pataki administration.

That competition includes AES Corp.'s Somerset coal-burning plant, which is proposing a $1 billion upgrade that it also says would create 1,000 construction jobs and 120 new positions within the power station.

Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Ronald Moline said the NRG proposal has built an "unprecedented" coalition of supporters, with none of the controversy over tax payments that has generated controversy over the AES proposal in Niagara County.

"There is no opposition. There is no controversy," Moline said. "We've got the facility and the people, and we've got a broad base of support."

NRG executives, who attended a show of support for the project at the Huntley Station on Tuesday, said their plan for the Town of Tonawanda power plant would slash harmful emissions from a facility long criticized by environmentalists as one of the country's dirtiest.

They also said the upgrade would help stabilize electricity prices by using the nation's abundant coal supplies and also include technology that eventually could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by separating them and then storing them in underground formations.

"Two things separate us from the competition: our technology and the community," said Caroline Angoorly, an NRG vice president and general counsel.

Other supporters said the project would help secure the future for the Huntley Station, which is in the process of taking four of its six generating units off line to meet a 2005 settlement with state officials to reduce harmful emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.

The Buffalo Niagara Partnership, which covers both Erie and Niagara counties, is backing the NRG proposal, partly because of concerns that, without the upgrade, dozens of the 141 jobs currently at the Huntley Station could be lost as its older units are decommissioned. AES' Somerset plant, which is newer than the Huntley Station, does not face a similar risk, Partnership officials said.

"If the Huntley Station doesn't get this project, we don't know what the fate will be of that facility," said Hadley Pawlak, a Partnership vice president. "AES doesn't face that."

NRG also faces competition from three other projects across the state. AES also submitted a bid for a shut-down coal-fired plant that it owns in Chenango County, while other proposals have been made by Competitive Power Ventures and Empire Synfuel.

The NRG event came six days after AES supporters, led by state Sen. George Maziarz, R-North Tonawanda, said they had built a coalition of Niagara County leaders, called Choose Niagara Now, to support the Somerset plant's bid.

Under the Pataki administration's plan, the New York Power Authority will announce the winning bid or bids in December.

The NRG upgrade project, part of a $16 billion new construction program nationwide by NRG, would construct a new power plant on the Huntley site that would use Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology.

That process feeds coal into a gasification unit, where heat and pressure are used to convert the coal into combustible gas. That gas then is cleaned to remove sulfur and other contaminants before it is burned in a turbine, which then spins a generator. The sulfur then could be resold for commercial use and slag produced during the power generation process can be used as a base layer in road construction.

The Huntley upgrade, coupled with an upgrade and expansion of the company's Astoria power plant downstate, would reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from NRG's New York facilities by up to 85 percent, while cutting nitrogen oxide emissions by 74 percent and mercury emissions by 90 percent, NRG said. The IGCC process also could capture up to 65 percent of the carbon dioxide from the gas before combustion.