5/21/2009 5:00:00 AM EDITORIAL/Killing a $2.2 billion coal plant
Mississippi Power's proposed $2.2 billion coal-fired power plant in Kemper County would create 260 permanent jobs and bring 1,000 construction jobs, so who could be against that?
Attorney General Jim Hood asked the state Public Service Commission (PSC) to have the utility provide more details on the proposal and to provide a legal reason why rates should increase to build the plant - although a 2008 state law already allows the PSC to approve rate increases before companies build power-generating plants.
The plant would convert locally mined lignite into a gas to generate electricity, an emerging and more costly technology.
The Kemper plant would have the emission level of a natural gas fired plant, so again, who could argue with that?
But two independent electricity producers, Entegra Power Group and Magnolia Energy, along with Jim Hood and his friends at the Sierra Club, have challenged the need for the lignite plant.
Mississippi Power has stressed the need to move quickly and hopes to have the plant under construction by 2010, having received a $270 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and $133 million in investment tax credits under the National Energy Policy Act of 2005.
As a result of a hearing two weeks ago that Hood sought, the PSC will hire two consultants and spend up to $500,000 to study the matter.
The Mississippi Public Utilities Staff, a separate state agency, also will hire a consultant for no more than $200,000.
That region of the state needs jobs and these delay tactics won't do.
