SIERRA CLUB STEPS UP ATTACK AGAINST HECA

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
9/20/13

Opponents of the Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) project sought to draw attention to what they say are the proposed poly-generation plant’s flaws during joint state-federal public hearings this week. The Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission (CEC) convened three days of local meetings this week in Buttonwillow, Calif., on the 300 MW integrated gasification combined cycle project, planned for a greenfield site nearby in Bakersfield. Groups like the Sierra Club, though, aimed to drum up local opposition to the $4 billion project. “Bottom line is that the coal plant being proposed by SCS Energy would spew dangerous pollutants into our air when we already breathe the dirtiest air in the country. Not to mention that the coal plant would use up massive amounts of water—a resource our farms obviously depend on,” Tom Frantz, a local farmer with Association of Irritated Residents, said in a statement released this week by the Sierra Club.

Another statement from a project opponent released by the Sierra Club was from local pistachio farm owner Chris Romanini, who said that HECA is “just another poisonous coal plant project” and the “last thing we would ever want in our community.” “Hundreds of HECA vehicles would make their way through our small country roads on a daily basis spewing their toxics onto our food crops. It would just devastate this community,” Romanini added.

The Sierra Club has in recent months flexed its political muscle against the carbon capture and storage project through its Beyond Coal Campaign, which aims to shutter one-third of the country’s coal plants by the end of the decade. The initiative has also funneled significant resources into fighting Mississippi Power’s 582 MW Kemper County IGCC plant, currently under construction in eastern Mississippi. In recent months, the Sierra Club has highlighted what it said is the possibility of well blowouts at HECA’s proposed CO2 storage site, at a depleted oilfield operated by Occidental Petroleum Corp. The environmental group has also cited “major problems’ with the local air district’s permit for the project, which was approved earlier this year. “There is clear evidence that the emission reduction offsets associated with the air permit were downright illegal,” Evan Gillespie, western region deputy director of the Beyond Coal campaign, said in a statement this week. “Compounded with the troubling issues revealed in the assessment by the California Energy Commission, there is mounting evidence that the HECA project is a disaster in the making altogether.”

Permission to Construct

Project spokeswoman Tiffany Rau said turnout at this week’s public hearings was much more “balanced” than some reports indicated and that the second workshop drew 35 speakers supportive of the project and seven against. “The workshops are designed to create transparency on the regulatory process and to maximize input from the general public and interveners. HECA was able to provide helpful information for all involved,” Rau said in an e-mail. She added that HECA’s developers “understand that there are concerns from interveners” and that developers “continue to make best efforts to clarify any misunderstandings about the project and to listen to public input.” “We were pleased with the level of public participation and the level of support expressed during the public comment sessions,” Rau said.

SCS Energy has stayed relatively quiet throughout the regulatory approval process for the project, which has stretched on for the better part of a year. Project officials are hoping to gain permission to construct from the CEC in the months ahead, as well as a favorable record of decision from DOE granting the project access to the lion’s share of its $408 million stimulus-funded cooperative agreement. That money would help share the cost of the project’s gasifier, syngas cleanup system, combustion turbine, steam generator and other CO2 utilization components.

‘Unresolved Issues’

Developers are hoping to convince regulators that HECA is a good investment for California and DOE after a more than 2,000-page draft report from the CEC and DOE earlier this summer assessing the potential environmental impacts of the project concluded that it faces “significant, and for the most part, unresolved issues,” and raised concerns related to 15 technical areas, including water use, waste, biological resources and greenhouse gas emissions. HECA was also questioned in an audit report from DOE’s Inspector General earlier this summer that concluded that the Department is managing HECA “at an increased risk level.”

The pair of reports come as SCS officials aim for a fourth quarter financial close date for HECA, despite the fact that the project timeline has slipped slightly. SCS must also negotiate a power purchase agreement with the California Public Utilities Commission and secure financing for the now $4 billion project.