SHADYSIDE - As many as 100 local jobs hang in the balance as FirstEnergy Corp. decides whether a Belmont County power plant is worth the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to bring the facility into compliance with governmental standards.
FirstEnergy spokeswoman Ellen Raines on Tuesday said the company will decide by the end of the year whether to continue operations at the R.E. Burger Power Plant south of Shadyside. She said the company is facing massive expenses for the construction of a new scrubber stack at the plant. Increasing costs for natural gas and other upgrades to bring the facility in line with federal environmental standards also are factors in the decision.
It was announced in May 2007 that the company had plans to install an Electro-Catalytic Oxidation system on units 4 and 5 of the Burger Plant. Combined, those units produce 312 megawatts of electricity, or enough to serve about 190,000 homes, the company states on its Web site.
The ECO system is designed to control multiple pollutants that result from electricity production at coal-based generating plants. It was developed by Powerspan Corp. of New Hampshire, in which FirstEnergy has a minority ownership interest.
Information released at that time states the Burger Plant ECO scrubber system would reduce sulfur dioxide, mercury, other gases resulting from combustion and fine particulates. It further was expected to produce marketable ammonium sulfate fertilizer co-product to be sold in the fertilizer market.
An ECO commercial demonstration unit has been operating at the Burger Plant since early 2004. And the Ohio Coal Development Office has contributed more than $5.5 million to the demonstration project.
Design engineering for the Burger Plant ECO system was set to begin in 2007, according to FirstEnergy, with the system to begin operating in the first quarter of 2011. The cost of the system was estimated at $168 million.
The news that Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy - a diversified energy company that serves 4.5 million customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey - might discontinue operations at the Burger Plant came Tuesday after a federal appeals court reinstated one of President Bush's clean air regulations while the Environmental Protection Agency makes court-mandated changes. In July, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which required 28 mostly Eastern states to reduce smog-forming and soot-producing emissions that can travel long distances in the wind.
The court said the EPA overstepped its authority by instituting the rule, citing "more than several fatal flaws" in the regulation. However, a three-judge panel decided to reinstate the rule while the EPA develops a new clean air program.
The judges did not give EPA a deadline to come up with new regulations, but warned the agency that this decision is not an "indefinite stay" of its July ruling.
The EPA had predicted that the Clean Air Interstate Rule would prevent about 17,000 premature deaths a year by dramatically reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. In addition, the EPA said the rule would save up to $100 billion in health benefits, eliminate millions of lost work and school days and prevent tens of thousands of nonfatal heart attacks.
Raines stressed that no decision has not been made concerning the Burger Plant's future. She also said employees at the R.E. Burger plant will be told of FirstEnergy's decision before the announcement is made public.
"It's obviously a tough economic environment to make those decisions," Raines said. "We want to make sure we are fair with our employees by talking with them first. This was related to environmental compliance, and if nothing changes we will have to give a federal judge our decision before the end of the year.
"What is true is that we have made no announcement," she added. "When we make a decision we will talk to our employees, then we will talk to the news media."
SHADYSIDE, OHIO - Officials with FirstEnergy need more time to think.
They've requested an extension of the time period allotted for them to decide whether to close the R.E. Burger plant or spend hundreds of millions of dollars in mandatory upgrades.
FirstEnergy announced Wednesday it is has requested an additional 105 days to make a decision regarding the future of two coal-fired units at the Shadyside plant. If the extension is not granted, the company plans to shut down the two main units at the facility, where more than 100 jobs hang in the balance.
The company was to make a decision by Wednesday as to whether it would install scrubbers and other environmental equipment or commit to shutting down the facility in two years. The company filed a motion with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio requesting the additional time to make the decision.
On Wednesday, FirstEnergy spokeswoman Tricia Ingraham said, should the extension not be granted, company officials also would have to decide whether to continue operating the Burger Plant's "peaking unit," which is a backup unit used only about 30 days each year.
"We certainly hope the judge will grant the extension, and this is a step to keep the plant open," Ingraham said.
Ingraham and FirstEnergy President of Fossil Operations Charles D. Lasky both said Wednesday that difficult economic times have contributed to the uncertain future of the Burger Plant.
"We are asking the court for an extension, which would provide us with more time and hopefully more economic and regulatory clarity to make this important decision," Lasky said.
The Burger Plant employs 102 people. It began operations in 1944, with additional units completed in the 1950s. The two units that may shut down provide enough electricity to serve 190,000 homes.