The new plant includes features that make it more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than older power stations. But it also doubles the amount of coal being burned in OPPD's side-by-side plants
JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, July 10, 2009 12:00 am
NEBRASKA CITY - The Omaha Public Power District dedicated a new 682-megawatt coal-burning power plant Friday.
The new plant includes features that make it more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than older power stations. But it also doubles the amount of coal being burned in OPPD's side-by-side plants south of Nebraska City and increases the release of greenhouse gases.
The new plant also powers 405,500 more air conditioners, a point not lost on anyone who attended the dedication ceremony on a 82-degree, 76-percent humidity day.
With all the headlines about alternative energy, cheap, abundant coal still turns on the lights in Nebraska - now and in the foreseeable future. And so the conflict between global warming and a developed world continues.
OPPD calls its new $630 million plant Nebraska City Station 2. The utility built the new project on the banks of the Missouri River right next to Station 1, which was finished in 1979. Together the two plants will generate more than 1,330 megawatts of electricity.
"Construction was long and complex, but we are exceptionally proud of the result," said W. Gary Gates, president and CEO of OPPD.
In Nebraska, only the 1,365-megawatt Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland, owned by the Nebraska Public Power District, has a greater generating capacity. The Nebraska City plant is the first completed in the state since 2005, when NPPD finished the 250-megawatt Beatrice Power Station.
OPPD serves a population of more than 750,000 people in 13 counties in eastern Nebraska.
The new plant includes scrubbers, high-efficiency burners and a carbon injection system to reduce such pollutants as nitrous oxide, mercury, sulfur dioxide and ash.
Tougher federal regulations on emissions mean the new plant releases one-tenth of the pollution of the 1979 station, said Ray Lynn, technical supervisor at the station.
But since OPPD switched on the new station in May, the combined stations are consuming 135 train cars of coal every 20 hours.
District officials point out that the coal is a low-sulfur variety mined from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. Plus, they designed the new plant so that emerging clean coal technology - perhaps carbon capture and storage - can be added in the future.
The utility broke ground on the plant in 2005. Other utilities participated, including NPPD and those in Nebraska City, Falls City, Grand Island, Missouri and Minnesota.
OPPD financed the plant through a 40-year bond, Gates said. Rate increases will be necessary to help pay off the debt.
But the utility will still offer some of the lowest electrical rates in the country, Gates said. And that wasn't lost on Gov. Dave Heineman, Friday's guest of honor, who said low public utility costs help the state attract new business.
"It's very, very important to Nebraska," Heineman said.
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.