By By Kristi E. Swartz
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Florida
Power & Light Co. on Friday started the formal review process for
its proposed "clean coal" power-generation plant in Glades County, but
environmentalists told the utility to be ready for a fight all the way
to the governor's office.
"We are planning to intervene at every
opportunity legally," said Holly Binns, field director for
Tallahassee-based Environment Florida.
FPL
wants to build the coal plant on 4,900 acres of sugar cane land 5 miles
northwest of Moore Haven. The plant would have two 980-megawatt units,
the first of which would open in 2012 and the second in 2013.
The
plant would cost between $2 billion and $3 billion to build, create an
average of 1,600 jobs each year during the five-year construction
period and contribute about $21 million a year to Glades County's tax
base.
FPL, the utility arm of FPL Group Inc. (NYSE: FPL, $54.66)
of Juno Beach, submitted its plans Friday for the plant, to be called
Glades Power Park, to the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection, FPL spokeswoman Rachel Scott said.
The department's
review, which includes approvals from other state agencies, will take
between 12 and 18 months, Scott said. FPL also must go before state
utility regulators and finally to the governor and Cabinet, who will
meet as the Power Plant Siting Board, before construction can begin.
FPL announced in September that the coal plant would be built in Glades County.
Officials and residents there said at the time that the area would welcome the economic boost from the plant.
But
Binns and other environmentalists said they've met with other Glades
County-area residents who are concerned about the plant's effect on the
Everglades.
A group called Save It Now Glades recently formed to stop the plant.
"The community is really gearing up," said Susan Glickman, Florida policy director for the National Resources Defense Council.
Binns
said Environment Florida, the National Resources Defense Council, the
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Florida Wildlife Federation
are starting to work together to oppose the plant, but she did not say
what else they would be doing at this point beyond legally intervening.
FPL
plans to use a technology called advanced supercritical pulverization,
where coal is burned at extremely high temperatures and the residue is
crushed before going through other filtering processes to remove
mercury and particles.
FPL wanted to build such a plant in St.
Lucie County, but the county commission killed the project. Officials
are hoping for better luck this time.
"We expect that a lot of
people, when they hear about a coal plant, they form their references
based on older technologies," said Scott, the FPL spokeswoman.
The
utility will use advanced technology and equipment that will make the
plant "very protective of the environment and public health," she said.
Environmentalists
say FPL should examine another coal technology known as gasification or
try to operate its plants more efficiently.
"We call on FPL to be
a leader and to look at advancing clean energy options rather than
turning to old-style pulverized technology," Glickman said.
The
Power Plant Siting Board on Tuesday signed off on FPL's proposed $1.2
billion, 2,200-megawatt natural gas-fired plant, set to open in
Loxahatchee in 2009.
That plant could be among the last of the natural gas plants on the books for many Florida utilities for a while.
State
lawmakers and utility regulators have been pushing utilities to build
coal and nuclear plants to wean the state from its dependence on pricey
oil and natural gas.
