In South Buffalo a welding and manufacturing plant is building these huge collection units for the Huntley Power Plant in Tonawanda. Former Gov. Pataki dedicated 3 billion for Huntley, Spitzer said he would go after all coal burning plants to buy carbon offsets. Up until he resigned he never acknowledged the money for the plant. Now we have Paterson…. What will he do. If he agrees with the carbon offsets then that will cost Huntley over 60 million a year. In other words they will most likely fold.
Albany Transition A Hurdle For Clean Coal Project Team
Speaking before the seven-member Jamestown Board of Public Utilities in recent days, Rick Victor of Praxair Inc. said the recent resignation of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer would almost certainly delay the proposed coal-fired power plant that both public and private interests hope to use as the epicenter of a regional clean energy research initiative.
According to Victor, the project team has not stopped working with state officials to move the project along and lay the regulatory foundation for the first-ever coal-fired power plant equipped with carbon capture and storage technology.
As Gov. David Paterson enters his third week in office, though, the project team still doesn’t know exactly who they will be working with in the weeks and months that are to come.
‘‘Certainly, what happened with Spitzer was a hurdle we never expected,’’ Victor told BPU officials. ‘‘Dialogue has not ceased with the governor’s office. They’re just not sure whether they will be employed.’’
For now, though, observers in Albany say most of the faces remain the same and that the transition has removed some of the politics from the equation as the project team continues working with the upper echelons of the state’s energy and environment sectors.
The project team, which consists of the BPU along with various public and private entities with an interest in carbon capture and storage technology, had been working with the Spitzer administration since the partnership was first announced in July.
Even after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued its preliminary approval for the BPU’s air permit application in May, there was no indication whether the proposed coal-fired power plant — which would employ technology that significantly reduces pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury but only slightly reduces carbon dioxide emissions — would be approved by the more stringent state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The announcement of the carbon capture and storage initiative, though, transformed the proposed power plant into a cutting edge research and development project with significant economic implications for Western New York.
There were signs the project team was making inroads with the Spitzer administration and that the state would in fact publicly offer its support when it came time for the project team to apply for millions of dollars in federal funding it hopes to secure from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Then came The New York Times’ startling revelation Feb. 10 that federal authorities had linked Spitzer to a prostitution ring. Spitzer subsequently resigned from office two days later to be replaced by Paterson, who was elected 18 months ago as the state’s first black lieutenant governor.
