Proposed plant faces opposition

A cadre of environmental watchdogs and lobbying groups urged Santee Cooper and government regulators Thursday to scrap plans for a proposed $1 billion plant in Florence County, saying the utility should follow the lead of other power producers that are pulling the plug on coal-fired generators.

In response, state-owned Santee Cooper said coal is its only fuel option for the time being and that opponents of the project do not fully appreciate what is driving the need for more electricity.

The organized opposition includes the Coastal Conservation League, the Sierra Club, the South Carolina Wildlife Federation and the Southern Environmental Law Center. They said South Carolina can conserve enough power and derive enough "green" electricity to offset the need for the Pee Dee plant, referring to a study released last month by the state's 20 electricity cooperatives.

"The fastest, cheapest, cleanest power is not coal. It's something else: It's efficiency and conservation," said Blan Holman, senior attorney with the Charlottesville, Va.-based Southern Environmental Law Center. "A lot of things point now to this being a really out-of-date idea."

Also, the groups noted that in the years since Santee Cooper decided to build the coal plant, lawmakers have gotten closer to passing a tax on carbon emissions. That would require the utility to pay a mandated fee based on how much carbon dioxide the new generator emits.

Santee Cooper provides power to about 40 percent of the state. It has said it desperately needs more generating capacity to meet growing customer demand and that a coal-fired plant is the "only viable option" until it can fire up a new nuclear reactor in 2016.

The utility considered emissions, alternative fuels and a potential carbon tax in reaching that decision, said spokeswoman Laura Varn.

"These organizations are really ignoring the facts," Varn said. "If the facts aren't heeded, we could really end up with brown-outs and outages."

The utility also said it has beefed up its conservation efforts and spending on research to cut pollution.

Government regulators and utilities nationwide have been scrapping plans for coal plants, citing concerns about emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and mercury, a neurotoxin.

Earlier this month, Rod Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, overturned the recommendations of his staff in denying a long-awaited permit request for a new coal plant.

In May, Raleigh-based Progress Energy, which serves parts of the Pee Dee region, pledged not to propose any new coal-burning plants for the next two years. And in June, Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp., which serves part of the Upstate, snuffed plans for one of two coal-burning plants it had proposed for Western North Carolina.

In a study released this month, South Carolina's electric cooperatives said residents can reduce their energy use by one-third in the next decade and produce "green" power equal to the output of a medium-sized coal-burning plant, enough to power 30,000 homes.

South Carolina ranked fifth overall in increased U.S. carbon dioxide emissions between 1990 and 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The proposed Pee Dee plant would boost the output by about 10 percent.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control granted Santee Cooper preliminary approval for the generator last month. Federal agencies also must sign off on the plant after studying its environmental impact.

At least two of the groups that were protesting the project in Columbia on Thursday have threatened to sue Santee Cooper and the state over the plans.

Reach Kyle Stock at 937-5763 or kstock@postandcourier.com.