BRINGING COAL TO WISCASSET

The proposal by a Connecticut-based company to build a coal gasification plant at the site of the former Maine Yankee nuclear power facility in Wiscasset turns debate on energy policy in the midcoast area from the hypothetical to the tangible, just as wind turbines did for Mars Hill and the Carrabassett Valley.

If the project clears its first hurdle at the town ballot next month, and if it then wins state permits, flicking on the light switch in the town that bills itself as “The Prettiest Village in Maine” will no longer be a neutral act. It will bring into sharp focus the choices – and compromises – necessary to power our businesses and homes. And that’s as it should be.

The proposed $1.5 billion Twin Rivers Energy Center needs to win a zoning ordinance change before it can proceed to further review, but the company is aiming to break ground in 2009. Using a technology even newer than nuclear power was when Maine Yankee was built in 1972, the developers aim to create so-called clean coal, heating the fossil fuel under high pressure to create a gas that will be burned – supplemented with biomass and wood – to turn turbines to make electricity. A secondary operation will produce diesel fuel the developers tout as cleaner than the fuel now burned in most trucks.

Even if the plant – which would generate 700 megawatts of power at peak production – spews as few emissions as developers claim, there will be unwanted consequences. Coal barges would deliver the fuel, possibly causing conflict with the local lobster fishery. The plant would use as much as 10 million gallons of water a day. And the unused portion of the coal and ash are problematic wastes. For these and other reasons, the Natural Resources Council of Maine has already decided to oppose the project.

But as has been seen in the permitting process for wind turbines, such projects must be evaluated on an individual basis, and considered over a period as details emerge. Legitimate questions arise from the proposal; chief among them is whether the plant can function as cleanly and efficiently as the developers claim, producing just one-tenth of a pound of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, compared with the 25 pounds per megawatt-hour generated by the old oil-fired Mason Station plant, also in Wiscasset.

Maine can no longer be insulated – or isolated – from the true costs of electricity generation. Though Wiscasset residents will bear a greater burden if the Twin Rivers plant is ultimately built, all of Maine must weigh the need for diversified energy production against the problems such new technologies bring.

State regulators need to bring maximum foresight to bear in their review of this project – the lack of such foresight for waste disposal played a role in crippling nuclear energy – but must keep in sight the reality that energy production is rarely pretty.