Sempra drops plans for Idaho coal-fired plant

UPDATE 1-Sempra drops plans for Idaho coal-fired plant
Shea Andersen, Reuters, 29-Mar-2006

Idaho Flirts With Coal Power, Looks For Different Date
Shea Andersen, Reuters, 30-Mar-2006

COMMENT: Unlike Idaho, in BC, the provincial Liberals are hoping to shepherd in coal-fired generation. A bill like the Idaho one couldn't happen in this province - any Liberal proposing it would be looking for a new job as would any other Liberals who would dare vote for it.

Interesting intersection of events. Sempra, the company proposing the Idaho coal-fired plant, is one of four companies which appeared before the US Senate this week to "to express support for creation of a federal program to set limits for U.S. greenhouse gas emissions." (Duke Energy urges limits on carbon dioxide)

UPDATE 1-Sempra drops plans for Idaho coal-fired plant

By Shea Andersen
Reuters
Wed Mar 29, 2006

BOISE, Idaho, March 29 (Reuters) - Sempra Energy (SRE.N) said on Wednesday it was dropping plans to build a coal-fired power plant in Idaho in the face of strong opposition to the proposed $1 billion project.

In a letter sent on Wednesday to Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and leaders of the state legislature, Michael Niggli, president of Sempra Generation, said the company would sell the development rights to the project.

The plant would have been the first coal-fired generating station in the state. Idaho now gets most of its electricity from hydropower.

A few hours after the letter was received, the Idaho Senate passed by a 30-to-5 vote and sent to the governor a bill calling for a two-year moratorium on coal-fired power plants. The Idaho House overwhelmingly passed the measure last week.

The moratorium bill says "coal-fired power plants may have a significant negative impact upon the health, safety and welfare" of people, financial security of agricultural business, and the protection of natural resources.

The proposed moratorium "would seriously compromise the willingness of investors" to develop energy projects in Idaho, Niggli said in the letter.

Sempra's decision also was made "in light of significant capital expenditures and investments" the company is making in energy projects in Colorado, Mexico and Louisiana, he said.

In recent weeks, Sempra, based in San Diego, California, sent letters to Kempthorne and key legislators saying it would hold off filing permits for the plant until 2007 so state staff and legislators could study the proposal.

Kempthorne has been chosen by President George W. Bush to succeed Gale Norton as U.S. interior secretary.

Idaho State Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett, a Democrat, said Sempra's decision does not mean that a coal-fired power project could not be developed, and urged Idaho to take a close look at energy issues.

"We need to do our homework. We need to decide what standards we as Idahoans want for our state," Stennett said, adding: "I have never seen an issue that would so significantly change the quality of life in Idaho."

The bill does not prohibit public utilities in Idaho regulated by the state's public utilities commission from building coal-fired power plants.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

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Idaho Flirts With Coal Power, Looks For Different Date

By Shea Andersen
Reuters
30-Mar-2006

It took less than an hour for the Idaho State Senate to ratify and send to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (he of the Interior Secretary nomination) one of the more momentous environmental votes of recent history.

With a 30-5 vote, the Republican-dominated Senate agreed with its similarly Republican House to install a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in the state for two years.

The vote surprised few who'd seen the bill's momentum and its robust public support (as of Wednesday, roughly 7,000 Idahoans were said to have signed petitions against a plant proposed for rural Jerome County. Several local governments and business/agriculture/medical/education associations had expressed official opposition).

Least surprised was Sempra Energy, the San Diego energy firm that hoped to build a 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant in a rural county of southern Idaho. Just an hour before the Senate's vote, they shipped a letter to Kempthorne and leaders of the Senate saying, in effect, "We're outta here."

Anyone who thinks Idaho has permanently dodged a coal-fired power plant after Sempra's exit, of course, is kidding themselves. As he hustled on to the next meeting, Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett, a Hailey Democrat who sponsored the moratorium bill, said "this changes nothing."

In its letter to state leaders, Sempra said it planned to sell the development rights to its Idaho project.

"The Jerome County site selected for the project's development offers prospective owners excellent access to rail, existing transmission, land, and water rights," said Sempra President Michael Niggli. The next step for Sempra is to find a buyer, unload the development rights, and leave Idaho with a new coal-power suitor.

Idaho is among a rare few states in the West that don't have coal-fired power plants, and that fact was not forgotten among backers of the moratorium. How long the state might keep that status is really a matter of when, not if, judging by the West's increasing power demands. The economics of the situation are too enticing to keep other power companies from getting into the act.

Today the brand-new Interim Commission on Energy Policy begins its work in Idaho. Lawmakers will gather to attempt to draw up new regulations for big-wheel power generators that will be coming to call upon the state with so much available land, rail lines between coal producing states and energy-demanding states (read: Wyoming and California) and an as-yet-undefined regulatory environment.

The last question, unanswered as of today, is whether or not Kempthorne signs the legislation. Certainly the will of the people of Idaho is behind the concept. But Kempthorne has new masters these days; he is less a leader of the state of Idaho than a prospective employee of the Bush White House. And how he decides on energy policy could affect his success in front of a U.S. Senate confirmation panel and out among other states he attempts to work with on the national level.

Thus does Idaho's waiting game begin anew.

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