Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Coal Plant

Unnecessary, Expensive and Dirty

MYTH #1: MPCO argues that South Mississippi will run out of electricity if this plant is not built.

REALITY: Mississippi currently has power plants that can supply almost three times the amount of power the entire state requires at peak times.

Specifically, Mississippi has twelve natural gas-fired power plants already built which sit idle 85% of the time but can provide up to 7993 megawatts of power (Source: Mississippi Public Service Commission website/electric service>merchant generation plants). MPCO’s proposal would produce only 585 megawatts of power. Therefore, just one of the twelve existing natural gas plants could easily meet and exceed the state’s future electricity demands and needs that MPCO has identified.

The fact that these twelve plants were built with private investor dollars is also noteworthy since MPCO’s proposal requires consumers to foot the bill for this $2.4 billion plant, even if they never use the electricity.

MPCO also assumes that the only way to reasonably meet demand for electricity is to build new power plants. Yet the company has never fully utilized readily available ways to reduce demand through conservation. One simple way to accomplish this is by “weatherizing” or retrofitting new and existing homes and buildings with energy efficient doors, windows, insulation, appliances and heating and cooling units.

Weatherization programs help grow our economy because they create manufacturing jobs to produce energy efficient goods and new jobs for installing these products. In fact energy conservation could produce far more jobs than would be created by the Kemper coal plant. A recent study by American Council for a Energy Efficient Economy concluded that energy conservation initiatives could create 569,000 new jobs nationwide by 2020, with 5,100 jobs right here in Mississippi.

Serious conservation efforts could actually eliminate the need to build new power plants. In fact it could save over four times what Kemper could generate. A recent study by Georgia Tech concluded that energy savings for Mississippi could equal the amount of energy consumed by 343,000 households!

Saving energy also means less pollution. While the Kemper coal plant will be cleaner than the coal plants of the past – at least on paper – not using dirty fossil fuel energy in the first place is the cleanest alternative.

Just as important for consumers, saving power can create a permanent savings on electric bills, and less money on electric bills means more money for other things a family needs, like education and health care.

MYTH #2: This proposal will not raise the bills of MPCO’s customers.

REALITY: The price tag for the Kemper coal plant is $2.4 billion -- and rising. This represents by far the largest capital expenditure ever put into an electric utility’s customer rate base in the history of our state.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission’s (MPSC) own expert has concluded: “The Kemper IGCC facility is an expensive new facility and, if its costs were allowed to be put into rates, then Mississippi Power’s rates would increase substantially as compared to rates of today”. The expert goes so far as to say that the “rate increase caused by the IGCC plant itself could actually reduce peak demand and energy use and, thereby, obviate the need for some or all of the plant”. (Source: Testimony 2009 UA-14 Craig Roach redacted p. 35).

MYTH #3: Despite its $2.4 billion plus price tag, the Kemper coal plant is going to save customers money.

REALITY: MPCO will not even make public the basic facts supporting their claim. If this plant is better for customers than using existing power plants and energy conservation measures, MPCO should be transparent in supporting their claims so they can be independently verified.

The old adage “Actions peak louder than words” also applies, since MPCO spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying the state legislature to change the law to allow the up-front risk of financing this plant to be shifted from its stockholders to its customers, even if the plant is never put into service. If this plant is such a great financial deal, MPCO and its shareholders should be willing to accept the risk of building it.

MYTH #4: The Kemper coal plant is “clean coal”.

REALITY: MPCO’s proposal involves digging up 45-square miles of Kemper County for strip mining, which would displace hundreds of residents while destroying valuable streams and wetlands. Five hundred acres will be used as a dump for toxic coal ash from the plant. The plant itself will be classified as a major source of air pollution under the federal Clean Air Act.

MPCO proposes to capture and sell 65% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the plant, which is far better than existing coal plants. What the public isn’t being told, however, is that the company does not yet have anyone to buy this carbon dioxide, and that until a buyer is secured, MPCO will not commit to this reduction in the air permit. That means if the market for carbon dioxide doesn’t materialize, consumers will likely bear the cost of disposing of it, making the proposal an even more expensive venture for the public.

Why not use conservation and existing natural gas fired plants, which will get more environmental bang for the buck with less risk to ratepayers?

Finally, the Kemper coal plant will also emit as much as sixty-three pounds of mercury per year, even after pollution control technology is used. Over time that’s enough toxic mercury to contaminate thousands of waterbodies and million of pounds of fish. When whole river systems in Mississippi are already so contaminated with mercury that the fish pose a danger to pregnant women, why allow more contamination when there are better alternatives?

HOW YOU CAN HELP: Join the Sierra Club and partners on October 5^th at a hearing of the Mississippi Public Service Commission to decide the fate of this proposal. Lend your voice in asking the Commissioners to reject this dirty, expensive and unnecessary coal plant proposal.

Call or E mail the PSC Commissioners:

Lynn Posey (800) 356-6430, central.district@psc.state.ms.us

Leonard Bentz at (800) 356-6429, southern.district@psc.state.ms.us

Brandon Presley at (800) 356-6428, northern.district@psc.state.ms.us

GET MORE INFORMATION: Louie Miller, Sierra Club, (601) 624-3503

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