By Jeff Corcino Staff Writer
Despite numerous media accounts that the proposed River Hill Power Plant has been nixed due to financing difficulties, the Clearfield County Commissioners said they have not received an official notification from Sithe Global that its status has been changed.
At their workshop meeting yesterday, the commissioners said they had a conference call a week ago Tuesday with the federal Department of Energy, Sithe Energy and U.S. Sens. Robert Casey and Arlen Specter's offices and the company never mentioned the project was being killed.
Sithe Global has proposed constructing the $600 million River Hill Power Plant in Karthaus that would burn waste coal to generate electricity.
However, the company is having difficulty finding financing for the project and is seeking loan guarantees from the federal government.
Under a loan guarantee program, the federal government would pledge to repay the loans if the company would happen to default on them, thus allowing greater security for investors and allow the company to receive better interest rates for its financing.
The size of the loan guarantee the company is seeking, approximately $1 billion, is one of the main sticking points keeping the project from moving forward, according to Commissioner Mark McCracken.
The other obstacle is the insistence by the federal government that the company install carbon capture and storage technology on the plant as a requirement for receiving the loan guarantee, Commissioner John Sobel said.
Sobel said the company is unwilling to commit to this at this time because the technology is still in its infancy and is not commercially available yet.
According to Sobel, there are some small power plants with the technology but none the size of the proposed River Hill Power Plant. And he said this makes it difficult for the company to estimate how much such a system would cost and determine how much money it would need for the project.
But Sobel said the company is willing to install the technology retroactively when it does become commercially available.
Carbon capture and storage systems are designed to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them, often underground, so they aren't released into the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide emissions are believed to be a cause of global warming and the federal government is attempting to reduce it.
All three commissioners voiced their support for the River Hill Power Plant, saying it would spur economic growth while improving the environment by burning waste coal that is polluting area waterways.
Commissioner Joan Robinson McMillen argued that the project should receive the support of the federal government because President Barack Obama has been arguing for job creation.
"Here we have a shovel-ready project that will create 1,200 construction jobs," McMillen said. "You can't ask for a better job creation bill than that."
Sobel also criticized the president for saying he is a "friend of coal," and now it turns out that this may not necessarily be the case.
McCracken speculated that perhaps the design of the plant could be changed to allow it to burn natural gas as well as waste coal to make it a more viable project.
In other business, the commissioners voted to advertise for bids to renovate Jury Room No. 2. In addition to the renovations, the jury room will be receiving additional soundproofing so jury deliberations cannot be heard outside the room and additional insulation to improve energy efficiency, Sobel said.
The commissioners allocated $25,000 in the budget for the renovations.
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