K-12 Wrote:
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> Just read in the paper today, the state of
> Washington shot down the coal gasification power
> plant to be located in the Vancouver-Longview area
> and are requiring the plant to use natural
> gas---up the home heating gas rates will go!!!
> Can't use coal in Washington state no matter how
> clean you burn it!

That happened over a year ago due to the requirement for underground carbon sequestration. Energy Northwest wasn't allowed to use natural terrestrial sequestration in the surrounding forestlands of SW Washington, even though PNW forests make perfect carbon sinks.

From a natural resource perspective, burning natural gas to generate baseload electricity is nothing short of idiocy (as opposed to using natural gas in peaking power generation, which is ideal). As noted by K-12, natural gas is just too critical a commodity for use in home heating and industrial uses for it to be wasted in baseload generation, especially since we have plenty of coal and nuclear availability for baseload needs.

For home heating, using natural gas directly is about 96% efficient, whereas using natural gas to generate electricity to power electric heat in that same home is only 47% efficient.

Also, a typical baseload natural gas power plant uses as much natural gas per year as all the households in the State of Washington. No wonder the price of natural gas has tripled since 2000!

The solution I have offered ENW is to create an LLC offshoot (wholey owned or in partnership with other energy interests), which would then locate a coal gasification/methanization plant across the border in Idaho (perferably in the Bonners Ferry area), then ship that synthetic gas via existing the natural gas pipeline network to ENW's proposed plant in Kalama. Synthetic natural gas can now be made for under $3.00/mmBtu using PRB coal (compared to the Henry Hub natural gas price of around $6.50/mmBtu), and there's nothing Washington's emasculated regulators could do about it except enjoy the lower costs being offered the State's electricity consumers.