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Coal Comeback
Advocates say a plan before Congress would bring
jobs to Schuylkill County and would lead to a cleanup of culm banks
Reading Eagle
Sunday, September 2, 2001
John W. Rich Jr. is anxiously watching the progress of the national energy bill, approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in August and slated for Senate consideration this month.
If it becomes law, the bill could help create 1,000 construction jobs, 150 permanent operating jobs and 600 spinoff jobs in Schuylkill County - as well as help clean up the region's culm banks, those piles of waste coal littering the countryside, proponents say.
The energy plan stresses development of domestic energy sources such as coal, and it could have a major impact on the coal region and on coal plant designers and builders, the industry says.
In its current form, the bill has $33.5 billion in tax breaks for energy producers over the next 10 years.
Rich wants less than 1 percent of that, about $87 million, to make his proposed coal-to-gas-to-liquid fuel plant palatable to bankers.
The $300 million, culm-burning plant, to be built on a 20-acre plot near Frackville, has already won $47 million in state tax credits, and is getting $7.6 million in Department of Energy subsidies to augment the $4.4 million the company has spent on research and development.
Rich's company - Gilberton-based Waste Management and Processors Inc. - has been working for years to win the federal credits.
Rich and his family and business colleagues have been more than willing to contribute to political campaigns to get the credits; they contributed more than $17,000 last year alone to political candidates and the Republican Party. Rich himself contributed $12,500.
Rep. Tim Holden, a Schuylkill County Democrat who represents Berks County and voted for the energy plan, got more than $4,000 of those campaign contributions last year.
As described by planners, the plant not only would help clean up the huge culm piles, but would produce zero-sulfur diesel fuel to help truckers meet new federal standards, extract sulfur to sell to chemical and fertilizer firms, and make electricity, all without emitting any sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide pollutants from its stack.
Joining Rich's company in the project are partners Sasol Ltd. of South Africa that has been using the technology for years, Texaco Inc. that has agreed to buy the fuel, and the huge Bechtel Corp. that will build the plant. Design contracts were awarded in June.
"It's the next step in cleanly using coal," Rich said. "This will dwarf what we're doing with the cogeneration plants; that was just a practice."
The cogeneration plants near Frackville also burn culm, the waste left over from coal mining because its coal content is too small for the inefficient early furnaces.
Rich's existing plant, run by Waste Management and Processors, prepares the culm for use in the cogenerators by separating the burnable coal from the nonburnable rock, and pulverizing the coal so the cogenerators can use it.
But the so-called liquefaction plant will burn far more culm.
Every day, up to 3,400 tons of waste coal would come in the front end of the plant, or more than a million tons a year.
Although that pales in comparison to the estimates of a billion tons of culm spread over 150,000 acres in the 10-county anthracite region, one plant could take care of the immediate region, and others likely would be built as the technology proves itself, according to Rich spokesman Joseph M. Benish.
Benish said it would restore the culm piles into usable land and reduce the acid mine drainage problem by eliminating the runoff from culm piles.
If the technology does what it promises, the county can reclaim much of its land that's sitting idle, said Mary K. Bernosky, real estate director for Schuylkill County.
"That is going to have a tremendous effect on cleaning up the culm banks," she said.
Going out the back end of the plant would be several products:
5,080 barrels of diesel fuel. In an entirely closed system, the coal would first be converted to gas, using Texaco-supplied technology. It then would be converted to a paraffin-like substance that can be refined into any type of liquid fuel.
Rich chose diesel fuel because new federal standards requiring truckers to use cleaner fuel - with less than 30 parts per million of sulfur - take effect in 2003.
Rich said his diesel fuel will have no sulfur at all, and will wholesale for about $1.10 a gallon, compared to the current wholesale price of about 95 cents.
49 megawatts of electricity made from leftover steam. Rich said negotiations are under way with PPL Corp. to buy it.
Packages of solid yellow sulfur, cleaned from the coal waste in the liquefaction process.
991 tons of vitrified solids, the culm leftovers that look like crushed brown glass.
"The beauty is that it doesn't leach, eliminating the acid mine drainage problem," Benish said of the waste, which he said can be put in a landfill, used as backfill for the culm banks and covered with topsoil, or used in other products.
Both Pennsylvania senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, have been supportive of the bill, Benish said.
"If we can get those tax credits, we feel the additional private funding, the third leg, will fall into place," he said.
Berks firms expect to reap benefits of coal resurgence
A number of local companies are likely to be involved in the planning and construction of energy-producing plants.