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Interview – Brad Campbell :: Purgen One_Part 1

***UPDATE*** On Tuesday Oct 20th, the town council of Linden voted 4-7 against granting the land use request to SCS Energy.  Round 1 goes to the environmentalists.

This morning we have part 3 in our series on Coal energy and the battle over Purgen One, the prototype Carbon Capture and Sequestration plant proposed for the township of Linden, in Union County NJ. In past episodes we heard from the environmental opposition, this week we hear from the Lead Council to the developer SCS Energy.

Pre Interview Set Up

To give the listeners some insight, Union County, besides being among the most densely populated areas in the nation, is home to much Industry, Pharmaceutical manufacturing, and Petroleum refineries. The headquarters of companies like Merck, Lucent, Schering Plough, and Wakefern Food are there, as is the largest petroleum storage facility on the East Coast. Liberty International Airport, and Elizabeth Seaport the largest container cargo port on the East Coast are located in Union County as well.

Speaking with us today is Mr. Bradley Campbell, he is currently the chief spokesman for SCS Energy, a Massachusetts based company that is proposing to build a 750MW coal plant in Linden, NJ.  This is not your grandpa’s coal plant.  By that I mean the plant’s design calls for the newest technology under development in order to clean up what is generally thought of as the dirtiest of our conventional fossil fuel energy sources – coal.  Welcome to Newlygreens on the Morning Blend on WP88.7 fm Mr. Campbell.

C: To get us started can you tell us some of the significant ways the Purgen plant differs from a conventional coal plant?

G:  COAL IS STILL DIRTY BEFORE IS GETS TO THE FRONT DOOR

This plant is cutting edge, it is designed to manage the toxic byproducts of burning coal more effectively, both air pollution and solid waste, and in that sense it is a certainly a cleaner coal plant.

But Purgen will still get it’s coal the old fashioned way; specifically mining and shipping operations by barge and rail will be performed in the same ways that have caused both health and environmental concerns for decades.  How do you respond to that?

Will any of the coal used at Purgen come from Mountaintop removal Mines?

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C:  ENERGY NEEDED TO SEQUESTER CO2 – A HIDDEN COST

Out of the 750MW this plant can produce, a full third of that, 250MW, of that energy will be expended capturing, compressing, and pumping the CO2?  Another statistic I’ve heard is that for every four CCS-equipped power plants, we will need a fifth power plant just to run the pumps.  If a sustainable energy portfolio is our ultimate aim, as I think you agree it should be, is this really a sustainable approach to take?  Doesn’t this technology in fact suggest we would have to consume more coal more rapidly?

MR. CAMPBELL said that our estimate of the plant using 1/3^rd of it’s generation to power sequestration operations was an exaggeration.  He then told us that the 750MW plant will use 250MW on site.  We would like to point out that this is  IN FACT THE 1/3^rd we had estimated not AN exaggeration AS HE INDICATED.

The point we were trying to uncover here is that this plant, as efficient as it may be, burns more coal in order to deal with it’s coal-based pollution. This means pulling more coal out of the ground, creating more solid waste containing mercury, cadmium and sulfur as well as, more CO2 emissions, all so we can bury the CO2 emissions created.

As environmental groups and scientists call for us to move away from coal as a fuel source this plant is a boon to the coal industry in that it would call for us to burn more coal more rapidly.  A sustainable creedo is to do more with less, this seems a way to do more with more at best.

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G:  ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

As a consequence of all the industry located in the area, Union County has failed to meet the national ambient air quality standard and has drawn attention as an Environmental Justice watch zone.  How can we justify building another massive emission source in this area?

You have sited the support of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) who does support CCS implementation under specific circumstances one of which being “…That the siting of the facility does not adversely affect disproportionately burdened communities”.  Given the reports of currently unhealthy air quality, Union would seem to be a disproportionately burdened community wouldn’t it?

According to the UNION COUNTY ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH  ASSESSMENT AND IMPROVEMENT PLAN Air Pollution Control has been and will continue to be one of Union County’s highest priorities

Will Ohio River Valley and Hudson coal plants actually be shut down if Purgen is built?

You refer to emissions from truck traffic if the board approved an alternate proposal to build warehouse space on the site.  But those emissions do not currently exist, that is only a proposal.  In fact by adding Purgen there would be a net increase in air pollution from what is currently being emitted in the county today correct?

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B – CAPTURING CO2 FROM OTHER INDUSTRY IN THE AREA (edited from final interview for time)

CCS is currently VERY expensive to operate.  In order for Purgen to be profitable it will have to bring in additional revenue by selling the capture and sequestration of Carbon Dioxide to neighboring industry; the neighboring oil refinery and natural gas power plant are likely candidates for this.

So to be financially viable your proposal requires retrofitting the refinery and power plant with carbon capture technology in the future.  Isn’t it pose a tremendous risk to assume these technologies will actually develop at a price that makes them worth implementing?

How much of this project is being supported by Tax dollars? answer $100-200 million per year

Purgen will sequester 5 million tons of it’s own emissions and 5 million more from it’s neighbors (hopefully) and receive a government subsidy of $20/ton

EXPERIMENTAL TECHNOLOGY

The proposal seems to bring together many different waste management ideas under one umbrella.  Is there anywhere else this combination of technologies has been brought together so we have some sense of how successfully it might actually work? (Are there plans to make it the study model)

Is there currently an organization charged with overseeing sequestered carbon sites to make sure the carbon is staying put?

What happens if the carbon starts to escape 75 years from now, after the Purgen plant has shut down?

With respect to the Slipner sequestration site in the North Sea we’d like to refer everyone to an article published by GreenPeace that details operations there.  A link to that in the show notes.  It’s a bit too complicated to go into now, but in the meantime, suffice it to say there are differences of opinion about how well suited for long term storage that site is and how well it models what will happen off the cost of NJ due to differences in geology.  We’ll have more on this in an upcoming show. Slipner Presentation Slides

We had an uncomfortable chuckle over earthquakes but according to  a NY Time article in April of this year, Leanardo Seeber, a research scientist at Columbia University has said this technology has “Huge implications for causing earthquakes.”

Finally was Mr. Campbell’s point that the CO2 stored from this plant need only be stored for 150-200 years and not forever.  In effect banking our emissions for future generations to deal with.  Personally I found this to be one of the most troubling comments

Groups Publicly in Opposition to Purgen One:

“We, the undersigned organizations, oppose the proposed PurGen One plant in Linden, New Jersey because of its negative environmental and public health impacts.  We need clean, renewable energy in NJ, not more fossil fuels.”

Tremley Point Alliance

Linden Society for Sustainable Development

Environment New Jersey

Sierra Club – New Jersey Chapter

NJ Environmental Federation

Environmental Research Foundation

Edison Wetlands Association

Clean Ocean Action

Essex Greens

Physicians for Social Responsibility

New York/New Jersey Baykeeper

Jersey Coast Angler’s Association

New Jersey Federation of Sportsman’s Clubs

BlueWave New Jersey

New Jersey PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility)

Cornucopia Network of New Jersey

New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance

Northeast Sustainable Energy Association

Green Party of Monmouth County

People’s Organization for Progress, Central Jersey

Green Hearts Environmental Movement of Bloomfield College

Green Faith

350.org

Other National Organization’s Positions on CCS

Gubernatorial Candidates:

Chris Christie

Chris Daggett

Greg Pason (Socialist Candidate)

Oct. 24th, the International Day of Climate Action, 350.org

Other Stats:

150 Proposed Coal Plants, 101 have been delayed or scrapped

POINTS OF CLARIFICATION:

(Comment edited out)With respect to Mr. Campbell’s statements about air quality and the impact of the Purgen Plant on Union County.  He stated that Purgen will be cleaner than the truck traffic that would come with an alternate proposal to build warehouses on the site.  I’d like to point out that just because one polluting proposal is claimed to pollute less than another, that doesn’t necessarily mean that either of the proposals are in the best interest of the overall health of the community

For the benefit of our listeners outside the immediate area we thought it would be useful to give you some background on the area where this plant will be built.

C: All this industry has come with a steep price, with Union now listed as an Environmental Justice Zone, meaning the residents of Union County shoulder an unjust burden of pollution per capita.  The air quality there ranks among the worst – in a State unfortunately known for being polluted.

I would like to note that our interview with Mr. Campbell originally ran over a hour.  In the interest of time we have edited it down.  We have been carful to preserve the context of his comments. To make points clearer we also added some clarifying comments not in the original interview.  If you would like a copy of the full interview please email us through newlygreens.com and we will be happy to send you a copy.

SUPPROTING INFORMATION HERE