'Clean coal' power-plant project is a debacle, puts financial burden on customers in a poor state

A "clean coal" power plant that was designed to be a model "for future power plants to help slow the dangerous effects of global warming;" that was supposed to "bring thousands of jobs to Mississippi, the nation’s poorest state; and to extend a lifeline to the dying coal industry" is two years behind schedule and nearly $5 billion over budget, Ian Urbina reports for The New York Times, offering new details of a promised boon that is appearing more like a boondoggle. (Wikipedia map: Kemper County)

"The Kemper project is a story of how a monopoly utility, with political help from the Mississippi governor and from federal energy officials who pressured state regulators in letters to support the project, shifted the burden of one of the most expensive power plants ever built onto the shoulders of unwitting investors and some of the lowest-income ratepayers in the country," Urbina writes.

"Kemper’s rising price tag and other problems will probably affect the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules on new power plants, and also play into broader discussions about the best way to counter climate change. EPA regulations in effect require new coal plants to have carbon capture technology but are being held up in federal court partly by arguments that the technology is not cost-effective."

"The plant and its owner, Southern Co., are the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and ratepayers, alleging fraud, are suing the company," Urbina writes. "Members of Congress have described the project as more boondoggle than boon. The mismanagement is particularly egregious, they say, given the urgent need to rein in the largest source of dangerous emissions around the world: coal plants."

"Kemper’s rising price tag and other problems will probably affect the EPA’s proposed rules on new power plants, and also play into broader discussions about the best way to counter climate change," Urbina writes. "EPA regulations in effect require new coal plants to have carbon capture technology but are being held up in federal court partly by arguments that the technology is not cost-effective."