Is coal gasification ready?
Depends on who you ask. Only two small coal gasification power plants operate in the USA today: Tampa Electric’s Polk Power Station in Polk County, Fla.; and the Wabash River Power Station in West Terre Haute, Ind., jointly owned by SG Solutions and Duke. Each has been running for more than 10 years. Yet, including recent delays and cancellations, none of the 24 coal-fired power plants now under construction in 17 states is a gasification plant, according to an energy department report. Utilities proposing conventional plants usually say gasification power plants can’t be depended on to operate as consistently, or to generate as much electricity, as pulverized coal plants of the same size. Frank Maisano, a spokesman for New York-based Sithe Global Power, which has proposed a 750-megawatt pulverized coal plant in southeastern Nevada, says the gasification technology is “frankly not really ready … to meet demand where there is huge growth,” because it hasn’t been commercially proven. He
