Opinion

WYATT EMMERICH: Kemper plant generates a 'plethora of risks' The Southern Company is asking the Supreme Court to allow it to raise rates during construction to fund cost overruns as they happen. This is unprecedented, thanks to the actions of the Mississippi Legislature. After intense lobbying, the Legislature changed the law several years ago to allow such pay-as-you-go cost overruns. In the past, the project had to be completed first. In his April 3, 2010, dissent of the vote by the other two PSC commissioners, Presley wrote: "I dissent from the majority's order in this case because it does not sufficiently protect ratepayers of Mississippi Power Company from the great risks associated with the construction of this project and therefore leaves a potential for financial harm to both the Company and its ratepayers …. "The majority's order, rightfully, identifies the plethora of risks associated with the approval of this project. For these reasons alone, the Commission should not approve this project until more can be known about uncertainties related to each of these categories, including, but not limited to, carbon regulation and/or pricing, natural gas prices, technological advances in demand-side management and energy efficiency. My opinion in this case is not to preclude the project forever but to simply wait until more is known in the areas of uncertainty and at that time, be in a better position to make the correct decision." Presley's dissent goes on to question the legitimacy of the cost estimates, the advance in shale fracking, and, as natural gas prices decline, the uncertainty of the technology. As it stands today this technology has only run a total of 1,795 hours, which equates to 75 days of run time at the Wilsonville experimental gasification plant. Furthermore, the Mississippi lignite has been run at the rate of 5,610 pounds per hour at Wilsonville whereas this project would be expected to run at 401,145 pounds per hour. Synthesis gas flow at Wilsonville has been at a rate of 28,914 pounds per hour, whereas this project is proposed to have synthesis gas flow of 1,311,100 pounds per hour. Both the Mississippi lignite and the synthesis gas have only run approximately two percent of the totals projected in this project. The time of the demonstration at Wilsonville relative to the time of use during operation in the project is minimal and certainly not indicative that Transport Integrated Gasification will work at full scale. Conditional approval of this project without knowing whether or not TRIG will work, at the scale proposed, is equivalent of buying a car and having no idea whether or not the engine will run. Basically, Mississippi ratepayers are being used as the source of high risk venture capital funding for an unproven technology. If it works, the Southern Company gets to license the new technology and makes millions on its patents. If it fails, the Mississippi ratepayers are left holding the bag and paying possibly 50 percent more on their electric bills. Reprinted in Sun Herald 7/31/12