GE and UW combine futures

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

By Troy Kavanaugh

In the wake of the recent presidential election, the GE Energy Corporation out of Atlanta has teamed-up with the students and faculty of the University of Wyoming to make amends with the Equality State’s unique position as a necessary and lucrative national energy power supplier and the highly volatile and caustic practitioner of  coal bed methane extraction. The proposed High Plains Gasification Advanced Technology Center was jointly lauded earlier this month by GE Energy’s Power and Water president and CEO, Steve Bolze, university president Tom Buchanan, and Governor Dave Freudenthal.

Although economic concerns presided largely over this month’s presidential election, both candidates campaigned passionately for advancing clean coal technologies. The announcement between GE Energy and UW has cut the red ribbon of hope, ushering in what may be the first glimpse of America’s mixed and future energy sector. Under the agreement, GE and UW have submitted together an outline, the initial brushstrokes, of perhaps a broader portrait of the nation’s greater future in energy independence.

Wyoming’s frail, and even precarious part, in meeting the nation’s voracious consumption of energy played out recently and locally in documenter Todd Darling’s A Snowmobile for George. A free screening was held at the university back in October and left many students to consider the critical financial part drilling played in their own tuition costs (by state and as of 2007, Wyoming college education was deemed the second most affordable behind Florida). In part, the film chronicled how desperately coal bed methane extraction, under current practices, has devastated the rural ranchlands of Wyoming along the Powder River Basin resulting in wasted precious water reserves, mass erosion, and soil damage.

Coal generates nearly 50 percent of the nation’s electricity and Wyoming’s vast coal reserves furnish roughly 40 percent of the resource currently used in the United States in its conversion into electricity. Gasification, perhaps, could be the reconciliation between the ardent local pressure to preserve state rural and agricultural resources while still profiting from a seemingly insatiable and parched national need. Instead of relying on the damaging discharge of billions of gallons of water from current CBM wells and stations, gasification, a process more than a century old, would use pressure, heat and steam to convert coal into synthesis gas (syngas) to generate electric power and other products.

Gov. Freudenthal commented on what he considered “a community of interests” between GE, the Powder River Basin, and the university but noted the greater accomplishment the agreement scored and secured for the future of the state itself.
 “I am confident that the research developed at this facility will help us answer some of these questions and keep coal in the mix of cleaner and more secure domestic fuels long into the future” he was quoted on the university’s Web site this week. “This is the beginning of what I hope is a productive, long-term relationship with GE to demonstrate how Wyoming coal can be utilized into the future.”

The location of the proposed development is still to be determined, but the agreement does enable work to begin immediately on design, development, and construction with the expected operation of the facility to commence by 2012.

Costs will be split between GE Energy and the university where the state contributions will largely come from money appropriated from the federal Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund. The university Web site reported that appropriations of $20 million were secured in the initial proposal of this year but that Gov. Freudenthal proposes to seek an additional $30 Million from the State Legislature in 2009. Under the reached agreement, the university will own the facility outright and be responsible for its operation, GE Energy will in turn, lease the facility from the university with the option to renew.

“We’re very pleased to reach this step in the process,” UW president Buchanan was quoted on the Web site. “This project allows UW to advance critical coal research and to offer unique educational opportunities to our students.”

More information can be found at the University of Wyoming Web site at www.uwyo.edu/ or GE Energy at www.ge.com/energy. For more on current coal bed methane extraction and the Powder River Basin, visit www.powderriverbasin.org/. PJH


PERMALINK:
GE and UW combine futures | Planet JH News Article: Development

Leave a Comment