Westmoreland Power Inc. has notified state regulators it plans to build a 500-megawatt power plant near Gascoyne in southwestern North Dakota, on the site of a former coal mine. Westmoreland, which is based in Colorado Springs, Colo., recently sent a letter to the Public Service Commission declaring its intentions, along with a $100,000 filing fee, commission President Susan Wefald said Wednesday.
The letter is not a guarantee the project will be built, but it is considered a strong signal of interest. Westmoreland intends to begin construction late next year, and have the plant running by 2013, said Robert Holzwarth, the company's president. Westmoreland and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co., of Bismarck, had been jointly planning the construction of a smaller power plant at the Gascoyne site, but MDU dropped out to concentrate on a separate project in South Dakota.
Westmoreland is presently awaiting a state Health Department decision on whether to issue an air quality permit for the project. The company wants to use two "circulating fluidized bed" boilers to produce steam, which will turn a generator to produce electricity. The boiler technology reduces emissions of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, two key pollutants that result from coal-fired power. Building the plant will represent an investment of $900 million, Holzwarth said.
The company will also need to develop a new lignite mine to supply the plant's fuel. Wefald said the plant site is atop a deep aquifer of salty water, called the Broom Creek Formation that underlies most of western North Dakota. The U.S. Department of Energy believes saline aquifers would be excellent storage locations for carbon dioxide gas that is produced by coal-fueled plants, she said.