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BRAYTON POINT POWER PLANT - Antipollution Efforts 'Intense'

Posted on: Wednesday, 5 October 2005, 18:00 CDT

By C. EUGENE EMERY JR. Journal Staff Writer

* There's a lot of construction going on at Brayton Point, as more than 200 Somerset residents observed during tours of the power plant on Saturday.

* * *

SOMERSET - Thirteen-year-old William Conroy liked the control rooms. All the screens reminded him of his video games.

His friend, JohnThomas "J.T." Barbosa, 11, was simply impressed with how big everything was.

Many people -- sporting hard hats, safety goggles and, at times, ear plugs -- seem to come away impressed as Dominion Energy opened the doors of the Brayton Point Power Station for free tours on Saturday.

By 1:30 p.m., three and a half hours into the event with a half- hour to go, 210 people had begun or completed the tour. And visitors were still coming in.

People living near the plant got first crack at the reservations. Dominion mailed out invitations to people who live in the shadow of the power station. It generates more energy than any fossil fuel facility in the Northeast -- enough for 1.6 million homes -- but is often criticized because it's the biggest source of carbon dioxide, the gas that causes global warming.

Much of the tour was designed to put that into perspective, and plant officials emphasized that Dominion is spending hundreds of millions to take a plant that already meets federal standards and scrub its effluent even further.

There's a lot of construction going on at the facility, as the visitors saw.

The three big anti-pollution projects:

* A new $46 million ash-reduction system that will reburn the ash created when coal is burned and store it in a giant tan-colored dome so it can be recycled, and used to make cement. The system is expected to be operating sometime in the summer. The plant generates about 300,000 tons of ash each year.

"We'll be able to recycle 100 percent of it," Dominion spokesman Dan Genest said.

* A mercury reduction system costing over $100 million and designed to dramatically reduce the amount of elemental mercury waste in the plant. Brayton Point now generates about 123 pounds of the highly toxic material per year. The project will gradually reduce that amount to as low as 19 pounds by 2012.

* A $160-million ammonia-based scrubbing system that works like a car's catalytic converter to remove nitrogen-based pollutants from the exhaust coming from the plant. Two such Selective Catalytic Reduction units are being built. There's room for a third, if needed. The first unit is expected to come on line in June. The second should be completed by the end of next year.

"It will make us, far and away, the cleanest coal-burning plant in New England," said operations coordinator Peter Balkus as he surveyed all the work in progress. "The amount of construction going on is quite intense."

Genest said although the plant meets federal pollution standards, "When we're done, it will be a lot cleaner."

Residents weren't shy with their questions, asking about pollution levels, what the warm discharge water is doing to the fish, and inquiring about the coal dust that plant officials are always fighting to keep down using spray towers.

Bette Barbosa, J.T.'s mother, said she brought her son and his friend for the tour because she had a similar look at the plant during a school field trip when she was 10 years old.

How have things changed?

"I remember there were no computers," just lots of levers, she recalled.

Another Swansea neighbor, Ann Tschirch, has lived across the Lees River from the plant for decades. Her family didn't mind looking at it; her husband was an engineer and was familiar with the power plant, she said.

She was most struck by the noise in the cavernous room with the big turbines.

"I feel badly for the people who work in there," she joked. "They must be deaf."

Louis Fayan, a Somerset resident for more than half a century, said he was impressed when plant officials said the state's pollution standards are, in some ways, stricter than California, suggesting that the Bay State is "ahead of the curve."

The tour "was nicely done," he said. "Very professional."

To contact Gene Emery, phone (508) 674-8401 or e-mail gemery@projo.com.

* * *

POLLUTION REDUCERS

Although the Brayton Point Power Plant meets federal pollution standards, "When we're done, it will be a lot cleaner," according to Dominion spokesman Dan Genest.

Construction projects include:

* A new $46 million ash-reduction system that will reburn the ash created when coal is burned. The ash will be stored so it can be recycled, and used to make cement. The system is expected to be operating sometime in the summer. The plant generates about 300,000 tons of ash each year.

* A mercury reduction system costing more than $100 million and designed to dramatically reduce the amount of elemental mercury waste in the plant. Brayton Point now generates about 123 pounds of the highly toxic material per year. The project will gradually reduce that amount to about 19 pounds by 2012.

* A $160-million ammonia-based scrubbing system that works like a car's catalytic converter to remove nitrogen-based pollutants from the exhaust coming from the plant. Two such Selective Catalytic Reduction units are being built. The first unit is expected to come on line in June and the second should be by the end of next year.

"It will make us, far and away, the cleanest coal-burning plant in New England," operations coordinator Peter Balkus said.

* * *

* Dominion Energy operations coordinator and tour guide Peter Balkus, an engineer, above right, takes visitors around the exterior of the Brayton Point Power Plant

and its coal piles Saturday. With him are, from left, Veronica Vidal and Andrew Vidal, both of Waltham, and Ann Tshchirch of Swansea. Behind them are Carol Vidal of Waltham, and Manny Santos of Somerset. At left, Balkus describes the construction projects ongoing at the plant for the day's visitors.

JOURNAL PHOTOS / KRIS CRAIG

* Dominion Energy, new owner of the Brayton Point Power Plant in Somerset, held tours of the plant Saturday, when visitors could see, and hear, the turbine room for themselves.

JOURNAL PHOTO / KRIS CRAIG

Source: Providence Journal

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