What is the history of the Salem Harbor Generation Center?

The Salem Harbor Power Station started generating electricity from coal for Salem residents in 1951. In 2012, the plant’s owner, Dominion, announced plans to shut it down due to growing public and legal pressures that included a citizen’s suit for the plant’s violations of the Clean Air Act. Last year, Dominion sold the plant and surrounding property to New Jersey–based Footprint Power, which announced its intentions to convert part of it into a natural gas facility set to go online in 2016.  

 

"The following description of the gas plant proposed for Salem is taken from the Prevention of Significant Deterioration Permit Application No. NE-12-022 Transmittal No. X254064 

 

What is the project description? 

Footprint Power Salem Harbor Development LP proposes to construct and operate a nominal 630 Megawatt (MW) natural gas fired, quick start (capable of producing 300 MW within 10 minutes of startup) combined cycle electric generating facility (the proposed Facility) at Salem Harbor Station. With duct firing, the proposed Facility will be capable of generating an additional 62 MW, for a total of 692 MW. 
  
The proposed Facility components include two combustion turbine generators with integrated duct burners, Heat Recovery Steam Generators, and Steam Turbine Generators, as well as an auxiliary boiler, an emergency engine/generator set, a fire pump, an aqueous NH3 storage tank, an auxiliary cooling tower, and generator step-up (GSU) transformers. 

 

What are the primary concerns? 

• Our Health: 109 tons of fine particulate dumped into our air and lungs every year for 40 to 50 years, plus the use of ammonia and release of other toxins

• Our Safety: This plant requires a 16" gas line go through a densely populated neighborhood. With a history of gas explosions, gas plants do not belong in our yards. 

• Our Homes: Climate change is a serious threat to our coastal communities. Massachusetts is already 67% dependent on gas, more than sufficient to "firm" wind. The issue is that it competes with and displaces the addition of renewable energy rather than aid in renewable development. Read Union of Concerned Scientists report. 

• Our Future: ISO NE has predicted a one to two year 167 MW shortfall of energy that can be replaced with existing infrastructure. Economically, this new 692 MW plant must run for at least 25 years  to cover the capital costs while the predicted life of such a plant is 40 to 50 years.

• Our Nation: The source of this gas is from fracking, a highly controversial and damaging mining operation that dumps chemicals into huge amounts of our water supplies and releases significant quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into our air. The more demand we create for gas, the more fracking is done. 

 

How many jobs will the plant create? 

27: The number of jobs at a comparable-sized gas plant. So far, Footprint has refused to reveal how many jobs its gas and diesel plant would create.

 

 

How large is the proposed plant? 

720 megawatts. 

Furthermore, the plant will not be built in time to fill the alleged 150 MW energy gap for the year 2016. This energy gap can be filled by continuing the existing programs of conservation, efficiency, and renewables. 

 

What happens to Salem if we choose not to act? 

Our actions now are a 60-year decision. The Footprint plan burdens Salem with another lifetime of hosting a baseload, fossil fuel-burning power plant adjacent to homes and our coast.

At a time when we already have better options to generate energy and skyrocketing property insurance costs from rising oceans, is 60 years of more fossil fuel burning really the best we can do?

The economic vibrancy of 65 acres along the Massachusetts coastline in one of the country’s most historic communities has regional, as well as city, importance. Personally, I would support the state helping with Salem’s taxes over several years to bridge the time it takes to get it right. Sixty years is a very long time to live with a mistake." - Jane Bright

 

What will the plant emit? 

 

According to Footprint: 

Nitrogen oxides – 158.6 tons per year

Carbon monoxide – 214.1 tons per year

Sulfur dioxide – 31.5 tons per year

Particulate matter – 109.9 tons per year

Ammonia – 56.0 tons per year

Carbon dioxide – 2.5 million tons per year

 

How will the gas and electricity reach the plant? 

Footprint has not fully described its proposed path to connect a new pipeline to provide the fuel for the plant nor has it assessed the environmental impact on the harbor, the air, and surrounding communities. The public has not been informed about how the hookup will be managed - horizontally under homes?

 

Will gas be cheaper?  

As the federal government begins regulating the impact of fracking for gas and shale oil - the degraded water table, the radioactivity released, and chemicals injected into the earth to fracture the shale, how will stiffer regulations affect the price of gas and the viability of this plant?

 

 

 

For More Information: 

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/28/salem-power-plantsparkselectricdebate.html

http://healthlink.org/footprint-gas-plant-proposal-133.html

http://www.clf.org/blog/clean-energy-climate-change/power-cost/