The Georgia Court of Appeals today reversed a landmark 2008 Fulton County Superior Court ruling regarding a proposed “clean coal” plant in southwest Georgia.
That ruling invalidated an air quality permit issued to Plant Longleaf in Early County because the state failed to place a limit on the facility’s carbon emissions.
UPDATE after the jump.
Dynegy, a Texas-based energy company that proposed what would’ve been Georgia’s first new coal power plant in 20 years, announced today that it has pulled out of the project.
From a company press release:
Dynegy Inc. (NYSE:DYN) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with LS Power Associates, L.P. to dissolve the two companies’ development joint venture. Under the terms of the dissolution, Dynegy will acquire exclusive rights, ownership and developmental control of all repowering or expansion opportunities related to its existing portfolio of operating assets. LS Power will acquire full ownership and developmental rights associated with various “greenfield” projects under consideration in Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan and Nevada, as well as other power generation and transmission development projects not related to Dynegy’s existing operating portfolio of assets.
The reason?
“The development landscape has changed significantly since we agreed to enter into the development joint venture with LS Power in the fall of 2006,” said Bruce A. Williamson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dynegy Inc. “Today, the development of new generation is increasingly marked by barriers to entry including external credit and regulatory factors that make development much more uncertain. In light of these market circumstances, Dynegy has elected to focus development activities and investments around our own portfolio where we control the option to develop and can manage the costs being incurred more closely.”
Or, in English: These plants are damn hard to finance and risky at a time when federal carbon legislation seems increasingly likely.
The proposed Early County plant — called Plant Longleaf — generated national headlines this summer when a Fulton County Superior Court judge ruled that the state Environmental Protection Division needed to take carbon emissions into account during the permitting process. That ruling — the first of its kind in the United States — was appealed by Dynegy. A company spokesman told CL that LS Power, the energy company’s partner in the Early County project, is now in control of Plant Longleaf’s development. An LS Power spokesperson was not available for comment. We’ll update when we hear word.
Georgians may find out next week if they get their first new coal power plant in 20 years.
Lawyers with GreenLaw, an environmental law firm that argued against the Longleaf Plant in Early County, said Fulton County Superior Court Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore will issue a ruling between Monday and Thursday. The case examines whether the state Environmental Protection Division acted appropriately in not requiring the proposed coal plant to regulate its carbon dioxide emissions, the greenhouse gas scientists say is concentrating in the atmosphere and causing global warming.
Dynegy Co. and LS Power, the two companies pushing the plant, say it would add to the impoverished county’s tax base and bring much-needed jobs to the area. A host of opponents and critics said most of the created jobs would be temporary construction positions and that any benefit to the county would be outweighed by the health impact of the plant’s harmful emissions. The Medical Association of Georgia issued a resolution opposing any new coal plants in the state because of their emissions’ unhealthy effects.
It’s a tough call, however. Even Moore expressed difficulty with the position in which she was placed, as she stated from the bench during the case’s June 3 hearing:
“No one can be employed if they’re falling down dying,” she said, adding that she had 19 boxes of documents sitting in the clerk’s office that she needed to examine. “We need to look at both the economy and the environment. That’s what I will do.”
Moore’s ruling could establish a precedent as well, something that Dynegy’s lawyers argued would be inappropriate were it decided by a judge rather than politicians. Should Moore rule against the plant, her court would be the first in the country to do so.
