Published: May 12, 2008 09:38 pm         

Sinking ship

Pouring more money into Co-Gen plant may not be right course

Although the Western Greenbrier Co-Generation project is still alive, it’s hard to get too excited over last week’s announcement that $250,000 had been secured from a private source to, in manager Wayne Brown’s words, complete the first phase of the $416 million clean-coal, gob-burning project initially designed to generate enough electricity to power 85,000 homes, create hundreds of local jobs and provide a tremendous economic boost to the area.

What’s to get excited about when more than five years have passed since plans were unveiled for the project and the first phase has yet to be completed?

And while the first phase has to be completed to get to the second phase, and so on, the fact that $250,000 had been secured certainly is no guarantee the project is on solid footing.

As recently as March, Brown pleaded for public support in asking Sen. Robert C. Byrd to bail out the project because its financing bank had asked for an additional $25 million before issuing any bonds. “We are currently negotiating to secure that funding, but nothing is final just yet,” Brown said last week.

Of course, that bond sale has taken a different route over the past five years, too. When the project was announced in January 2003, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded it $107.5 million, half of the estimated $215 million cost. The other 50 percent was expected to be raised from the sale of bonds. But now, construction costs have skyrocketed from $215 million to a projected $416 million.

And we learned late last year that the West Virginia Economic Development Authority was on the hook for $3 million if the plant was not built. The EDA had guaranteed $3 million of a $4.87 million loan made to the project by First National Bank of Ronceverte to cover the local match to pay for engineering and feasibility studies. The bank decided not to extend the loan.

And finally, a group called Cleanbrier filed suit against the state Department of Environmental Protection concerning an air quality permit issued to the project. The group claimed construction had not begun during an 18-month window provided under the Clean Air Act.

Setbacks, delays, escalating costs ... you name it, and this project has encountered it. It was initially hailed as “the flagship project” in the advancement of clean coal technology. Most were excited about the prospects. But the ship has taken on water. And we now have to question whether continually pouring more money into it to keep it afloat during what is still seen as a long voyage is the right course.