Understanding The Trade-offs

To The Editor:

Under the headline “Dubious Distinction” The Fayette County Record quoted an organization in its vilification of the Fayette Power Project, which two generations of Fayette County residents have built, maintained, and operated, as one of the “dirtiest” plants in the United States.

Whenever someone uses a word like dirty, we know that they are not trying to elicit a thoughtful response, but an emotional reaction of disgust or fear. In this case, the organization “Find Energy LLC” wants us to be disgusted or fearful of FPP.

There’s no need, but we can understand rationally the tradeoffs that exist in its continued operation. The plant burns Western States coal and scrubs pollutants out of the exhaust with crushed limestone from Central Texas and water from the Colorado River. That’s what makes the steam you see off Texas 71.

At the end of the process, you have a lot of carbon dioxide, which is the bubbly stuff in soda water. It is also a greenhouse gas and there’s a very strong case that carbon dioxide released to the environment raises global temperatures. But it ain’t dirt. There’s nothing wrong with how the plant is operated. It’s within legal parameters. Carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere is not going to cause health problems. So, let’s refrain from being disgusted or fearful. Let’s be thoughtful.

Natural gas supplies proved themselves unreliable last February, as they have in the past. Solar and wind provides power without carbon – weather permitting. There are only two kinds of Texas power plants that can have a stockpile of reliable fuel: coal plants and nuclear plants. You cannot store power for even a moment; but you can stockpile coal for weeks or months.

FPP helped the grid immeasurably last February. Like many things in life, it has value and it has an environmental cost. It is a multi-million dollar public investment we made because nuclear power proved to be horrendously expensive and natural gas proved to be volatile in cost and supply.

That was four decades ago. Maybe there’s a way that has less environmental impact on the world but as much positive impact on the reliability of our electric grid – at a reasonable cost. Vilifying a power source is never helpful. Let’s keep the discussion, well, clean.

By the way, who is “Find Energy LLC” and why are they telling us about “dirty electricity”? How are they funded? Its website is anything but transparent. I tried to follow the money, but it led to a dead end.

Robert Cullick

Robert Cullick is retired, and worked for the Lower Colorado River Authority and the City of Austin, co-owners of FPP. He lives in Fayette County and Austin, depending on day of the week.