The Mesaba Project proposes to use ConocoPhillips’ E-Gas™ Technology with the 262 MW Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Project in Terre Haute, Indiana, as a framework. This site will be used as the basis for costing, however construction costs at the Wabash plant were actually twice what they originally estimated.

There is also a history of unresolved water permit violations at the plant upon which this project is based -- process wastewater levels of selenium, cyanide and arsenic were in violation of the Wabash permit, and levels of selenium and cyanide were "routinely" out of compliance.

Documents:
Wabash River DoE Assessment
Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Project: DoE Assessment
January 2002

Project Update
The Wabash River Coal Gasification Repowering Project
September 2000

Wabash River Final Report
Final Technical Report
August 2000

Articles:
Wabash River Energy coal gasification plant sits idle
Platts
September 17, 2004

The operator of a nearly decade-old coal gasification plant in Indiana finds itself in a conundrum: idled for several months earlier this year for repairs, the plant is again ready to produce synthetic gas. But it cannot get the electricity it needs to operate from its only syngas customer, PSI Energy, because of unpaid power bills.

So, one of the few coal gasification facilities in the U.S. sits idle along the banks of the Wabash River in West Terre Haute, its once-bright future clouded in uncertainty.

Built by Destec Energy as part of a demonstration project under the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Clean Coal Technology program, the gasification plant went into operation in 1995. In 1997, Dynegy acquired all of Destec's assets, including its gasification technology and the plant next door to PSI's Wabash River coal-fired generating station in West Terre Haute.

PSI, Indiana's largest electric utility, won approval from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission in 1999 to pay $265.7 million to Dynegy to buy out the remaining 20-plus years of an uneconomical 25-year contract with the Houston-based company for coal gasification services. Dynegy subsequently sold the gasification plant to Global Energy, a Cincinnati-based independent power producer, and PSI agreed to buy syngas from Wabash River Energy, the Global subsidiary that assumed operation of the plant.

An extension of the original PSI/Global contract is scheduled to expire in late September, and no one knows - or, at least, is saying - if it will be renewed.

Steven Vick, the gasification plant's general manager, said last week the facility lacks sufficient power to restart. PSI "demanded an advance payment for startup power," an undisclosed amount Wabash River Energy is unwilling and unable to pay, Vick said.

A PSI spokeswoman said Wabash River Energy owes her company a "significant amount of money" and has refused, thus far, to a debt-payment plan acceptable to the Cinergy subsidiary. Vectren, an Evansville, Ind.-based natural gas and electric company, cut off gas service to Wabash River Energy earlier this year for nonpayment.

PSI has not shut off electric service, but refuses to supply the approximately 35 MW the gasification plant needs to operate until delinquent electric bills are paid.

When operating, the gasification plant produces syngas for PSI. The utility then burns the gas in its approximately 262-MW Wabash River station. Vick said Wabash River earlier this year operated on natural gas, which he claimed is about double the price of syngas.

There is speculation PSI could end up owning the gasification plant, though neither the utility nor Wabash River Energy is commenting on such a possibility. "We never comment about acquisitions or mergers," the PSI spokeswoman said.

The speculation is fueled, in part, by Cinergy's stated intent to build an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant in the Midwest, presumably in Indiana or Ohio, in the next few years. A Cinergy spokesman said last week the Cincinnati-based company "continues to be interested in a commercial IGCC project but we have not made any final decisions on locations or timing of such a project."