Energy and Environment MonitorOn July 28, 2008, the State of West Virginia announced the planned construction of the nation’s first modern coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant in the state’s Northern Panhandle. On October 23, 2008, West Virginia learned some bad news – the planned Northern Panhandle CTL plant would not be built due to current difficulties in the credit markets and downward movement in the energy markets.
However, other US CTL projects are proceeding -- Rentech, Inc.'s Mingo County, WV project, and SES projects in Mississippi and North Dakota. Another interesting CTL project involves the Crow Tribe in Montana, which plans to build and operate a new CTL plant.
The 12,000 member Crow Tribe in Montana has signed a 50-year development deal with Australian-American Energy Co., a subsidiary of Australian Energy Company, to build a $7 billion plant to convert coal into liquid diesel fuel. It would be among the first such projects in the nation. The plant will be called “Many Stars” and would employ up to 4,000 during construction, and employ 900 people in its mining and fuel-conversion operations. It initially would produce 50,000 barrels a day of diesel and other fuels. Future expansions of the Many Stars plant could eventually increase production to as much as 125,000 barrels of fuel a day.
Coal for the project would come from a mine yet to be developed by the tribe on the reservation, located just southeast of Billings. The Crow reservation sits atop some of the nation's largest coal reserves -- an estimated 9 billion tons of recoverable coal. Approximately one ton of coal would be needed for every barrel of fuel produced by the plant.
The agreement will provide the Crow Tribe with up to 50 percent of profits from the plant after investors in the project recoup their costs. Total proceeds to the tribe are projected to be up to $100 million a year for the first phase of fuels production, and could eventually top $1 billion annually -- sums that dwarf the Crow's current annual budget of about $26 million.
The project design calls for capturing CO2 for geo-sequestration and supply to enhanced-oil recovery projects to both provide an environmentally responsible project and further create additional energy opportunities in otherwise declining regional oil fields. The CTL plant will be in operation for as long as 50 years.
Located in Big Horn County on more than 2.2 million acres, the Crow Reservation is one of the poorest areas in Montana, with chronically high unemployment plaguing the tribe’s members, at about 47 percent unemployment at the end of 2007.
Crow Tribe Chairman Carl Venne expects environmental groups and other outsiders to oppose the project, but he says he and his tribe are prepared to do battle with anyone standing in the way of alleviating the Crows’ living conditions.
“People have to realize this is one of the poorest counties in the whole nation,” said Venne. “It means we will become self-sufficient as a tribe.”
To learn more about the Many Stars CTL plant in Montana, see the following web sites:
http://www.ausenergyco.com.au/
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results.html?articleid=24038
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2007/12/08/montana/a09120807_01.txt
http://bizmt.com/energyaccomp.asp
Information about the cancellation of the planned West Virginia CTL plant is located at The State Journal web site: http://statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=46267
This article was excerpted from Environment & Climate News, The State Journal and other public sources of information, and was authored by Rick Wilson, Acacia Environmental Group LLC. For more information on the author see here.
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