Current Projects
Soaring construction costs and uncertainty with regard to carbon dioxide (CO2) legislation have led to delays for many coal conversion projects around the country. Since 2000, construction costs for building a power plant have increased about 135 percent. As of mid-February 2008, costs climbed about 27 percent from the previous year. Compounding the problem of rising costs is the uncertainty of the future environmental landscape. Legislation to reduce CO2 emissions is currently pending before the U.S. Senate. Furthermore, both the Clean Air Mercury Rule and the Clean Air Interstate Rule have been struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., forcing the federal government and individual states to go back to the drawing board to formulate plans for mercury, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate emission reductions. The emission reduction requirements will likely be more stringent than those struck down. The Lignite Vision 21 Program projects have not been immune to these challenges.
The primary objective of the Lignite Energy Council’s Lignite Vision 21 Program (LV21P) is to provide technical assistance to the LV21P participants under contract with the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC). The LV21P team continues to assist in developing and implementing legal, marketing, generation, environmental and transmission strategies that will help preserve the existing lignite operations and expand the industry through new lignite-based electrical generation facilities, coal-to-liquids facilities, coal-to-synthetic natural gas or other lignite energy conversion applications. The State of North Dakota has made a significant commitment to each participant in the LV21P, which consists of feasibility studies, matching investment funds and an attractive package of tax incentives. Following is a status report of each LV21P project under contract with the NDIC.