Great news for Mississippians: clean-coal electricity will soon be bringing more low-cost energy and more jobs to your state:
Mississippi Power Co. will proceed with a planned coal-fired, electric-generating plant in Kemper County.
Mississippi Power officials say the plant will create 260 permanent jobs and 1,000 jobs during the construction phase. Brian Henson, executive director of the Kemper County Economic Development Authority, said many in the community support the project, mainly because of the jobs it will create. He said the county’s unemployment rate is 14.1 percent. “It’s one of those projects you wish for, but you never actually see,” Henson said.
As Mississippi Power announced yesterday, this clean coal power plant will use integrated gasification technology to provide affordable electricity to hundreds of thousands of Magnolia state households and businesses:
The proposed 582-megawatt plant is expected to come online by 2014 and will use lignite, a low-cost energy source found in Mississippi. This energy source will be added to Mississippi Power’s existing fuel mix of natural gas and coal and will allow the company and its customers to avoid the volatility and growing costs associated with other fuels.
Mississippi Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Company. Mississippi Power provides retail electric service to approximately 200,000 customers in 23 southeast Mississippi counties.
With new coal-based power plants being constructed around the nation boasting technology that can reduce regulated emissions by more than 90 percent, this new plant in Mississippi shows that CCT will continue to be a large part of our energy production today and in the future.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is committed to the idea that America can have the affordable, reliable electricity we need, with the clean environment we want. ACCCE’s Behind the Plug blog is the place for up-to-date news and analysis on clean coal technology developments and energy policy progress.