After Pearsall visit, power plant team is undecided Jeorge Zarazua PEARSALL — The competition is still wide open for a location Texas can offer in a nationwide race to land a $1 billion non-polluting power plant, state officials said Tuesday. "There are no clear-cut winners," said Jay Kipper, a member of a team that visited Pearsall, its last stop among the nine Texas sites in the running for the project, called FutureGen. FutureGen Texas spokesman Chuck McDonald said the team left each site with unanswered questions. "All nine are strong, but they're all strong in different ways," he said, without elaborating. The state plans to choose a location to compete nationally for the federal project, a futuristic coal-fired plant that would produce electricity and hydrogen with near-zero pollutants. The government plans to spend $750 million on it, with a consortium of energy companies contributing the rest. In Pearsall, the visitors wanted to know how much in tax abatements local government entities were willing to give the consortium, which would own and operate the plant as a nonprofit corporation. They also suggested local officials line up one or more industries willing to contract to buy electricity from the 275-megawatt plant, as well as its hydrogen. That, the group said, would guarantee the project's viability. The suggestions didn't faze local officials, who eagerly showed off what the community has to offer after treating the guests to a barbecue lunch. They drove the team to the new high school, the new hospital, new businesses off Interstate 35 and, finally, to the proposed plant site. Frio County consultant Billy Horton said city and county officials are willing to donate 250 acres close to the interstate, a railroad, power lines of two electric providers, a hospital and a water treatment plant. "I just believe this site is an ideal site for what y'all are looking to do," Horton told FutureGen Texas members. Pearsall and Eagle Pass are the only South Texas communities vying for the plant. Other proposed sites are clustered in East Texas — near Lufkin , Palestine and Athens — and near College Station. McDonald said the state can't narrow down the list of its potential candidates until the U.S. Energy Department issues its request for proposals. That could happen in two to four weeks, said Kipper, associate director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin . "The work you've done on the proposal was phenomenal," he said. "The barbecue was phenomenal, as well." |