Spiritwood Plant, Jamestown, ND

The Spiritwood 99-megawatt coal-fired power plant is now under construction.

It is located in the tiny community of Spiritwood, just east of Jamestown ND, and about 90 miles from the Minnesota border. It is to be operated by Great River Energy. Reportedly, the coal source will be North Dakota lignite from the Falkirk Mine near Underwood ND, which has a contract to supply GRE’s Coal Creek station. However, the plant is being built adjacent to a Burlington Northern main railroad freight line, which opens the possibility of bringing in coal from the Powder River Basin.

It remains somewhat unclear where the electricity from the plant will be shipped. According to Governor John Hoeven’s November 6, 2007 press release, the plant would provide “62 megawatts of base-load electricity to Great River Energy’s customers in Minnesota and 37 megawatts of peaking electricity for sale to the regional energy market.”

A GRE power plant presentation, apparently from January, 2008, said the plant would provide 35-45 megawatts to “customers in Minnesota.” At an August 4, 2008 tour of the construction site, GRE told a DRC Board member that “electricity is being sold locally,” supposedly to the adjacent barley malting plant—although it is served by Otter Tail Power, not GRE. It looks like a shell game of artifical electron separation to skirt Minnesota law.

The nature of the project has changed since its inception. The facility initially contained an ethanol component but that portion as sinced has dropped out, at least for now. Originally, the idea was that the existing Cargill malting barley plant at the site would provide “gray water” for the ethanol plant, and the GRE coal burner would provide waste heat. The money behind the ethanol plant was Harold Newman, a Jamestown businessman who made his fortune in billboards.

Newman announced in July that he was putting the ethanol plant on hold because high corn prices made it non-competitive. He also acknowledged that there was not enough water available locally for both the power plant and the ethanol facility. It appears now that the coal burner will get the Cargill gray water and intends to supplement it with water from the Jamestown municipal water treatment facility, but as far as we understand, there is no agreement in place.

It may be possible that the coal plant will not obtain enough water to operate at full capacity and may have to modify its plans. However, there appear to be no regulatory handles in North Dakota to stop it. The 99-megawatt size was picked to keep it one megawatt below the threshold for a state siting permit. Dakota Resource Council opposed other air quality permits (Gascoyne, the original South Heart proposed coal burner, the Red Trail Energy ethanol plant in Richardton) based on their reliance on North Dakota’s screwy Prevention of Significant Deterioration modeling protocols. DRC discussed this type of opposition to Spiritwood, but it is too far away to impact Class I airsheds, and DRC did not submit comments.

In December of 2007, DRC asked to reopen the comment period based on the removal of the Maximum Achievable Control Technology requirements from the draft permit, and the reclassification of the facility from a major source of hazardous air pollutants to a minor source. The state Department of Health denied our request.