THE LINK: MARCH 2025 40 $400M in federal funding sought through U.S. DOE Alaska companies are working on plans for a large coal mine and a 400-megawatt power plant in a remote area 150 miles northwest of Anchorage. One customer, Matanuska Electric Association (MEA), is in discussions to purchase power, MEA CEO Tony Izzo, said at an Alaska Energy Authority board meeting. The developer, Terra Energy Center, an affiliate of Alaska-based Flatlands Energy Corp., would combine carbon capture technology in the power plant and transport carbon dioxide by pipeline to the Beluga gas field near Anchorage for underground injection and storage, Chad Schleucher, Terra Energy’s CEO, told the energy authority’s board in a briefing. The CO2 would be sequestered in unused reservoir space in the Beluga field under a new state program encouraging carbon capture and storage. Schleucher has asked the AEA, the state energy authority, to support the company’s application for a $400 million U.S. Department of Energy clean coal technology grant that the U.S. DOE will make available. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), the state’s development finance corporation, is considering a role in helping finance the power plant, its Executive Director Randy Ruaro said previously. The coal power plant, assuming a 400-megawatt capacity, is estimated to cost $2.2 billion in a preliminary cost estimate with an added $1.3 billion needed for the carbon capture facilities, according to materials presented by Terra Energy to the AEA board. If the federal clean energy tax credits are still available, the capital cost for the project including carbon capture would be reduced to $2.2 billion, according to the information presented. Schleucher said Flatlands has been working on its exploration of state coal leases in the area for six years and has identified 521 million tons of subbituminous coal with low sulfur. The coal is similar to large known resources in the Nenana Coal Fields further north, where Usibelli Coal Mine Inc. now operates Alaska’s only coal mine. The company also has done extensive environmental baseline monitoring in preparation for filing permit applications for the mine, Schleucher said. Terra Energy expects to complete preliminary Front-End Engineering and Design for the power plant by the end of March and plans to file its application for the U.S. DOE grant in July, he said. A concept paper for the project required by DOE was expected to be completed in March. The feasibility studies are based on the plant operating for 30 years, which would need about 225 million tons of coals, less than half of the coal resource identified in Flatlands’ exploration, according to materials given to the AEA board. Terra Energy and Flatlands have been working with the University of Alaska Fairbanks on studies of the economic feasibility of the mining and carbon capture including the cost of a 60-mile pipeline to move captured CO2 to the Beluga field for injection, as well as transmission lines needed to connect with the regional power grid, also at Beluga. Southcentral Alaska, where half of the state’s population resides, is in need of new power because natural gas, which fuels most generations of power, will be declining in availability because producing gas fields in Cook Inlet are being depleted. Schleucher told AEA’s board that so far the studies indicate that power from the proposed coal-fired power plant with carbon capture will be less expensive than wind power projects that require natural gas power generation to be kept on standby to assure reliable power. The remote location of the coal, and site of the plant, are challenges for Terra Energy and Flatlands Energy, however. The location is near Skwentna, a small settlement in the Mat-Su region that is without road access. Lack of a road is not an insurmountable problem, people familiar with the project have said. Chugach Electric built its large Beluga power plant, where the gas field is also located, in the 1960s without a road. There is still no road to the Beluga plant. — Tim Bradner Mat-Su coal power plant project moving forward
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