Entergy converting generator to burn petroleum byproduct

Entergy Louisiana plans to convert the largest of three generators at its 46-year-old oil- and gas-fueled Little Gypsy power plant to burn a refinery byproduct called petroleum coke.

“This project will be a significant step in our efforts to reduce our reliance on natural gas,” Renae Conley, president and CEO, Entergy Louisiana, LLC and Entergy Gulf States-Louisiana, said in a news release.

At today’s natural gas prices, powering the steam turbine with petroleum coke, also called “pet coke,” could save customers up to $4 billion over 30 years, Conley said. That works out to an average of $133.3 million a year; Conley said the company had not yet figured out what that would mean for its average residential or industrial power bill.

Entergy Louisiana serves about 650,000 electric customers in 43 parishes.

The $1 billion unit, expected to be complete in 2011 or 2012, will provide 400 to 500 construction jobs and 25 to 35 new long-term jobs, Entergy said.

“That’s a lot of money and a couple of years. At least 2011 before it’ll be online,” said Karen Wimpelberg, board president of the Alliance for Affordable Energy and its regulatory affairs coordinator. “We think they can provide lower rates and meet the demand much more easily with energy efficiency measures.”

She said the plant also would create more pollution than natural gas, the cleanest-burning fuel but one for which the cost has risen enormously.

Little Gypsy, on the Mississippi River upriver from New Orleans, became the world’s first fully-automated generating unit in 1961, according to a company history on Entergy’s Web site.

Its three generators reliably produce 244, 436 and 573 megawatts, according to another page.

Conley said the new unit will produce 530 megawatts as part of the utility’s base load n the amount that is always needed, and is provided by the cheapest fuel sources: coal, nuclear, and petroleum coke. Plants fired by natural gas are used when needed for additional energy.

The new plant’s output will all go to Entergy Louisiana’s regulated use; none will be sold, Conley said.

A typical U.S. plant that refines 200,000 barrels of crude a day produces about 2,100 tons of coke a day n enough to support a 250- to 300-megawatt power plant, according to the World Energy Council.

Entergy said a process developed under the federal Department of Energy’s Clean Coal Technology program will let the generator burn several kinds of coal as well as pet coke. That will help protect customers from price spikes in any one fuel source, it said.

Once it begins producing energy, the project should eliminate emission of more than 2,000 tons of nitrogen oxides n a major part of urbon ozone and smog n a year, the company said.

It said the site was chosen because it is in the industrial corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, has plenty of space to store fuel, has equipment that could be refurbished, and coke and coal can be brought in on the river.

The Shaw Group Inc. will be the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for the project, Entergy Louisiana said.

Conley said Entergy owns two pet coke plants in the Lake Charles area. Those were built by Gulf States Utilities, which Entergy bought in 1993. This will be the first built by Entergy, Conley said.

Entergy Louisiana has been working on the Little Gypsy plans for about a year, Conley said. It was announced in Entergy’s 2006 annual report.