The Kemper power plant. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) A once-promising clean coal plant in Mississippi is set to switch to natural gas instead. The facility, run by utility provider Southern Company, is over budget and behind schedule, and has failed to achieve its goal of producing electricity from coal with significantly reduced carbon emissions. A review by the Mississippi Public Service Commission gave the plant until July 6 to begin planning its future and recommended a switch to natural gas, reports the New York Times.
The plant has actually been burning natural gas for three years now as engineers attempted to perfect a design that would take dirty lignite coal from a nearby mine and scrub it of carbon dioxide after burning. While they captured a small amount of carbon, the unproven technology they were attempting to implement turned out to be too costly and complicated to put into action. The ...
