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• This latest attempt to speed the pipeline marks at least the fourth time the House has tried to do so.
• Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., defended the House actions, even though the Keystone bill is unlikely to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
• "There may be a few of my colleagues who are tired of Keystone bills, but the American people are also tired -- tired of $3.70 a gallon gasoline, tired of unemployment above 7 percent, and tired of four years of delays that continue to block this critical jobs and energy project," Upton said.
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In top coal state, gas to fuel next power plant
MEAD GRUVER,Associated Press
• CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- The next major power plant to be built in the nation's top coal-mining state will be fueled by natural gas.
• Black Hills Corp. subsidiaries Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power and Black Hills Power held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for the Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station on the outskirts of Cheyenne.
• Work on the 132-megawatt power plant -- on track to be Wyoming's largest gas-fired plant -- began a few weeks ago. The $222 million plant will employ up to a dozen people once it's finished next year.
• Black Hills Corp. is building the plant while preparing to retire three coal-fired plants in Wyoming and South Dakota. The gas-fired plant makes financial and environmental sense while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pursues new rules that would restrict greenhouse gas emissions, company officials said.
• "It's impractical to even permit a coal-fired power plant, because within 10 years you'd have to get emissions down to levels equivalent to combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plants," said Mark Lux, Black Hills Corp. vice president and general manager of power delivery.
• The new plant will have three units, including two combined-cycle units that generate electricity with a gas-fired turbine plus a turbine driven by steam heated by the other turbine's exhaust.
• The double turbines make combined-cycle systems cleaner and more efficient than simple-cycle units that don't have the additional steam-driven turbine.
• "This will be the cleanest, air-emitting generating station in Wyoming once it's constructed, in terms of the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions per megawatt," Lux said.
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