If you read last week's guest column in this space you might think a coal plant at the Port of Kalama had been defeated; you would be wrong on both counts.

The Pacific Mountain Energy Center we at Energy Northwest have proposed is not, and never has been a coal plant. As for the project being defeated, we are currently assessing several options that will allow the project to move forward in harmony with EFSEC's recent ruling on the project.

Public confusion over the coal issue is understandable. For months the anti-development crowd has done its best to label the project as a coal plant. Those efforts border on fear mongering; especially last week's guest columnists who actually went so far as to claim it was a coal-burning plant; then went on to call it a coal plant another dozen times in the same article.

The Pacific Mountain Energy Center project actually includes two co-located facilities on a 100-acre site at the Port of Kalama. One facility would gasify (not burn) petroleum coke, a waste product of making oil into gasoline. That process yields a hydrogen-rich synthesis gas. The synthesis gas will then be piped to a co-located combustion turbine power plant just like the widely accepted natural gas combustion turbine power plants prevalent in the region today. The emissions from that power plant will be at or below all state requirements.

The development of new power plants to meet growing power demand has far-reaching implications for the region's economy too. Low cost power from the Bonneville Power Administration will be completely allocated to utilities in 2011, potentially leaving many utilities short of power - at any price - to meet new load growth.

The Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council's recent action doesn't just press Energy Northwest to adjust its PMEC plans at the expense of ratepayer interests. It also helps make the case for additional nuclear power in the region by suppressing a promising power generation alternative. The action also sends a chilling, likely unintended, message to future developers of power plants and other facilities considering investing and risking millions or billions of dollars in the regional economy.

Pollution claims erroneous

The complex nature of power development issues doesn't eliminate the need for us all to do our homework. Otherwise we are left to believe absurd claims like the one in last week's editorial which said PMEC would dump, "hundreds of millions of gallons of pollution per year ... into the Columbia River." In fact, the plant will use well water for its operation and any discharge to the river must meet Washington water quality standards. That means it must be, and will be, clean enough to drink; yes drink. If you have doubts the facts can be verified through EFSEC.

As the economy expands and the population grows, so does the demand for power. Even a cursory review of available options shows how few real choices we all have. For example, all our major hydropower sites are built, coal power is environmentally unacceptable (by Energy Northwest and many others), new nuclear in the region is still 20 years away, wind power is intermittent and expensive, solar power lacks output, tidal and wave power are undeveloped and environmentally suspect, and natural gas supplies are dangerously close to shortages.

Any claims that the region can meet its future power needs with wind power and conservation alone are woefully misguided and overstated. As wind power developers we have first-hand knowledge of wind powers benefits and limitations.

Shunning promising technologies like Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle without understanding them is the first step toward blackouts, sky high prices, and power-shortage panic like we saw in 2000-2001.

Brad Peck is public information officer and assistant to the CEO at Energy Northwest in Richland.