New energy plant coming to Van Alstyne...should I be worried? Smart people, inside.

[GeorgeG.]

I'm like [this] close to moving to Van Alstyne and now I read about plans for a new mega energy center. I'm seeing comments like the one below. The VA schools would be a couple of miles up the road from the proposed site.

“The proposed facility will emit the following air contaminants in significant amount: Volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. In addition, the facility will emit the following contaminants: sulfur dioxide, sulfuric acid, hazardous air pollutants, and lead.”
These emissions travel significant distance (greater than 2 miles dependent on weather/wind conditions) and areas inclusive of the emissions fallout include all 3 VA schools, downtown VA and northern parts of Anna and outlying areas of South Grayson County and North Collin County.

Realistically, is there any stopping development like this? Should I even be worried? I don't want my kids growing and extra finger on their elbow or anything.

[gonzo]

I'm sure there is already those contaminants in the air anyway. Besides it's not like you're moving to Chernobyl

[Blackpony]

I wouldn't be worried about it. Hell if you drive up 121 through melissa you pass right by the landfill and it reeks. Im sure there are some pretty bad contaminants floating away from there. I just moved to van alstyne, not too concerned about it.

[Baron Von Crowder]

There's one ten miles from where you live(ed?).

[GeorgeG.]

I wouldn't be worried about it. Hell if you drive up 121 through melissa you pass right by the landfill and it reeks. Im sure there are some pretty bad contaminants floating away from there. I just moved to van alstyne, not too concerned about it.

I've driven by there before....there's some real funk blowing out of there during the summer. It's bad!

[Strychnine]

The proposed facility will emit the following air contaminants in significant amount: Volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter.

So does your car.

[GeorgeG.]

There's one ten miles from where you live(ed?).

Ah..I wasn't aware of that. I'm in Anna for now. Thankfully the proposed site isn't really near where we plan to settle down so I'm not concerned about the eye sore.

There's a FB post brewing about attending a public hearing of some sort in Sherman regarding this. After reading up on it, it's seems like it's basically to voice your opinions and doesn't have any impact with development plans. I was comparing it to living next to the cement plant in Venus...being around that dust can't be good in the long run.

[ELVIS]

id be more worried about living next to Cavender Motors.

god bless.

[351Coupe]

id be more worried about living next to Cavender Motors.

god bless.

Lmao! I was waiting for it.

[GeorgeG.]

So does your car.

well sure, but to what levels? What about lead?

[John -- '02 HAWK]

Realistically, is there any stopping development like this? Should I even be worried?

Do you like paying higher energy costs?
Do you like rolling black outs?
Do you like brown outs?

the dfw is getting close to maxing out its power production to its consumption during the summer. So if you said yes to any of the above then go ahead and try to stop the development. It wont stop anything but you can say you tried.

[Strychnine]

It's science time

The plant would feature three, 100-foot tall turbines. It would also be a “peak energy” facility and only run during times with the highest energy demands.

The Van Alstyne Energy Center is a 543 megawatt simple cycle gas fired electric generating facility located in Grayson County, TX. The Facility consists of three highly-efficient, super clean 181 megawatt gas-fired turbine power plants. Upon completion, this Facility will support peak energy demands in the North Zone of ERCOT.

The air permit on file, per Navasota Energy, allows a max of 2500 hrs/yr, or about 1/4 of a year, but they say their plans are <1000 hrs/yr operation. That's 11% of the year - so summer afternoons. Their site says the will be GE turbines.

The Google tells me the new GE turbine for 181 MW output is the GE 7FA.04. These are some of the newest and cleanest turbines available. I guarantee you these units will have SCR (selective catalytic reduction) units to reduce NOx just like new clean diesel trucks run, and also oxidation catalysts (like your gasoline cars have) to reduce CO.

Here's emissions data from another new power plant in the US using those same turbines with nearly the same permitted max annual hours (2250)




Compare this to a 256hp 14 liter natural gas engine (complete with electronic engine management and emissions control system) that you would find all over the western part of DFW on natural gas wellheads (engine used for compression to transmit gas downstream).
(There are ~453.5 grams/lb)

NOx output for the NG engine at 100% load (continuous operation) would be 0.5 g/bhp-hr, or 128 g/hr, or 0.28 lb/hr. That's standard for all EPA "Non Attainment" emissions areas, which DFW is in.



The plant emissions cert above shows 16.8 lb/hr per turbine on NG, so 50.4 lb/hr. In terms of NOx output one turbine is equivalent to just 180 relatively small gas compression engines.

But break it down in similar units. The engine is 0.5 g/hp-hr
The turbine makes 181 megawatts which is 242,725 hp. 50.4 lb/hr = 22856 g/hr divided by 242725 hp... That breaks down to 0.094 g/hp-hr

Each turbine is 80+% cleaner per unit of power than the engines scattered all over that area on gas wells.


And remember, those wellhead compression engines run 98+% uptime. That power plant is expected to run ~11% of that. So when I said one turbine is equivalent to 180 of those NG engines... factor in duty cycle and over a year it's more like 18 of those small engines.

Wrap your mind around that.

And it will help prevent brownouts and rolling blackouts.





tl;dr - just let 'em go man.

[Strychnine]

Realistically, is there any stopping development like this?

Also, no.

$200,000,000 > your opinion

[Sean88gt]

Also, no.

$200,000,000 > your opinion

He should chain himself to a tree!

[ceyko]

I'm on the other side of VA so not real stressed about it. I'd be pissy too if it was in my back yard. I do not blame folks for that, it's human. However, reality is it's going to go where they want to put it.