With issuance of a draft air-quality permit for public comment expected any day, a Montana electric cooperative is anticipating a construction start by spring 2007 on a clean-coal powerplant it is proposing.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) also is promoting construction of the circulating fluidized-bed generation plant near Great Falls to boost the state’s coal industry, generate affordable electricity and protect the clean air of the Big Sky. “Montana has one-third of the nation’s coal reserves and 11% of the world’s. This plant will be one of the cleanest coal-burning plants in the world,” says Evan Barrett, chief business officer in the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative Inc., Billings, wants to build the $515-million plant to provide electricity to members of five rural co-ops and the City of Great Falls. A CFB boiler can burn low-ranked fuels like lignite, petroleum coke, waste coal and biomass. During the last decade, engineers have promoted CFB for powerplants up to 300 MW. SME’s proposed Highwood Generating Station will produce 250 MW.

The plant’s combustion process and integrated emissions control strategy “will provide a relatively clean plant as compared to traditional pulverized coal plants,” says Eric Merchant, air-quality specialist for the Montana Dept. of Environment Quality. The combined technology should reduce sulfur dioxide to an annual average of .038 lb per million Btu. It also should reduce carbon monoxide output to .1 lb per million Btu, and nitrogen oxide to .07 lb per million Btu. It will reduce SO2 by 75%, CO by 33% and NOx by 23% of a conventional PC plant’s emissions.

Stanley Consultants Inc., Muscatine, Iowa, which is doing detailed design of the plant, has invited bids from Foster Wheeler North America Corp., Clinton, N.J., and Alstom Power Inc., Windsor, Conn.