USC students at Green Quad protest Santee Cooper's proposed coal- burning power plant in Florence County. On Wednesday morning, April 8, in USC's Green Quad between Main Street and Sumter Street on the south side of Blossom Street, more than two dozen USC students protested the lack of mercury testing of people along the Great Pee Dee River through the S.C. Lowcountry, the site of a proposed coal- burning electric power plant.

SCDHEC has already been testing for mercury among the river's fish, and the results are daunting, but DHEC is yet to test the fishers. The students want the people tested for mercury, and they expect the test results to stop the construction of Santee Cooper's coal- burning electric power plant.

Santee Cooper's 75th birthday was Wednesday, April 8, the day of the USC students' protest. According to the American Public Power Association, Santee Cooper is the country's largest public power producer. In 2007, the utility set a goal of generating 40 percent of its energy in 2020 from non- greenhouse gasemitting resources, biomass fuels, conservation, and energy efficiency.

(L- r) Ben Gregg and Clary Powell of the S.C. Wildlife Federation, Erin Minogue (a Green Quad resident advisor), and Thomas Chandler of Learning Center for Sustainable Futures, co- hosted the power plant protest. Santee Cooper plans to build what it terms a cleancoal plant, a pulverizedcoal- burning 1,320- watt power plant on the Great Pee Dee River in a 2,709- acre tract in southern Florence County near Kingsburg and Pamplico.

The plant will operate with two boilers, and each boiler will have a maximum rated input capacity of 5,700 million British Thermal Units (BTU) per hour, as

previously reported in The

Columbia Star.

As proposed, the two boilers would be capable of burning a blend of coal and petroleom coke (petcoke), in addition to fuel oil or natural gas, during the startup process. Each boiler would provide steam to a generator to produce a nominal 660 megawatts of electric power.

The business plan behind Santee Cooper's new plant includes great gains in demands for electric power on a parallel with impressive population growth between the plant and the Atlantic Ocean, particularly at Myrtle Beach. Cheap electric power is highly attractive to industrial relocation prospects, and a coal- buring plant is probably the cheapest to build and the cheapest to operate, assuming a longterm supply of competitively priced coal.

The public perception of coal- burning power plants, particularly among the protesting USC students, suggests high numbers in mercury content befouling the surrounding waterways and poisoning the nearby people.

Santee Cooper plans to install air pollution control devices, which could reduce particulate matter, sufur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, and mercury and sulfuric acid emissions.

During construction, 1,200 jobs would be supported by $106 million spent in- state. After construction, the plant would generate $44.2 million annually in direct spending in- state while it would employ 112 workers. Altogether, Santee Coopers calls the plant its $1 billion project.

The Charleston Post &

Courier last January tested 41 fish- eating South Carolinians along the Great Pee Dee River and also Lynches River, and the paper reported large numbers of people with a national maximum for mercury content. Out of the 41 tested by the newspaper, 17 showed mercury levels higher than what is considered safe. The protesting students were saying the situation has to get worse and more widespread if the coal- burning plant is built along the same Lowcountry water system.

The U.S. Government has entered the discussion. The U.S. Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service recommends Santee Cooper drop the pulvereized- coal- burning power plant in favor of a coal gasification plant, something like what Duke Energy plans to build in Indiana for $2 billion instead of Santee Cooper's $1 billion.

The USC students protesting in Green Quad had no alternative suggestions for developing more electric power in South Carolina. The proposed coalburning plant can be stopped, they said, and the opportunity costs of the lack of electric power by 2012 can be offset by conservation.