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Future Looks Bright for Region's Power-Producing Hopefuls by Chris Mulick, Herald staff writer Tri-City Herald, February 4, 2001

It's roughly 90 miles as the crow flies between the humble towns of Boardman, Ore., and Starbuck, Wash.

And if the crow could talk, he'd probably say there's not much to see. The scenery appears like a brown canvas splotched only by a few dabbles of gray civilization, rivers and roads.

But it's along this track amid desolate acres of farmland and sage where the malnourished Northwest power grid may get its greatest infusion of new energy. Of the more than 10,000 megawatts in new power generation announced for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana, almost half are planned for this corridor.

"Clearly, it's where much of the action is," said Jeff King, a Northwest Power Planning Council resource analyst.

Natural gas-fired power plants are planned for Boardman, Hermiston, southwest Benton County, Wallula and Starbuck.

And these aren't of the two-bit variety. Only one would produce less than 500 megawatts, roughly enough juice to light half-a-million homes.

Already sporting a handful of power plants, Southeastern Washington and Northeastern Oregon have become so popular thanks to the convergence of four key resources -- water, clean air, gas and electric transmission lines.

To be sure, each developer is certain his site is best.

"This is it," said Kurt Humphrey, a vice president for generation for Cogentrix, which wants to build a plant at Mercer Ranch in south Benton County.

Not all of the power plants will be built. There's simply not enough capacity on existing gas pipelines to serve them all if they were.

And analysts say the proposed projects are competing against each other, hoping to scare each other out of the market.

So don't believe any one plant will be built until developers actually start pushing dirt around, said Dick Watson, power planning director for the planning council.

But it's no coincidence that of all the projects being announced in the Northwest, the largest concentration of activity is in Southeastern Washington and Northeastern Oregon.

Easy access to gas and electrical transmission lines is perhaps the leading reason.

Without it, the companies would have to build costly connections to get to them.

"Those are the two most important decisions you make," said Robert Kahn of Newport Northwest, which hopes to build a plant near Wallula.

For example, a project being proposed for the Satsop site west of Olympia would require building a pipeline nearly 50 miles long to the existing natural gas thoroughfare serving the Puget Sound region.

Conversely, the site for a proposed plant near Starbuck is only 200 feet from a pipeline coming from Alberta, Canada, that also passes through Hermiston en route to California.

"You're really minimizing your exposure financially," said Mike Elmer, project manager for the plant PPL Global wants to build at Starbuck.

Also passing through Hermiston is a pipeline from Colorado. Combined, the two pipelines provide the kind of access to fuel found nowhere else in the Northwest.

Electric transmission lines also are provided thanks to the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Further, an interconnecting trunk line that turns south at The Dalles and is capable of delivering energy to lucrative California markets is not far away.

"That's where most (power plant developers) want access to," said Dave Warren, assistant director of the energy policy unit at Washington's Office of Trade and Economic Development.

That interchange is harder to get to for power plants on the west side of the Cascades, where highly-populated areas tend to suck up most of the energy that transmission lines there can carry.

And while there's plenty of access to gas and electric transmission lines in Central Oregon, there also is little in the way of power plant development. That's because there's no water, King said. Water is needed to run power plant cooling systems.

Although water supplies are getting tighter in Washington -- where virtually no requests for new water rights are being granted -- the Snake and Columbia rivers at least provide options for developers who are willing to make a deal with landowners for their water.

Finally, federal air quality standards make it difficult to put large generators along the Interstate 5 corridor. There's much more room on the east side of the Cascades for gas plants and their ozone-depleting emissions. That's why the biggest projects are being planned here, King said.

Though there are a flock of plants proposed for Western Washington, none south of the border town of Sumas would produce much more than 530 megawatts. But plants proposed for Creston, Mercer Ranch, Starbuck and Wallula would produce 838, 850, 1,100 and 1,300 megawatts, respectively.

"You see a scattering of proposed plants in number, but not in terms of overall megawatts," King said of Western Washington. "On the east side, you see these giants. They would have a very hard time permitting in Seattle."

Three Northwest power plants already are under construction -- one in Rathdrum, Idaho, another in Klamath Falls, Ore., and the 546-megawatt project that Calpine is building in Hermiston.

But the Northwest needs more, and with a half-dozen other projects already having received the necessary permits, it's anyone's guess when building power plants will become as fashionable as talking about it.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of construction announcements in the next few months," King said.