Send SRP's plan to expand a natural gas plant in Coolidge back to the drawing board

Salt River Project’s rush to build another 16 inefficient, greenhouse gas-producing gas turbines in Coolidge is mystifying.

State officials should force them to hit the brakes and do this right.

5 reasons why SRP's proposal is misguided

Here’s why:

• SRP proposes to install 16 more single-cycle gas turbines at its Coolidge Generating Station, which are generally the least efficient and most costly to operate. SRP installations in places like Tempe and Gilbert use highly efficient combined-cycle turbines with pollution-reducing and wastewater reuse technologies. The turbines proposed for Coolidge will pump large amounts of harmful emissions into an area that already suffers from unhealthy small-particulate levels, and they’ll let precious water simply evaporate instead of being reused. They will do this for decades to come.
• The turbines will pollute the air breathed by residents of Randolph, an economically depressed, historic African American community, and the Hispanic and Native American residents of the surrounding area. This is environmental injustice at its worse. If this proposal goes through, these Coolidge neighborhoods would be marred with 38 turbines producing electricity for people in the Phoenix metro area. What would they get for bearing this burden? Not one cent will go to Randolph.
• SRP’s public outreach was poorly implemented. I live within the 7-mile radius where residents were supposed to be notified. I received no letter and didn’t learn of this plan until after the SRP board narrowly approved it. This community should have been given the opportunity to see a variety of alternatives and offer feedback on them. This can still happen. The Arizona Power Plant and Line Siting Committee, which is taking public comment until Feb. 18 on whether to give SRP a permit to build the units, can kick SRP’s application back to it with a requirement to do real community outreach.
• Arizona has ample sunshine and wind. It has no natural gas. Arizona utilities should focus on investing in Arizona power.
• SRP says the gas turbines are needed to enable it to use more solar and wind power. That’s a head scratcher, and SRP has provided no proof to back up this argument, including the assumptions it used to calculate gas prices or battery costs. Instead, we get such inane statements as SRP board member Stephen Williams mocking the project’s opponents by saying, “OK, then stop using power.”

SRP can find a better solution

I have an engineering background. I understand a growing Arizona needs more energy. But there are better ways to do it. Why didn’t SRP issue a request for proposals that would have invited innovative solutions?

GE and Siemens are perfecting hybrid battery storage solutions, and Arizona is now home to companies leading the way in battery technology. The cost of solar and wind power continues to drop, while gas prices will skyrocket as the resource is depleted.

Taking the time to truly study these alternatives – and openly sharing the findings – would result in better outcomes for Randolph and Coolidge, for SRP’s ratepayers, for Arizona’s environment, and ultimately for SRP itself.

SRP’s leadership failed to see this. This project is in defiance of the carbon reduction goals they set for themselves, just one more of the many ways the proposal falls short. The siting committee should tell SRP to go back to the drawing board.

Ryan Bentz of Coolidge is the founder, CEO and executive director of the Social Justice + Engineering Initiative, a nonprofit that champions social and environmental justice issues. He also operates stopsrpcoolidge.org. Reach him at ryan.bentz@sjei.org.