Source: https://climateinvestigations.org/cic-sues-department-of-energy-southern-company-kemper-documents/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 08:27:31+00:00

Document:
The Climate Investigations Center has sued the U.S. Department of Energy to force the release of records pertaining to Southern Company’s “clean coal” power plant in Kemper County, Mississippi.
In a lawsuit filed late last week in federal District Court in Washington, D.C., CIC noted that it has waited almost a year for the release of records spanning a period in the late nineties through 2010 during which the technology deployed at Kemper was being developed and the plant was planned and construction took place.
CIC’s Freedom of Information Act request notes that Southern Company subsidiaries Mississippi Power and Southern Company Services were granted a total of $293 million in DOE funds, as well as hundreds of millions in tax credits from the Internal Revenue Service, to defray the enormous cost of what eventually became a 582 megawatt power facility.
DOE originally agreed to fund a coal project in Orlando, Florida that was about half the size of Kemper. While the Orlando facility was to employ a first-of-its-kind technology that would burn coal more cleanly than older plants, it was not designed to capture carbon dioxide from the plant’s waste stream.
Kemper theoretically will remove 65 percent of the carbon dioxide from the waste stream, compress it, and send it through a pipeline for injection into old oil fields to boost production – a process called Enhanced Oil Recovery.
However, Kemper’s gasifier, which is supposed to turn cheap, low-grade lignite coal into synthetic gas that would then be burned to produce electricity, failed to operate during tests that began this past fall.
On February 2nd, Mississippi Power notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that after some six years of construction and five months of tests, the gasifier still doesn’t work, and the company now doesn’t expect the plant to come on line as a bona-fide coal-burning CCS facility until the third quarter of 2016.
The filing also acknowledged that the additional delay will add $142 million to the project’s costs, bringing its total price tag to $6.64 billion.
CIC hopes its FOIA to the Department of Energy will shed more light on a project that seems to have gone terribly wrong, producing double digit increases in electricity rates and, so far, not actually burning any coal – cleanly or otherwise. The plant’s turbines, which finally began generating electricity in the summer of 2015, are running on natural gas.
Perhaps that is temporary. But if it isn’t, Kemper will be first of its kind in another way – the most expensive natural gas plant per kilowatt ever built.
The plant’s chequered history raises urgent questions about the federal government’s substantial investment in carbon capture and sequestration technology, which has so far failed everywhere it’s been tried, and the wisdom of funding projects like Kemper and Edwardsport, in Illinois, that haven’t worked.
The CIC’s FOIA seeks to illuminate why DOE handed Southern Company such a large sum for such a speculative technology, and why it approved the relocation of the plant from the populous area around Orlando to the poorest county in Mississippi where it would be part of a service territory containing only 186,000 ratepayers. Those ratepayers will have to foot much of the bill for a $6.6 billion coal plant – a sum larger than the 2015 budget for the entire state.
More details as we hear back from the Department of Energy.
Energy Offices of Hearing and Appeals.
and 28 U.S.C. § 1331.
journalist Dan Zegart, regularly brief reporters and policy-makers on their research findings.
fulfilling the mission of CIC.
by the Executive Branch of the United States, and is an agency within the meaning of FOIA.
Plaintiff seeks access through FOIA.
media, policy-makers, or the public with information that is the subject of the request.
one of nine exemptions contained within the statute. 5 U.S.C. §§ 552(a), (b).
well as instructions for appeal.
the records requested. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).
if Plaintiff substantially prevails in this action. 5 U.S.C. § 522(a)(4)(E).
DOE, FE, and NETL Possess Information Responsive to CIC’s FOIA Request.
companies based on certain criteria under the Clean Coal Power Initiative.
demonstrate advances in coal gasification systems as part of phase two of the CCPI program.
activities in Orlando were canceled.
which had been spent in Orlando. This left another $270 million for costs in Kemper County.
proposed facility as well as moving the demonstration project from Florida to Mississippi.
a wholly-owned subsidiary of Southern Company, and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR).
received from the modified Cooperative Agreement.
the modification of the original Cooperative Agreement between DOE and Southern Company.
DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory or the Power Systems Development Facility . . .
Rogers, Lanny Griffith, and Bob Wood.
offered as a timetable for further production.
responsive documents made available as they were collected by DOE.
24. On August 6, 2015 NETL Chief Counsel provided a second partial response.
identifying records for discretionary release.
for the application of those exemption and the redactions made.
and for the decision not to release records requested in the initial March 29, 2015 FOIA request.
Information Services, Department of Energy sent a letter to Mr. Zegart stating that part of Mr.
determination letter has been received from FE.
enclosures, some of which had been redacted purportedly under FOIA Exemption 4 and 6.
Additionally, NETL stated that it was continuing to collect responsive documents.
DOE Office of Hearings and Appeals Wrongful Application of FOIA Exemptions.
FOIA within the time specified by law.
exemption applied, or release the information in the Cooperative Agreement discussed on appeal.
and Southern Company participants under FOIA Exemption 6.
since expired, and Defendant’s actions in withholding records is in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 552.
36. Paragraphs 1-35 above are incorporated by references as if set forth fully herein.
administrative remedies with respect to Plaintiff’s Freedom of Information Act request.
to FOIA requests within 20 working days. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(6)(A)(i).
for the records . . .” under 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(C).
person making the request.” 5 U.S.C. § 552 (a)(6)(F). Defendants have failed in this regard.
and national policy takes shape.
CIC’s FOIA request and appeal.
U.S.C. § 522(b)(4) (Exemption 4).
under 5 U.S.C. § 522(b)(5) (Exemption 5).
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” 5 U.S.C. § 522(b)(6).
may be withheld under FOIA Exemptions 4, 5, and 6.
responsive to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request violates 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A).
the Defendants illegally failed to respond to Plaintiff’s FOIA request.
under a claim of exemption.
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §552(a)(4)(E).
5) Provide such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.

References: § 1331
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 § 522
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