Ohio plant decision scrubs fertilizer project

Columbus-American Municipal Power (AMP) has decided to scrub plans for a new coal-fired power plant in southern Meigs County that would have produced ammonium sulfate fertilizer as a co-product to be handled under an agreement with The Andersons of Maumee, Ohio. There was no comment from The Andersons on the decision, but AMP of Columbus said a 37 percent increase in capital cost estimates “made pursuing alternatives, including conversion to natural gas combined cycle and taking advantage of current power supply the best economic choice.” The power plant in Meigs County would have utilized electro-catalytic oxidation, a process that produces the fertilizer. AMP had executed a memorandum of understanding with The Andersons to process and market the product in a plant adjacent to the generating facility that would have employed 15 full-time operators. The so-called AMPGS, a 1,000-megawatt facility, would have provided 1,600 construction jobs during the 4-1/2 year construction project. Once online it would have employed 165 full-time operators, including those at the adjacent fertilizer plant run by The Andersons. AMP said in its announcement that “use of Powerspan’s state of the art multi-pollution control technology promises to produce a high quality ammonium sulfate plant nutrient for our Midwest customer base is a natural extension to our core production and distribution business.”