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11 August 2006 -- In another chapter of the ongoing debate over TXU Corp.'s plans to add 11 coal-fired power plants in Texas, the company announced preliminary results today from an air modeling analysis from the technical research firm, Environ, hired by the state to research the impact on air quality from 17 proposed coal-fired generation plants. The results were released by the Texas Environmental Research Consortium (TERC) and will be presented to the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee today.
"TERC's scientific analysis confirms that TXU's plan to fully offset key emissions from its new units while also reducing key emissions from existing units by another 20 percent is the right approach," said Mike McCall, CEO of TXU Wholesale. "Our plan not only provides reliable power to keep pace with the growing Texas economy, it also helps improve air quality. We call on other power generators to adopt our strategy to help improve air quality even more."
But critics are calling for an investigation into the research findings because of an alleged conflict of interest between TXU and Environ. The Texas chapter of Public Citizen interest group wrote a scathing press release accusing Environ of a bias toward TXU. Environ was previously hired by TXU to research the effects of one of the proposed plants on its emissions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas.
"The conflict of interest here is breathtaking," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office. "All you have to do is follow the money and you'll see that those who pay the most get their work done on time -- while the rest of us wait. This is a deal as dirty as the air over Dallas."
TXU believes the actual air quality improvement will be even better than the Environ model predicts. The company asserted that the results were lower because the impact of TXU's additional 20 percent reduction, recently described in a public commitment letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), was not fully reflected in the modeling. TXU also said the modeling understated the additional reductions in nitrogen oxide emissions that will occur when older, inefficient gas-fired power plants are retired or shut down to make way for new plants.
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