Thanks to the new scrubber, the Unit 6 (shown here) emits only harmless water vapor into the air. This cloud of water vapor can be seen from Richmond’s downtown high rise buildings 15 miles away.

Over the past several years, the Dominion Virginia Power’s Dutch Gap power station has been one of the biggest offenders in releasing toxins into the air. According to a report made public this past March, the Dutch Gap station released 6.95 million pounds of toxins into the air last year, helping to push Chesterfield into second place on Virginia’s list of counties with the most toxic air.

However, the Dutch Gap station is taking their first steps at drastically reducing the plant’s toxic output as they recently dedicated their new “flue gas desulfurization” – or “scrubber” – system last week. The system will reduce 95 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 90 percent of the mercury emissions from the Chesterfield Power Station Unit 6.

“This scrubber demonstrates a thoughtful, economically attractive approach to cleaning Virginia’s air,” says Preston Bryant, Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources. “Potentially harmful material is captured by this scrubber and processed into a useful building product. That’s an effective process.”

By combining pulverized limestone with water and spraying the mixture into the exhaust gas, the scrubber uses this mixture to remove sulfur dioxide and toxic mercury from the flue gas. The only byproducts from this process are gypsum and water vapor, which billows out of the Unit’s 400-foot-tall stack. The gypsum will be later barged to the U.S. Gypsum Company in Norfolk to be turned into drywall.

“This scrubber is the latest chapter in Dominion’s long history of environmental stewardship,” says Bob McKinley, Vice President of Generation Construction for Dominion. “The new scrubber, along with equipment to reduce particulate emissions and a new chimney, will bring the total investment in air-emissions control equipment for Chesterfield to more than $650 million by the end of the year.”

The largest fossil-fueled power station in Virginia, the Dutch Gap plant has a generating capacity of 1,660 megawatts, enough energy to power over 400,000 homes. Unit 6, where the scrubber is installed, generates over a third of that electricity, generating 680 megawatts.

“We are installing this scrubber to help meet the clean air requirements set forth in November 2005. In effect, this scrubber is helping us to build a better Virginia,” says McKinley.

Officials at Dominion say that they plan to continue to help reduce toxic emissions from the Dutch Gap plant. Already, Units 4, 5, and 6 are equipped with selective catalytic reduction equipment that removes nitrogen oxide and, beginning in 2009, Dominion will be extending the operation of this equipment from the five-month summer ozone season to year-round operation.

Plans are also in place to build scrubbers on the other three coal units at the plant and to have them operational in 2011. By 2015, Dominion will have spent $2.6 billion on environmental projects at power stations across Virginia, reducing mercury emissions by 86 percent, sulfur dioxide by 80 percent, and nitrogen oxide by 74 percent from their 1998 levels.

“What Dominion is doing today is what needs to be done every day, not just in Virginia, but across the country,” says Bryant. “This [Dutch Gap] plant is keeping in line with Dominion’s goal of keeping coal usage increasingly clean.”

nderatto@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421 

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