If you go
What: Public hearings on Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.'s now suspended plans to build a facility at Middletown Works to convert waste gas from the blast furnace to steam and electricity
When: 6 p.m. Monday hearing on electricity generation and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday hearing on draft air permit
Where: Middletown City Council Chambers, 1 Donham Plaza, Middletown
Why: To gather public comments on the plans
MIDDLETOWN — Air Products and Chemicals Inc. Thursday suspended its plans for a cogeneration facility in Middletown, due to rising construction costs and delays in federal regulatory issues.
However, the project has not been spiked.
“What your seeing is a slow growth of the industrial economy. As a result of the growth, we’re seeing the costs grow of constructing the project over time,” said Joe Terrible, Air Products senior business development manager.
The project is for a first-of-its-kind technology in North America, capturing the waste gas from the blast furnace at AK Steel’s Middletown Works plant and turning it into steam and electricity to power the plant. The Middletown Cogeneration Facility would use cycle gas turbine cogeneration technology, according to the permit.
The project had proceeded until now, receiving a draft air permit March 18 from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. If the permit to install is made final after a public comment period, Air Products has permission to build and operate for a year, said Heather Lauer, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman.
The Pennsylvania-based company is still proceeding with a set of public hearings scheduled next week. The first is at 6 p.m. Monday at Middletown City Council chambers to discuss necessity of a project over 50 megawatts, Terrible said. A second hearing is 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, also in council chambers, for the draft air permit from Ohio EPA, and a third hearing is at 10 a.m. Thursday in Columbus before the Ohio Public Utilities Commission to go over the comments received and determine whether the company should receive a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need, he said.
“We hope that by having the hearings it will help clear some of the issues that have been outstanding,” Terrible said.
It remains a potential project, said Alan McCoy, AK Steel spokesman.
“We’re kind of together with this,” McCoy said. “We think it’s a great project for energy and the environment, but it also has to meet the economics and today it does not.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
About the Author