Kemper County Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle (IGCC) Project

This Final EIS assesses the potential environmental impacts that would result from a proposed DOE action to provide cost-shared funding and possibly a loan guarantee for construction and operation of advanced power generation plant in Kemper County, Mississippi. The project was selected under DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative to demonstrate IGCC technology. DOE also invited Mississippi Power Company to submit an application for the Kemper County IGCC Project to the Loan Guarantee Program during 2008. Assessment of a prospective loan guarantee is currently in progress. The power genera- tion components (i.e., coal gasifiers, synthesis gas [syngas] cleanup systems, combined-cycle unit, and supporting infrastructure) would convert coal into syngas to drive gas combustion turbines, and hot exhaust gas from the gas turbines would generate steam from water to drive a steam turbine. Combined, the three turbines would generate a nominal 582 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Although DOE funding would support only the IGCC power plant, the project would include new electrical power transmission lines and upgrades of some existing transmission lines, a surface lignite mine, a natural gas supply pipeline, a rec- laimed water supply pipeline, and a carbon dioxide pipeline. The construction and operation of these facilities are considered connected actions in this Final EIS. The Final EIS evaluates potential impacts of the proposed facilities on air quality, geology, water resources, flood- plains, wetlands, ecological resources, land use, aesthetics, social and economic resources, waste management, noise, and human health and safety. The EIS also evaluates potential impacts on these resource areas for the no-action alternative, under which DOE would not provide cost-shared funding or a loan guarantee and the power plant and connected action facilities would likely not be built.