Company wants to turn river into energy

The Mississippi River runs high and fast and it flows low and slow. But the river never stops, and a Massachusetts company wants to harness that force to generate electricity from turbines anchored to the river's bed.

Free Flow Power Corp., or FFP, of Manchester, Mass., applied for 59 permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to install 160,000 turbines in the river from St. Louis to Louisiana. Of that number, 14 projects are in the Mississippi River as it passes between Missouri and Illinois, including nine in Southeast Missouri and three in Cape Girardeau County.

FFP intends to prove the commercial viability of what is known as hydrokinetic energy, said Daniel Irvin, chief executive officer of the firm. The first step, he said, is to obtain preliminary permits. Those permits allow the company to develop a detailed plan that proves the capabilities of its turbines and outlines how the company intends to comply with the complex regulatory web that governs the river.

"We are looking at a lot of people doing demonstration projects," Irvin said. "We don't see how those generate an economic return in the long term."

To make the FERC process more efficient, and because other regulators, especially the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, control all construction in the river, the company decided to go for the large-scale approach, Irvin said. The FERC process for hydropower generators, from preliminary permit to operating license, generally takes five years. It is a process developed for dam construction, Irvin said, and he hopes to cut the period to about 2 1/2 years.

The permitting process is lengthy to allow for maximum public input. The FERC is currently taking comments on FFP's applications for the preliminary permits. The comment period ends just before the end of the year.

Notices of the applications and the comment period have been published in newspapers and sent to county commissions and city governments in the areas adjacent to the proposed projects.

Ken Eftink, Cape Girardeau's development services director, said the notice surprised him. "I wasn't aware of the project. My initial reaction is, 'What a great idea. If we can harness all this energy from the river and use it and not burn fossil fuel. ...' But I have not talked to anyone from AmerenUE. They might have some concerns."

Eftink said the city must also be concerned about protecting river traffic. Local governments will not be holding any public hearings on the proposed projects.

Hydrokinetic power

FFP not only wants to install and operate the electrical generators, it is developing the turbines required for the project with an eye to becoming a major supplier to developers of other projects, Irvin said.

"The volume of production of the turbines will get larger and, once you are up to scale, you can produce the turbines more cheaply," he said. "That would mean better tax benefits if we got the recognition of this as a clean, renewable energy source."

If all the projects are built, the total investment will be $3 billion, Irvin said.

Harnessing hydrokinetic power is becoming a major focus of energy research. Most ideas focus on harnessing tidal forces. But rivers could be a major source of power, Irvin said, and his company's proposal uses only a fraction of the available power in the Mississippi River.

"The Mississippi is huge and there are lots more opportunities for others," he said. "We want to sell turbines to others as the longer-term business model."

Hydrokinetic power production is so new that FERC hasn't issued any preliminary permits for projects, said Barbara Connors, a spokeswoman for the federal agency.

If FFP's applications are approved, she said, the company would have three years to study the feasibility and get the approvals needed for construction.

"With the preliminary permit, they can't do any construction," Connors said. "They are more or less doing further studies."

1,600 megawatts

FFP's plan calls for installing pilings in the river with six to 12 turbines attached to each piling. The pilings would be placed in deep water, far enough above the river floor to be away from the shifting silts that line the river and, where the arrays enter the navigation channel, at least 40 feet below the surface of the water to stay clear of surface traffic.

A piling would be placed every 50 feet around the bends in the river. At a flow of 9 feet per second, each turbine could generate 20 kilowatts of power. River bends are ideal, Irvin said, because water accelerates around bends.

"We are seeking to generate electricity at prices competitive with conventional generation," Irvin said. "A lot depends on all kinds of conditions and so forth, but we are projecting we will compete with conventional generation."

Proposed sites near Cape Gir-ardeau include one that follows the bend around Marquette Island just south of Cape Girardeau for 3.1 miles. It would have 15,500 turbines with a stated generating capacity of 31 megawatts.

Another site would be just north of the city and run for 6.2 miles with 3,100 turbines and a rated capacity of 62 megawatts. The third would straddle the line between Cape Girardeau and Scott counties for 3.4 miles, contain 1,700 turbines and have a rated capacity of 34 megawatts.

The entire string of 59 projects has a capacity of 1,600 megawatts, Irvin said.

In comparison, the coal-fired Associated Electric Cooperative power plant in New Madrid, Mo., has a rated capacity of 1,200 megawatts.

The power from the Mississippi River projects would supply the needs of about 1.5 million homes, Irvin said.

The actual amount of power the turbines will generate will fluctuate with the river's flow. The 20 kilowatt output of each turbine is based on flow speeds of 9 feet per second.

Consulting the Corps

The actual water speeds in the Mississippi River vary greatly, said Alan Dooley,, a spokesman for the Corps of Engineers St. Louis District office. In 2001, the flow rate varied from 2.7 feet per second to 6.5 feet per second. At the height of the 1993 flood, flows in the stretch from St. Louis to the Ohio River were rated at about 12.5 feet per second, Dooley said.

The corps has not received any applications for permits from FFP, Dooley said. The corps permits would include a construction permit under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 and a Clean Water Act permit allowing the introduction of foreign material into the river.

The corps also has jurisdiction over electric transmission lines that go over the river, Dooley said.

Any applications to the corps would have a lengthy comment period, he added.

An attempt to harness the river's flow to generate power isn't surprising as the cost of fossil fuels, especially oil, continues to escalate, Dooley said. One company has approached the corps with the idea of generating power from the water flowing over the low dams that regulate the flow of the Mississippi north of St. Louis to maintain barge traffic.

"There are numerous hurdles to be surmounted, not the least of which is the economics of it," Dooley said.

Generating power would be a use that fits the Mississippi, which has for ages been a source of strength, he said.

"The Mississippi River today has the same function it had 300 years ago," Dooley said. "That is sustenance, transportation and a spiritual element."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126

Harnessing the Mississippi in Southeast Missouri

Source: FERC filings