Mississippi Power: Kemper plant was, will remain asset to state [View all]

As Mississippi Power Co., Public Utilities Staff and others struggle to come to an equitable agreement, the utility’s CEO maintains that the power plant was and will continue to be an asset to the area.

“This is the biggest project in the history of Mississippi,” said Mississippi Power Chairman, President and CEO Anthony L. Wilson, who visited The Meridian Star on Monday. “Can you imagine what the recession of 2009 would have been had we not invested $7 billion in Mississippi?”

Wilson said the lignite coal gasification operation was far from a failure. One of the problems, he said, was the decrease in the price of natural gas, mainly due to fracking. If money was “unlimited, I think we would have gotten there,” he said.

“The plant worked — it did exactly what we wanted it to do,” Wilson said. “The problem was we could never make the process work consistently.”

Read more: http://www.meridianstar.com/news/local_news/mississippi-power-kemper-plant-was-will-remain-asset-to-state/article_41cb1098-380d-5e05-91c2-241b38761e89.html