SWEPCO applauds efforts of two Texas legislators
May 13th, 2009
Kilgore News-Herald
AEP Southwestern Electric Power Company is applauding the efforts of two Northeast Texas legislators’ efforts to promote technology to capture CO2 from coal-fired power plants. Representatives Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, and Stephen Frost, D-Atlanta, worked diligently to improve the proposed legislation.
“The potential benefit to Northeast Texas of being able to add advanced CO2 capture technology to existing coal-fired power plants is enormous,” said Rep. Merritt. “We can make our coal-fired power plants cleaner and we can use the captured CO2 to make the East Texas oil fields productive again.”
In East Texas, captured CO2 can be used to extract trapped oil from old oil fields. However, capturing CO2 is an expensive process. The amended legislation by Merritt and Frost makes the technology more affordable through the use of a franchise tax incentive.
After an intense debate on the House Floor, Merritt and Frost were successful in amending a bill which was intended to benefit a coal gasification plant in West Texas. Merritt and Frost were able to broaden the focus of the bill to incentivize the CO2 capture from existing power plants in Northeast Texas.