Baard site preparation set to begin within six months

WELLSVILLE - As many local companies hand out layoff notices, one developer says his company will be creating jobs in East Ohio as soon as May or June.

John Baardson, president and chief executive officer of Baard Energy, said plans for his company's coal-to-liquids fuel plant at Wellsville are ''pretty much on schedule.''

''If all goes well here, site preparation will begin this year,'' Baardson said. ''Also, we will be hiring immediately to clear land and make level places this spring, in May or June.''

Speaking from his office in Vancouver, Wash., Baardson said now that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has issued a final air permit for the Ohio River Clean Fuels project, the next step is detailed engineering. The front-end engineering and design, or FEED study, for the plant at 16 School Road south of Wellsville already is under way.

Baardson said this work will help determine the design of plant, details of the needed equipment and more.

And while the FEED study itself may not create many local jobs, preparing the site for construction of the plant will require the company to employ or contract with an unspecified number of people.

Steve Dopuch, Baard's vice president of business development, said a FEED study typically takes about six months to complete. He noted engineers involved in such a study usually know who the potential bidders for the next steps are, and those companies will be contacted to begin work at the site within a year or less. Once a general contractor is selected, Dopuch added, the company will set up a process by which other contractors and service providers can become involved with the project.

''From nuts and bolts up to manufacture of the vessels, there sure are a lot of capable companies out there that could help us with this,'' he said.

And being ready to get down to business should be an advantage for Baard Energy in the eyes of the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama. Baardson added that the steps the company is taking to be environmentally friendly - including plans to sequester any carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced in the fuel-making process underground - should appeal to the Obama administration.

''We believe everything is in place and then some,'' Baardson added regarding clean air requirements at the plant. ''Even new standards are exceeded. It's our intent to be out ahead of that issue.

''We hope to create many jobs in a hurry, in an environmentally friendly manner - the kind of 'green' jobs the new administration is looking for.''

The CO2 that is produced as the planned Ohio River Clean Fuels plant turns coal and biomass into liquid jet fuel, diesel fuel and the chemical naphtha will be taken by pipeline to oil fields within a 40-mile radius of the plant, Baardson said. The CO2 will then be injected into abandoned oil wells, where it is believed it can be trapped for millennia.

''We spend a lot of money trying to drill hydrocarbons out of the ground, so Mother Nature has shown us how to trap carbon underground,'' Dopuch noted.

''The key is sealing the wells properly ... ,'' Baardson added. ''We know the (geological) formation traps these gases extremely efficiently.''

The plant is expected to cost $5.5 billion to construct, and Baardson believes the federal government needs to provide incentives for developers to build and operate such plants.

''There's been a fairly large push for incentives,'' Baardson previously said, ''but there's also been a push back by environmentalists.

''The government needs to help the first two or three plants,'' he added.

Although the major permits needed to commence construction have been obtained by Baard Energy, Dopuch said there are ''literally dozens of smaller permits'' for things like control of rain water runoff and individual pieces of equipment that still must be acquired.

Major construction on the plant is expected to take place from 2010-2012. Baardson said it should be operating commercially by late 2012 or early 2013.