Regulators: Permit application incomplete for coal mine to fuel power plant in North Dakota

Application for ND coal mine permit incomplete

BISMARCK, N.D. — State regulators are asking developers of a coal mine in southwestern North Dakota for more information in their permit application, saying it lacks detail in areas including financing, reclamation and impacts to water and wetlands.

South Heart Coal LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Houston-based Great Northern Power Development, applied in March for a state mining permit that would cover 4,581 acres near South Heart. The mine would fuel a proposed hydrogen-to-electricity factory that is expected to cost more than $1 billion.

The state’s Public Service Commission found more than three-dozen “deficiencies” in the company’s mine application, said Jim Deutsch, director of the PSC’s reclamation division.

“There are areas where they need to do more work and it may take them more time to get more data,” he said. “It may delay things a couple of months but none of those items would be considered a project-killer.

“Our review period is suspended until they respond,” Deutsch said.

Rich Southwick, a South Heart Coal vice president, said the company hopes to answer the PSC’s questions within the next month.

“We’re pretty confident we didn’t see anything there that is troubling for us,” Southwick said. “It’s just a matter of compiling data in a form the PSC can use.”

If approved, it would be the state’s fifth lignite mine and the first one to come on line in almost 30 years.

The mine would be next to the proposed power plant, about four miles southwest of South Heart. The mine would produce about 2.4 million tons of low-grade lignite coal annually from private land leased from farmers and ranchers in the area.

Great Northern initially proposed building a coal-fired electric power plant near South Heart but changed its plans to construct a factory to convert lignite into synthetic gas, which in turn will be used to manufacture hydrogen. The hydrogen will power turbines to make 175 megawatts of electricity.

Great Northern hopes to have the project on line in 2015, Southwick said.