River Hill Power Project
The River Hill Power Project is a proposed 290 MW waste coal fired
electric power plant located in Karthaus township, Pennsylvania.
It is approximately 125 miles east of the Ohio/Pennsylvania state
line, and north of Interstate 80, along the west branch of the Susquehanna
River on the Clearfield County / Center County line. The site was
originally permitted as a strip mine facility for the extraction
of metallurgical grade coal, and the fuel supply for the plant will
include waste coal remaining from on-site mining activities as well
as waste remaining from other similar mining operations in a four
county area surrounding Karthaus township.
The project consists of a single atmospheric circulating fluidized
bed combustor and a single turbine generator, along with all of
the requisite auxiliary and environmental control equipment. The
plant is based on a 10500F steam cycle, making it among the most
efficient waste burning projects developed to date.
The plant site comprises almost 1,000 acres and has been developed
to allow expansion by the addition of a second fluidized bed combustor
and turbine generator to a total of 580 MW.
Benefits to the surrounding communities
The three year construction cycle of this project will create approximately
1,200 construction jobs at peak work force, and will create approximately
55-60 full time skilled jobs at the power plant for the life of
the project. In addition, approximately 250-300 indirect jobs
in the trucking, mining, and other support industries will be
supported by this project in one of the most economically depressed
areas of Pennsylvania.
Perhaps the biggest single benefit to the area will be the removal
and remediation of over a hundred years of waste coal piles that
dot the landscape in Pennsylvania and produce highly acidic and
polluted runoff to nearby streams, left as a legacy of the early
mining operations in the region. Alkaline ash from the project will
be used on abandoned mine lands in the four county area to fill
and seal old mine works and contaminated areas where waste coal
piles now stand, and will aid state efforts to re-establish clean
streams and wildlife areas. Reclamation of these abandoned areas
by the state is currently costing approximately $25,000 per acre
that will be available for other Commonwealth uses and approximately
300 acres of currently unusable land will be reclaimed per years
by utilizing the ash from this project.
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