Delays, cost overruns blemish Illinois coal project

Delays, cost overruns blemish Illinois coal project: "Back in 2006, plans for the Prairie State Energy Campus, a hulking coal-fired power plant on farmland in Washington County, Ill., seemed serendipitous for the city of Kirkwood.

The St. Louis suburb needed a stable, long-term power source. The plant’s developers needed customers. The parties struck a deal — a 30-year contract that would supply more than half of Kirkwood’s electricity beginning in late 2011. The kicker: The energy produced at Prairie State would be cheap compared with market power prices at the time.

But now, as the first of two 800-megawatt generating units at Prairie State begin operations — six months late — the plant hardly seems the bargain it did five years ago."

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