Team
Board of Directors
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The Facility
The Scrubgrass Generating Plant, located on a 650-acre site in Scrubgrass Township, Venango County, Pennsylvania, produces and sells approximately 85 megawatts of electricity-enough for about 80,000 homes. The facility is designed as a cogeneration plant and is capable of providing low-pressure steam to other tenants in the area. Scrubgrass is classified by the state as a Tier II alternative energy source, which is equivalent to a hydropower plant.
Scrubgrass is fueled by bituminous waste coal. This once-unusable mining by-product was left in huge piles throughout the area because the technology did not yet exist to burn it cleanly. Today, thanks to advanced generating and environmental control technology, plants, such as Scrubgrass, can use the waste coal as a fuel source while cleaning the environment.
Environmental Impact
Waste coal acid mine drainage (AMD) is the largest source of water pollution in the state of Pennsylvania. Precipitation, in the form of rain or snow, combines with the sulfur in the waste coal to form AMD. The AMD runs off into nearby streams and rivers threatening aquatic life downstream.
By removing these waste coal dumps, Scrubgrass is eliminating the source of the AMD at the site. The alkaline ash from the power plant is returned to the site to neutralize other acid-bearing materials that could not be used as fuel and to supplement native soils to promote site revegetation.
