Punta Catalina coal-fired plants a scam: Environmentalists

Santo Domingo.- The National Committee to Combat ClimateChange, CNLC, on Monday said Odebrecht lies to the country when it says the PuntaCatalina coal-fired plants are below international standards on cost.

It said Odebrecht reference price of US$3,246 per kW takenfrom the Updated Capital Cost Estimates For Utility Scale Power Plants is forcoal plants with supercritical technology coal-based 650 megawatts “which isn’tapplicable to pulverized coal plants of subcritical technology at 360

“Odebrecht aims to confuse public opinion, comparing PuntaCatalina’s plants of a technology that was abandoned for years in the UnitedStates and many other countries for its high pollution and high carbon dioxide emissions,with the plants with the most advanced technology such as the supercriticalplants,” the CNLC said in an emailed statement.

It said the environmental impact study made by G & SNatural Environmental Consultants Groups and Paredes S.R.L. commissioned by theproject’s promoters and which was submitted on July 29, 2014, to the EnvironmentMinistry “specified with precision that these plants are of subcriticaltechnology.”

"However, both the Dominican State-owned ElectricUtility (CDEEE) and now Odebrecht, will try to pass off these plants as Supercriticaltechnology and even as ultra-supercritical, which constitutes fraud punishableby law," it said.

"As we have always complained the coal plants beingbuilt in Punta Catalina are outdated technology, which can be described asportable coal stoves, seeking to present them to the country as if they were technologywith advances that don’t yet exist, not even in the US."