The natural gas synthesis plant planned for Clinton County would pump millions of dollars into the economy but also manufacture ammonia with a risk of exploding.
A $400 million natural gas synthesis plant is planned for a 7,000 acre tract of private land in West Keating Township, according to KeyState Natural Gas Synthesis, of Bellefonte.
The proposed plant would convert stranded natural gas to hydrogen, ammonia and urea.
There are “at least 10” similar plants active in the United States but the Clinton County plant would be the only of its kind in a 17-state region, KeyState Spokesman Perry Babb explained.
The ammonia and hydrogen produced there would be sold as finished products. The urea would be converted to Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF), according to Babb.
Diesel Exhaust Fluid is used with diesel fuel to lower nitrogen oxide emissions.
The KeyState plant would make enough DEF to remediate eight billion gallons of diesel fuel per year – enough for every truck, bus and boat in Pennsylvania, according to Babb.
The economic benefits would be staggering: 800 temporary construction jobs, 150 permanent jobs and $260 million in total annual economic output, according to a report by the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.
The economic activity would uplift a “former coal mining region of chronic unemployment,” Babb said.
Wells on the private tract have not yet been spudded but the natural gas produced there would directly supply the plant.
Five new gas wells would be drilled the first year, and approximately one new well would be drilled each year for 20 years thereafter, according to Babb.
The plant offers a unique solution to Pennsylvania’s stranded gas problem.
Much of Pennsylvania’s natural gas supply currently is “stranded,” due in large part to the lack of political will for pipelines in adjacent states.
Capacity for the Transcontinental Pipeline is so limited that companies sometimes have to wait two years to get their gas to market, Representative Jeff C. Wheeland (R-Lycoming) indicated.
The stranded gas problem has created dire straits for some producers but opportunities for others.
“Ours is a perfect scenario,” said Babb. “Every well is brand new: our own wells, our own gathering system, our own plant, our own carbon storage.”
The synthesis plant would capture carbon dioxide produced during the manufacturing process and inject it underground for “permanent storage,” Babb said.
While injection wells for carbon dioxide don’t yet exist in Pennsylvania, the proposed geological strata is “a mile or a half down below the Marcellus” in Clinton County, according to Babb.
“It’s brilliant how the pieces have come together. The job creation in itself is gargantuan and then you add to it commercial-scale CO2 capture and storage. You can produce gas and store CO2 in the same vicinity and the same kind of geology,” Babb said.
But what about the risks of KeyState’s proposed operation?
Plants that use natural gas as a feedstock to produce ammonia carry a significant risk of explosion, Environmental Protection Agency records indicate.
According to the Scientific American, plants that manufacture ammonia also produce anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate – the same compound that exploded at a storage facility in Beirut earlier this month.
In 2013, a plant that produced ammonia in West, Texas, exploded and killed 15 people and “left a crater 93 feet wide and 12 feet deep,” according to the Texas Tribune.
In 1994, a plant that used natural gas to produce ammonia and urea exploded in Iowa, killing four and sending clouds of ammonia as far as five miles away from the facility, according to the EPA.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration reported 224 accidents, resulting in 50 fatalities, at ammonia plants between 1984 and 2006, according to the Scientific American.
What will KeyState do to mitigate the risk of explosion?
“This is state-of-the-art, like a hospital when you go into it. It’s highly automated with all kinds of detection and remediation devices,” Babb said.
Problems arise when ammonia-producing plants operate in a population center or when a population center grows up around the plant, according to Babb.
“That is asking for people to be concerned, and that’s part of the beauty of this site. It’s an old coal mining area, it’s not like it’s pristine,” Babb said of the West Keating Township tract.
He described the remoteness as a protective factor.
“Not being close to population alleviates a lot of those concerns,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a 7,000 acre tract. There is nobody within 10 miles of us.”
Except, of course, for the plant’s proposed 150 permanent workers.
According to Babb, “state-of-the-art remediation technology will be all over this plant.”
“The percentage of times there’s an accident around the world related to ammonia is minuscule. That doesn’t justify any accident, but I’m saying in 2020, this is not your grandpa’s petrochemical plant,” he said.
The plant is in early phase development and no permits have been applied for yet.
State Representative Stephanie Borowicz (R-McElhattan) declined a request for an interview about the plant and said through aide Michelle McCain, “We have no interest at this time.”
But Borowicz does have an interest: she is named on KeyState’s marketing materials as an engaged public sector stakeholder.
Joe Waltz, the Lock Haven democrat running to unseat Borowicz, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
KeyState will hold public information sessions about the plant this fall. Babb said the goal is for the plant to be operational in 2024.
