Natural gas turbines to be installed in industrial park

The City of Fredericktown has ordered two 15-megawatt natural gas-driven turbines to be installed in our industrial park. These turbines are owned by the Missouri Joint Utility Commission. It is our plan to add a gassifier in the near future.

We have our trash and biomass as renewable fuel sources situated in the heart of Mark Twain National Forest. We plan to supplement the natural gas with synthetic gas with the hope that a majority of our fuel will come from renewable sources. These turbines are scheduled to begin generating at peak power in the spring of 2012.

Missouri Natural Gas, our supplier, has predicted that we will be using them as base load in a very short term. We look forward to that time because we believe that the 50 million BTU’s per hour will be available to provide power, steam, and heat for our nearby industries. The other side of that coin is it will provide almost instant back-up power for the entire city. At present, our power is delivered by Ameren, our investor-owned utility. When their system is down, our entire city is without power. This has happened on more than one occasion. Now we will be able to run our turbines in the event of a power failure. This would be possible as long as our distribution system is intact.