Two New Gas Powered Electrical Plants on the Way in PA – $1.6 Billion Investment

| | | | |

Marcellus Shale gas in Pennsylvania is having an effect on electricity generation. Instead of building coal-fired plants to generate electricity, natural gas powered plants are now in the works. Specifically, two new plants will be built in the next few years—one in Lycoming County and another in Bradford County. Not only does it mean a $1.6 billion investment, it also means hundreds of construction jobs, a cleaner way of producing electricity, and ultimately lower electricity costs for 1.4 million PA residents.

A Vienna, Va., company wants to build an $800 million power plant here [in Lycoming County] and another in Bradford County to take advantage of the growing natural gas industry and to provide energy for up to 1.4 million people, including those in the local area.

Aaron Samson, president of Moxie Energy, told the Sun-Gazette about plans to build the Moxie Patriot Generation Plant in Clinton Township [Lycoming County] and Moxie Liberty Generation Plant in Asylum Township, Bradford County. Construction would begin next year.

"We’re trying to put these projects close to the gas development," he said.

The power plants will be fueled by natural gas, with no diesel oil back-up, and will not require any large source of water for cooling.

Each plant will serve 700,000 people, according to Samson.

The company hopes to have construction under way next year and completed in about 30 months, Samson said.

Moxie’s Liberty plant should be finished in the first quarter of 2015, he added, and its Patriot plant in the second or third quarter of the year.

Samson said an average of 200 skilled and non-skilled workers, with a peak workforce of about 500, will be hired for construction. After construction finishes, there will be about 30 people operating the plants.*

*Williamsport Sun-Gazette (Jul 13, 2011) – Natural gas power plants planned locally

3 Comments

  1. The thermal efficiency of geothermal electric plants is low, around 10-23%, because geothermal fluids do not reach the high temperatures of steam from boilers. The laws of thermodynamics limits the efficiency of heat engines in extracting useful energy. 

  2. The modern steam turbine invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884 today generates about 80 percent of the electric power
    in the world using a variety of heat sources. Such generators bear no
    resemblance to Faraday’s homopolar disc generator of 1831, but they
    still rely on his electromagnetic principle that a conductor linking a
    changing magnetic field induces a potential difference across its ends.