Jobs
and the Economy
The
TGE facility will be privately financed. Thus, it will not compete
with public funding priorities. Rather, it will be an economic engine
– both locally, through expenditures for construction, operation
and maintenance, and regionally, through energy cost savings. This
project will therefore translate into jobs and increased economic
activity in New York. Counting both direct and induced employment
and investment, the TGE Facility will be responsible for the creation
of more than 1,000 local short-term jobs and 100 local permanent
jobs. On the basis of New York State’s energy studies, the
cost savings TGE provides can generate up to 1,600 permanent new
jobs. Construction of the facility will generate at least $430 million
of economic activity. Its energy cost savings and local expenditures
are expected to induce up to $135 million per year in long-term
economic activity. At the same time, the facility will not create
traffic congestion and will not strain public physical and social
infrastructure.
Land
Use and Planning
The
site is in an M-3 zone, the district designated by the City of New
York for power plants to be built as of right. The Department of
City Planning proposed in June 2003 to convert this industrial zone
to parkland. In response, TGE formulated a concept for an underground
design, with a park topping the site. Whether built above or below
ground, the TGE plant will become an anchor facility for a new and
revitalized north Brooklyn waterfront. TGE’s facility would
rehabilitate an active industrial site located in a drab, pedestrian-unfriendly
industrial area. The existing business, a fuel oil terminal, will
relocate and consolidate its operations at other Brooklyn terminals.
By locating on a contaminated site, it preserves and maximizes less
contaminated redevelopment sites for other purposes, while designing
its own facility with an eye toward a transformed waterfront, explicitly
contemplating ample public access along the waterfront. Even though
the site operates today within an industrial context, the TGE facility
is being designed to harmonize with future development plans for
the area.
The
Below-Ground Design
TGE's
underground design takes up only an acre of land and the surface,
and dedicates the remainder to waterfront parkland, which can become
part of a future waterfront access network.
Brownfield
Cleanup
The
proposed project site is heavily contaminated with both petroleum
and coal tar wastes. Both soil and groundwater are severely polluted.
TGE has entered into a Voluntary Cleanup Agreement with the New
York State Department of Environmental Conservation in order to
remediate the site. Facility construction and site remediation are
proposed as a single package: neither will occur without the other.
The Facility will not use taxpayer or ratepayer funds for environmental
cleanup and will avoid the usual protracted litigation typically
associated with contaminated sites that have gone through successive
ownership through the years.
Air
Quality
The
facility is required to, and will, incorporate the most stringent
possible controls for a variety of pollutants. Air pollutant concentrations
due to the facility will be negligible. The facility will comply
with all standards that protect public health. Beyond that, the
TGE facility will always be in competition with other energy suppliers.
Because of its outstanding efficiency, it is expected to be the
power source of choice most of the time. (The rest of the time,
the facility will not run and will produce no air emissions.) As
a result, regional emissions of smog-producing nitrogen oxides and
acid rain-forming sulfur oxides will be reduced by seven times as
much as the TGE facility will produce. Emission decreases will translate
to localized benefits, as well: less air pollutant deposition from
power plants into Greenpoint-Williamsburg with the facility than
there exists today. Thus, the project will help the goal of cleaner
air both globally and locally.
Water Use and Water Quality
TGE has worked with Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff,
plans to reuse non-potable water that is presently pumped to preserve
dry conditions in several Brooklyn subway stations. This flow will
provide for all of TGE’s process water needs. If the new facility
produces steam for the existing Con Edison system, it will also
reduce New York City’s upstate reservoir withdrawals because
the present steam system uses reservoir water.
Energy Reliability
The
TGE Facility will enhance the energy system in a variety of ways.
By adding a generating facility inside New York City, it will help
to ensure that adequate in-City capacity exists, particularly during
periods of inclement weather, unusually high demand, or outages,
when reliance on out-of-city resources must be limited. By placing
the generator at the heart of system demand, congestion is relieved,
voltage on the system is better supported, and overall reliability
is improved. With its black start capability, TGE can also re-energize
the electric system more quickly if a catastrophic outage occurs.
The facility will also provide for a new and “hardened”
switchyard in Brooklyn. This switchyard, unlike traditional outdoor
switchyards that are eyesores and consume acres of land, will utilize
gas-insulated technology, allowing the facility to be small enough
to be fully enclosed in an architectural landmark building. By financing
reinforcements to the natural gas system in Brooklyn, the proposal
will also enhance natural gas reliability, both for power plants
that use natural gas and for the residences, businesses and institutions
that rely on it. If an agreement is reached with Con Edison for
steam supply, the New York City steam system will benefit from this
reliable new supply of steam.
Conclusion
Above or below ground, the TGE Facility is an excellent example
of tailoring a project to meet local and regional public interest
priorities. It turns what is typically perceived as an undesirable
project into an environmentally positive asset and investment anchor
for a waterfront badly in need of private funding.
