"MARK TWAIN SONG" harry belafonte

Strange title? Well this is a story about Hannibal, Missouri The city of Mark Twain's youth and where many of his stories took place. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn both grew up around Hannibal.
Hannibal is an "American" city, populaltion of 18,000 pretty much the same as Painesville.

Now all of us remember reading in our youth how Tom Sawyer got neighborhood kids to pay him to paint his Aunt Pollys fence. Along with the story of how Tom Sawyer the con artist robbing the neighborhood kids to view his injured toe?

Well it now seems in 21st century Hannibal the people are looking at getting fleeced again this time by a electric power deal, This nightmare has only one positive side for us in Painesville. Hannibal purchase more power from Prairie State than Painesville did.  Hannibal  presently pays $300,000 per month Painesville "ONLY" $100,000  presently. These numbers will double in July to pay for Unit II. Even though that unit won't go online until 2013.
If the power from this is costing $56.00 to produce, how do we make money on selling it for $35.00? What, please don't tell me Tom will tell us we will make it up difference on the volume.

Pairie State Unit I is operational  now but could there now be a problem of the water supply to wash the "clean coal" from mine?

Please read the following article and see if you agree?

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Prairie State finally generating revenue for BPW.


DANNY HENLEY/COURIER-POST .

The Hannibal Board of Public Works Board expects to begin receiving from the sale of electricity generated at Prairie State later this summer.

The rate of financial loss being seen by the Hannibal Board of Public Works as a result of the Prairie State coal-fired power plant is decreasing, but BPW officials may not know by how much for another month or two.

Since February the BPW has been making $300,000 a month payments for its ownership share in the Unit 1 generator at the power plant, located approximately 60 miles southeast of St. Louis. The sale of Hannibal’s 20 megawatt (MW) share of the power from the 1,600 MW plant was expected to lessen the city’s financial burden. However, because of an assortment of delays Unit 1, which initially had been expected to be in service by August 2011, did not go live until June 6. In a memo last month, Bob Stevenson, the BPW’s general manager, told the BPW Board that the city’s cash outlay through the end of June would be “about $1.5 million.”

Stevenson, who in June reported that the commercial sale of power from the plant might not occur until Jan. 1, 2013, calls the marketing of electricity from generator 1 “a big deal.”

While power from Unit 1 is now being sold, the BPW isn’t expecting to see a check for a while.

“My guess is for energy produced in June we’ll probably get a check in August,” said Stevenson. “Somebody’s got to buy it (Prairie State power). They’ll pay for June energy in July. That payment will go to MPUA (Missouri Public Utility Alliance) and then as soon as MPUA can account for all of that they’ll turn around and pro-rate our share. I’m figuring they’re going to take a month to do it.”

Don’t look for the sale of energy from Prairie State to fully cover the BPW’s payments, at least initially.

“We know what the market is doing and market price for generic energy off the grid is less than what we’re paying for Prairie State this year,” said Stevenson. “The price for power on the grid right now is depressed because of the lousy economy. If and when the economy ever turns around we would expect that price to start going up.”

The BPW’s $300,000 payments will double in the next month or so when its cash obligations begin for the Unit 2 generator at Prairie State. As with Unit 1, the BPW will be expected to make payments even though Unit 2 is not generating a volt of power for commercial sale.

“Originally we thought Unit 2 was going to be delivered early for commercial operation and then they had an operating accident during testing. They wrecked a fan which is a major setback. It’s going to take them six or nine months to get it repaired,” said Stevenson.

While the Prairie State payments are stretching the cash reserves of the BPW’s Electric Department, Stevenson believes that in time having a stake in the facility will prove beneficial.

“Early on it doesn’t look too attractive because we have a pretty big mortgage payment, but 10 years from now it will start to look pretty sweet and for the life of the plant it’s going to look really good,” he said.
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Bob Stevenson AKA Tom Sawyer