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Northampton Fuel Supply Company Inc.
Northampton Fuel Supply Co. Inc. (NFSC), an affiliate of U.S. Generating Co. (USGen), is a $300 million, 110 megaWatt co-generation plant supplying electricity to GPU Energy and steam to a recycling linerboard mill. Both companies were built on the former Universal Atlas Cement Company site - a premier example of brownfield redevelopment. NFSC owns and operates a mobile fuel-handling facility that reprocesses waste culm prior to transportation to the Northampton Generating Company (NGC) to produce steam and electricity in a fluidized-bed boiler generating plant. NFSC has rights to 18 waste fuel banks and silt ponds in northeastern Pennsylvania, about a 22-year fuel supply for NGC. Fueled with anthracite waste from these sites, NGC produces alkaline ash used in the reclamation process. During the plant's operation, it will remove 15-20 million tons of waste anthracite, saving the Commonwealth an estimated $30 million. The handling facility is mobile and easily disassembled and moved upon completion of a reclamation project to minimize trucking requirements. In 1994, NFSC initiated operations on a 117-acre site containing 80-100 foot high piles of waste anthracite known as the Kaminsky Bank. Residential property accentuated concerns about safety, drainage, flooding, dust, waste pile fires and the condition of surface water. To minimize noise created by the project, the company built sound-deflection beams and substituted the normal sound alarm the heavy equipment emits when backing up with strobe lights. Stringent procedures insured proper dust control from haul roads and other activities. The reclamation plan contoured the land to control water flow, eliminate site runoff, and improve off-site drainage. By August 1997, a blighted wasteland was transferred back into a gently-sloped green grassland. In addition to surface reclamation, NFSC uniquely implemented the use of plant fine rejects to fill underground mine voids. NFSC locates and bores into subsurface voids that are then filled with the fine reject. This reduces the potential for mine subsidence.
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Northampton Fuel |
