Whether Dynegy's Bruce Williamson did it just for sheer relief, or not, his separation from the plant-building joint venture with LS Power can't help but lift from him what must have been a big headache.
In today's announcement that the companies were callilng off the JV, Dynegy said it was ceding to LS the ownership and development rights to several coal-fired projects. But it was not necessarily giving up participation in two coal projects that are under construction -- Plum Point in Arkansas and Sandy Creek in Texas. It might get out of those projects, but for now it is "continuing to reevaluate" them.
The coal projects have caused nothing but grief for Dynegy and Williamson, who in December won the distinguished "corporate Scrooge" award from Co-Op America for exhibiting among "the worst kinds of unbridled greed and a lack of compassion or concern for others over the last year."
"Fossil Foolishness" was his crime. Williamson was going ahead with coal-plant plans despite carbon-emission concerns and an increasingly militant Sierra Club, which even has had a website devoted to the company. The organization's Bruce Nilles, who leads its National Coal Campaign, noted the work his group has done against Dynegy, among others, for coal-plant activities. "Today's announcement is a huge step forward," he said today. No sign yet that the anti-Dynegy campaign has been dismantled.
Nilles thinks the coal projects the JV was developing -- which LS Power now has alone -- will probably not be built. They are in Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan and Nevada. Sierra Club and other groups are doggedly fighting them in local and state proceedings.
Dynegy's David Byford said today that by focusing on adding capacity at existing sites, for now, the company would be simplifying its power development work. Who could argue with that. Or about what Williamson said in the news release: "The development landscape has changed significantly" since the companies started to shape the JV in 2006. Barriers to entry include credit issues and "regulatory factors that make development much more uncertain," he said.
If there ever was a good example of understatement ...
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