Schumer blasts Praxair

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer reportedly contacted the CEO of Praxair Inc. to “get to the bottom” of a decision to demote a western New York site as a clean-energy demonstration facility in favor of an alternate site in western Michigan.

Danbury-based Praxair had proposed a site in Jamestown, N.Y., for a 50-megawatt oxy-coal facility, which is designed to produce energy by burning coal while sequestering the emissions underground. Last month, the company announced it would shift the primary site to Holland, Mich., in part due to what a spokeswoman told the Jamestown Post-Journal were underlying geological weaknesses around Jamestown.

According to Schumer, Praxair CEO Steve Angel told him that the U.S. Department of Energy asked the company to make Michigan the primary site, due to its position atop a massive sandstone shelf that can easily absorb carbon dioxide from the carbon sequestration process.

‘”I don”™t believe that their geology is better for carbon sequestration than the geology here in Jamestown,” Schumer said, in a press conference in early September, as quoted by the Post-Journal.