Can the residents of Early County and those who have family there get a word in on the debate over a proposed coal power plant?

Many Early County residents are aware of the dangers of pollution from coal-generated power plants. After all, Farley Nuclear Power Plant is located across the Chattahoochee River from the proposed LS Power site. My parents and my siblings live only 12 miles from Plant Farley. Early County residents do not want pollution any more than metro Atlanta residents want automobile-generated smog pollution. Early County residents want good-paying jobs just like metro Atlanta residents who work in comfortable offices each day. There are technical solutions to the emissions problem at LS Power and nontechnical solutions to metro Atlanta's pollution. (More commuters must simply stop driving and car pool or take the train or bus.)

Early County and southwest Georgia have traditionally been bypassed by Georgia in funding of roads, other infrastructure and economic development. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in a region where 25 percent of the residents live below the poverty level. Agriculture has been the main source of jobs in Early County for many years. But as farming became more automated, fewer people were needed. Peanut and cotton processing mills provided a few jobs, but not nearly enough to cover the decline in farm labor. Even the cotton gin in Blakely closed and now serves as a city recreation center. Many residents have to drive to nearby Dothan or Albany to work. The LS Power plant will provide about 120 permanent jobs. Every job will help the residents of Early County.

Now to the technical solutions. Southern Company is investing $1.3 billion for scrubbers and pollution cleaning equipment to clean up some of the 186,000 tons per year of air pollutants at the 3,540-megawatt Plant Bowen near Cartersville. I have not heard any complaints from the residents of Cartersville, Euharlee or Acworth about pollution from Plant Bowen. If Bartow County residents can live with Plant Bowen, which is only 45 miles from Atlanta, then Early County residents can deal with the smaller 1,200-megawatt LS Power plant.

Plant Longleaf will use 20 million gallons a day of effluent water from the adjacent Georgia-Pacific paper mill. Even this is a modest amount, considering that a large integrated paper mill uses about 40 million gallons a day of water. As an engineer who has worked in gasification, hydrogen and petrochemical production for many years, I know that LS Power can do more to make its plant cleaner. Rather than stop the Longleaf plant, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore should have asked the company to take the steps necessary to reduce emissions. I would like to have seen an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plant built in Early County. IGCC provides the cleanest solid-fuel-conversion technology available today. An IGCC plant uses coal but has far fewer emissions than a traditional coal-fired plant.

A cleaner near-term solution for Georgia's air problem is to bring in more liquefied natural gas at Elba Island near Savannah, and new nuclear power units at Plant Vogtle near Augusta. Forget about hydrogen for a while. Despite all the hype, it takes too much fossil-fuel energy to make it. Georgia does not have enough sustained winds for large wind turbine farms. Solar energy is an option for new construction, but too expensive for existing homes and offices.

Coal is America's most abundant energy source, and we must find safe ways to use it. As for Atlantans who oppose the Longleaf plant, here is some advice from Early County farmers: Use mass transit, go to a four-day workweek, go to bed one hour earlier each night. These three simple things can save the equivalent of a Plant Longleaf in energy each year.

> Larry B. Jacobs is a native of Early County in southwest Georgia who now lives in Adairsville.