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LISBON — “The Columbiana County Port Authority is being told by the state to repay $305,500 awarded the agency for the defunct Baard Energy project.
The Ohio Development Services Agency (DSA), formerly the Department of Development, awarded the port authority the money in 2007 to help secure options on land in Yellow Creek Township for Baard’s proposed coal-to-liquid fuel plant.
The grant was tied to the creation of 200 jobs, which never materialized after Baard ran into financing problems and eventually sold out in 2011 to Planck Trading, an investment firm that proceeded to use its money to acquire the remaining 400 acres. Nothing has happened since with the project.”
— Tom Giambroni, Lisbon Morning Journal
link to article
 COLUMBUS — “Many of the companies that receive economic-development incentives from Ohio, many promising to add or retain jobs, do not hold up their end of the deal. Last year, 64 percent kept their promises, according to a report from Attorney General Mike DeWine.”
— Dan Gearino, Columbus Dispatch
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Failed Baard coal project on “Clawback” list
The roster of failed development projects includes the Columbiana County Port Authority’s plans to buy land for the now-failed Baard Coal Energy Project. According to the Attorney General’s report, the state notified the Port Authority that it is “clawing back” $305,500 in state funds that were supposed to be used to support the creation of 200 jobs on the site. None were created, and the project was officially cancelled in October 2011. Ohio Citizen Action wrote to Governor John Kasich in May 2011 urging him to claw back the funds for this project.
— Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director, Ohio Citizen Action
 Ted Strickland, along with a number of local Democratic leaders, gathered outside the new V & M Star mill in Girard Thursday afternoon to tout Barack Obama's energy policies. GIRARD — “‘In fact, the President has said just the opposite, and he followed through with resources. Five billion dollars from this administration has gone into efforts to do the research that will enable us to use coal in a way that is environmentally acceptable,’ Strickland said.
However, the man behind a multi-billion dollar energy plant project in Columbiana County might disagree.
John Baardson, president of Baard Energy, has said he ran into stiff resistance from the Obama White House over plans to convert coal to liquid fuel, ultimately forcing him to switch to a natural gas-fired project.”
— WYTV 33 News
link to article
 EAST LIVERPOOL — “The Columbiana County Port Authority received preliminary state approval to use state money once allocated for Baard Energy on a project to help two companies at its Wellsville river terminal, which is expected to create 20 new jobs.
The Ohio Department of Development’s Financing Advisory Council this week recommended $3.5 million be loaned to the port authority for the Wellsville project, with the loan to be forgiven if certain goals are met. The State Controlling Board is expected to act on the recommendation sometime this spring.
Port Authority CEO Tracy Drake said the money will be used to fund a variety of improvements at its river terminal/industrial park, all related to a joint venture between CIMBAR Performance Minerals and Anchor Drilling Fluids USA to process lubricants used in oil and gas drilling.”
— Tom Giambroni, East Liverpool Review
Read the whole story: http://www.reviewonline.com/page/content.detail/id/554141/Port-receives-preliminary-approval-to-use-money.html?nav=5008
EAST LIVERPOOL — “[Columbiana County Port Authority CEO Tracy] Drake said things could really take off once the former Baard Energy project gets under way with plans to build a plant outside Wellsville that converts natural gas into synthetic diesel and jet fuel. The investment firm that took over the project has been acquiring the necessary property, and he has been told the project is moving forward.”
— Tom Giambroni, East Liverpool Review
Read the whole story: http://www.reviewonline.com/page/content.detail/id/553878/Port-hopes-to-benefit-from-plant.html?nav=5008
 JSW Steel headquarters in Mumbai, India. CLEVELAND – A little-understood player in the Baard Energy fiasco is a company based in Boca Raton, Florida, called “Planck Holdings.” For the past year, Baard Energy’s John Baardson has been saying that Planck Holdings would bankroll his proposed coal refinery in Wellsville. Baardson said Planck was run by Perian Salviola, but she refused to speak publicly about the company or her role. Now Baardson is out of the picture, the coal refinery project is dead, and newspaper reports have Planck Holdings ready to invest in a natural gas plant for the same site.
What is Planck Holdings? A year ago, Ohio Citizen Action assembled evidence that Planck was closely tied to JSW Steel in India. Now, in JSW Steel’s 2011 Annual Report, page 79, Planck Holdings LLC is listed as a JSW Steel subsidiary. Also listed as subsidiaries are Planck Trading LLC, Periama Holdings LLC, and Prime Coal LLC, all companies for which Perian Salviola has been identified as a top officer.
 The above chart comes from a recent Fitch Ratings Agency report on Periama Holdings, LLC.
— Paul Ryder, Ohio Citizen Action
— Spencer Hunt, Columbus Dispatch
— Editorial, Lorain Morning Journal
— Ana Yanni, East Liverpool Review
 U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson WELLSVILLE — “The Natural Resources Defense Council takes exception to comments by U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-6 Ohio, saying its actions against the now defunct Baard Energy coal liquefaction plant (READ STORY) were ‘anything but extremist.’
…Fisk argues the Natural Resources Defense Council opposed the proposed plant because ‘we felt did not comply with environmental laws and did not meet the important public health standards.’ He said the NRDC entered into the agreement to stay challenges against the building permits after Planck removed from the table ‘a truly disastrous idea’ of a coal liquefaction plant, thus reducing climate-changing emissions, about 2,000 tons of other pollutants annually, and avoiding about nine million tons of coal mining per year.
‘I find it disturbing that the thought of enforcing environmental laws that are designed to protect public health and our environment is somehow ‘extremist,’ ‘ Fisk said. “Enforcing our Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act that ensures that we have a healthy and safe environment for our children is a completely reasonable thing to do, and there’s nothing at all extremist about that.’
Taking coal out of the process reduces potential carbon dioxide emissions by 75%, sulfur dioxide pollutants by as little as 15%, some by as much as 90%.
Moreover,Fisk argues further that the project wasn’t economically viable, citing Baard’s difficulty in securing financing the building permits it needed were issued.
‘The company now has acknowledged that they need to move on to a different idea,” he said. ‘I think it is really a sign that coal-to-liquids is not economically viable technology for Ohio or for the country in general.’”
— Jeremy Lydic, Youngstown Business Journal
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 LIBSON — “The Baard Energy project is being resurrected, with natural gas replacing coal as the energy source used to produce synthetic diesel and jet fuel.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental groups fighting construction of Baard’s Ohio River Clean Fuels plant, announced Friday the coal-based project as originally constituted has been scrapped as part of an agreement reached with the groups.
In exchange for switching from coal to natural gas, the NRDC and Sierra Club agreed to drop its appeals challenging the permits issued for the Baard project by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
— Tom Giambroni, The Review
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 COLUMBIANA COUNTY — “Baardson admits the changes will also remove him from the project, leaving its fate in the hands of his investors — Planck Trading of Florida. Baardson tells us ‘I will largely be stepping away,’ adding, ‘Planck will carry on, it’s all lined out for them.’ Instead Baardson says he’ll focus on a number of other potential projects in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. All the same, Baardson claims the project will always be his —predicting we should finally see a ground breaking next spring or summer.”
— Fox News Youngstown
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WELLSVILLE — “While Dopuch didn’t have an exact figure of the revised project’s total cost, he expects it to be ‘more than half less’ than the $6 billion estimated to develop the coal liquefaction plant. The footprint will also be slightly smaller than the 522 acres originally needed for the coal liquefaction plant. Planck has already purchased some 425 acres for the project and may eventually purchase the full 522 depending on engineering schematics. ‘There won’t be all that coal coming in, so we won’t have to store 30-days worth of coal on the site,’ Dopuch said.
Planck executives discussed the changes with the Sierra Club of San Francisco and the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, who filed challenges against the coal project’s building permits in 2008. The plaintiffs accused the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army of Engineers of failing to adequately assess the environmental impact of the plant. This forced Baard to rescind its funding request through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program, effectively halting the project.
On Friday, Planck and the environmental groups agreed to jointly request that the Ohio Environmental Review Appeals Commission vacate further deliberations on the challenges. Dopuch expects the commission to sign-off on the filing in the next few days so Planck can begin modifying the building permits, he said. What’s more, he doesn’t expect any further action from the environmental groups regarding the changes to the plant.
‘We shared with them what our projections were for criteria pollutants,’ Dopuch said. ‘And they’re very pleased with that.’”
— Jeremy Lydic, Youngstown Business Journal
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“Advocacy group Ohio Citizen Action, citing an NRDC study, reports that replacing 10% of the U.S. petroleum demand with coal-derived liquid fuels would “require a 42% increase in U.S. coal production, or 475 million tons more coal every year, to run these refineries.”
— Bob Petz, Ecology Global Network
 WELLSVILLE — “Baard four years ago proposed building a refinery that would have made the jet and diesel fuel from Ohio coal, which is among the most dirty in the nation. The coal refinery would have cost $6.9 billion and would have required about 450 acres.
The company obtained air and water permits from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and had the attention of the Pentagon, but legal opposition from environmental groups concerned about mercury and other pollutants stalled development until last week.
On Friday, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club agreed to suspend further legal action if Baard switched to natural gas, which is not only cleaner than coal but also would cut the refinery’s carbon dioxide emissions by 75 percent.
Nachy Kanfer of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign said that, despite agreeing to the deal, his organization in principle does not support converting natural gas to aviation and motor fuel either. But the Sierra Club saw the agreement as an opportunity to strike a “giant blow” to dirtier coal, Kanfer said.
…Shannon Fisk, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the settlement ends Baard Energy’s interest in coal and should permanently end efforts by others as well to use coal to make liquid fuels.
‘Coal to liquids technology has always been dirty and expensive — and today’s announcement makes it clear that it remains a bad bet,’ he said. ‘Four years into this mess, the Baard facility has not been able to sort out its pollution permits or financing because making liquid fuel out of coal simply doesn’t work economically or environmentally.’”
— John Funk, Cleveland Plain Dealer
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 WELLSVILLE — “Once touted as the economic savior of the little town of Wellsville, Ohio as early as 2006, Baard Energy was issued an air pollution and construction permit in the Fall of 2008 to build a 50,000 barrel per day coal to diesel fuel facility by the Ohio EPA.
Baard Energy claimed the plant at that time would cost $4-5.5 billion and be financed by a combination of “debt and equity” according to the proposed plant’s management team. However, it was pointed out by Valley Watch and others at the time that Baard has way to small an organization to acquire such debt since it was a company with less than a dozen employees.
On Friday, it was official disclosed that a settlement had been reached that requires Baard to use another feedstock besides coal if it wants to go forth in the future.
‘Coal to liquids technology has always been dirty and expensive—and today’s announcement makes it clear that it remains a bad bet,’ said NRDC senior attorney Shannon Fisk. ‘Four years into this mess, the Baard facility has not been able to sort out its pollution permits or financing because making liquid fuel out of coal simply doesn’t work economically or environmentally. The public subsidies its developers sought shouldn’t pay for pollution. We have better choices.’”
— John Blair, ValleyWatch
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 CLEVELAND – “The cancellation of the proposed Baard Energy coal to liquids plant in Columbiana County is welcome news, and a tribute to the determined legal team at NRDC and Sierra Club, who challenged the environmental soundness of this proposal from the beginning, and to the five thousand Ohio Citizen Action members who told their elected officials that subsidizing this plant was a waste of tax dollars.
For the past six years, Baard Energy has claimed that it had private financial backing for this process. That promise, and the coal to liquids project, both turned out to be fictional. In fact, Baard Energy ended up in debtor’s court, being sued by contractors it never paid. Governor John Kasich should claw back the $805,500 in state funds that his predecessor gave to the Columbiana County Port Authority on the promise that this project would be built.
The cancellation of the coal to liquids plant is more evidence that our economy is moving away from a reliance on dirty coal. Baard had claimed that this facility would use 9.3 million tons of coal a year, including Ohio high-sulfur coal, which would have increased consumption of coal in Ohio by about 17%. “
— Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director, Ohio Citizen Action
— press release, Josh Mogerman, Natural Resources Defense Council
COSHOCTON — “Coshocton filed a civil lawsuit against Coshocton Ethanol and its original developer, John Baardson, on July 22. The company is in default of its portion of a $7 million loan, according to court documents filed by the city. . . . Baardson’s last known address is Vancouver, Wash., and his notice of the civil suit was returned to the Coshocton County Clerk of Courts as unreachable.”
— Kathie Dickerson, Coshocton Tribune
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 LISBON — “Baard Energy is being sued in Coshocton County for its past role in creation of a now-closed ethanol plant that has fallen 18 months behind on its payments to the city of Coshocton.
Coschocton’s mayor issued a news release Wednesday announcing it had filed a breach-of-control lawsuit against Coshocton Ethanol and John Baardson, CEO of Baard Energy. Baard Energy was the initial developer of the ethanol plant, which it sold to another company in 2006, two years before the plant opened.
As part of the deal to land the plant, Coschocton agreed to borrow $7 million from the state to extend city sewage lines to the ethanol plant and fund needed improvements at the municipal sewage treatment plant before wastewater could be accepted from the facility.
The agreement called for the plant operator to repay 70 percent of the loan, but the facility closed in December 2008, 10 months after it opened, and the city of Coshocton has not received any payments in 18 months. According to the news release, the owners have been working unsuccessfully on securing funding to reopen the plant, and the city has been in talks with officials over that period, but circumstances forced the city to act now to protect itself.”
— Tom Giambroni, Salem News
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