Ely - The fight over construction of a coal-fired power plant here focuses a national debate against the backdrop of a rural, high-desert town.

Some people see the larger issues, including global warming and the future of America's energy supply.

But for others it's very personal, pitting neighbors against one another.

That includes the more than 200 people who turned out for a public meeting here this month to alternately laud and condemn the plant, which is proposed by the state's biggest utility company.

About half of them spoke passionately about their future, and how the plant would ignite an economic rebirth of an area that has grown stagnant.

The other half spoke passionately about their future, too -- and their fear that the plant would threaten their health and jeopardize wildlife.

Little wonder, then, that public meetings in White Pine County involving power company executives, government environmental officials and the federal Bureau of Land Management have grown more contentious over the past year.

This month's meeting was supposed to focus on the air pollutants regulated by state and federal law -- sulfur, nitrogen and particulates.

But the audience wanted to talk instead about how the plant would accelerate global warming or, on the other hand, boost the region's payroll.

During the four-hour hearing, state officials said the plant, proposed by Sierra Pacific Resources -- the owner of Nevada Power Co. -- will meet current environmental law.

But critics weren't moved.

"I don't want my grandson to be some kind of scientific meter for pollutants," said Robert Hume of Ely, his eyes bright and wet. He held the microphone with a shaking hand, straining to rise above the din of shuffled chairs and tired children in the convention center, one of Ely's spiffier buildings.

The 1,500-megawatt plant would burn about 8 million tons of coal each year and emit, unregulated, about 10 million tons of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that causes global warming. For now, the plant would have no pollution controls for carbon.

The state says ozone levels near the plant would increase to 96 percent of the federally allowed levels.

Full Story: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan/23/coal-plant-debate-intensifies/