Jackson Free Press

"They said they could do it for $2.4 billion, and they need to do it for $2.4 billion."

—Mississippi Public Service Southern District Commissioner Leonard Bentz, citing the original cost of the Kemper County power plant after Southern Company's July 1 announcement that the plant expects to see additional cost overruns.

Why it stinks: The estimated costs of Southern Company's largely experimental coal gasification plant in Mississippi seems to have no ceiling. Including the associated pipeline and the mine for the low-grade lignite coal that the plant will burn, the plant's costs are now in the stratospheric range of $4.5 billion, nearly double the cost of the plant alone, and $1.1 billion more than the estimate for the whole project.

Bentz, a Republican whose district includes Kemper County, has been a strong proponent of the plant since its inception. Much of the development costs fall to Mississippi Power ratepayers (Southern is MP's parent company), which is substantially increasing their electric bills long before the plant is finished.

Plans for the plant barreled along despite environmental concerns and potential issues with the as-yet-untested technology. Spending $4.5 billion on a shiny new coal plant in the 21st century is difficult, at best, to justify in light of the myriad of sustainable clean-energy options available. We can imagine a world where such astronomical amounts of money could work to power the entire country instead of one little corner of Mississippi.