Louisianans racked up a big win as parameters of the impending Meta, Inc. data center in Richland Parish put the effort on course for delivering maximal economic benefits with minimal consumer costs.
A number of special interests tried to prevent that. Some were anti-fossil fuel/pro-catastrophic anthropogenic global warming believers who primarily oppose the effort because it would encourage significantly more natural gas use and secondarily as they desire guaranteed greater use of more expensive/less reliable renewable sources of energy for the project. Others are aggrieved large-scale consumers who want to create alternative paths for energy acquisition without having to go through Entergy Louisiana, the supplier for the project.
Over the past few months, activity has involved attempts by opponents to delay the expedited approval process, but an administrative law judge sidetracked multiple efforts to do so. This led to a two-day hearing earlier this month that will lead to a recommendation by the judge about the parameters for approval by the Louisiana Public Service Commission, but public aspects of that already have been worked out in a settlement agreement among all parties. The LPSC must give eventual approval because Entergy wants to build and operate three natural gas plants as the bulk of power for Meta’s operations.
