PENSACOLA, Fla. - May 3, 2007 - Gulf Power Company is launching its largest environmental project ever, installing a 'scrubber' at the company's Plant Crist – a coal-fired electric generating plant near Pensacola.

The $500 million project is the latest in a series of emission-reductions at the plant, which since 1992 has already reduced emissions by more than 70 percent despite a 20 percent increase in customer demands.

The scrubber system – known as flue gas desulfurization – will be tied into all four generating units at the plant and is expected to remove about 95 percent of sulfur dioxides and chlorides, 70 percent of fine particulates and 80 percent of oxidized mercury.

"We already have reduced emissions substantially at Plant Crist and this project will continue that trend," said John Hutchinson, Gulf Power's general manager of Public Affairs. "Gulf Power continues to search for ways to minimize our impact on the environment and this is another huge step we are taking to make every kilowatt cleaner than the one before."

The scrubber is basically a giant washing machine that uses a crushed limestone slurry to change the chemical makeup of the emissions and capture the unwanted elements. The process also produces a by-product – gypsum – which the company will look to market to wallboard manufacturers.

Gulf Power has been involved in numerous research projects throughout the years, often serving as a test site for ground-breaking environmental control technologies that are now used industry wide, according to Hutchinson. In fact, the company opened the Mercury Research Center in 2006 at Plant Crist as an independent facility for worldwide research into reducing mercury in the environment.

In recent years, Gulf Power has installed other control technologies, such as a selective catalytic reduction unit, on generators at Plant Crist, Hutchinson said. Gulf Power also switched to a low-sulfur coal in the mid-1990s to reduce emissions. The new scrubber will work in conjunction with earlier projects to continue to minimize emissions.

The scrubber is expected be operational by the fall of 2009. At the peak of construction, an estimated 500 contract employees will be working on site. Fourteen jobs will be created to operate the scrubber.