SEATTLE - It has been downtown Seattle's boiler room for more than a century. Now Seattle Steam wants to be a powerhouse... again.
Back in 1904, the company's plant in Pioneer Square burned coal to create heat and power that helped rebuild Seattle after the infamous fire that destroyed much of it.
It stopped doing that after cities learned of the dramatic health affects of burning coal in population centers. But now that same building will be retrofitted with a clean-burning, natural-gas generator that will produce 50 megawatts of electric power - enough to light up a small city.
The company applied for and received $18 million from the Federal Department of Energy for creation of efficient industrial energy projects.
The company's Stan Gent says the project is a natural fit that will use one of the city's first power plants to generate new, clean power and use the leftover energy - steam - to produce more heat to serve downtown companies.
