WOOD PELLET NEWSLETTER
AUGUST 2010
Gerald W brown * 7202 County Road U * Danbury, WI 54830 Phone 715-866-8535
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• BIOMASS ENERGY BOILER RULE COULD DECREASE CHANCES OF MEETING RENEWABLE STANDARDS
• WOOD PELLET PRODUCTION TO SURGE THROUGH 2020, LOBBY GROUP SAYS
• STUDY: WOOD PELLETS COULD BOOST REGION
• CONSIDERATIONS FOR FACTORING BIOMASS INTO CLEAN ENERGY
• 90 SCIENTISTS URGE CONGRESS NOT TO 'COOK THE BOOKS' IN CO2 ACCOUNTING FOR BIOFUELS, OTHER BIOENERGY SOURCES
• PRIVATE DEVELOPER PROJECTS Ireland
• THE STATE CAN REDUCE ITS DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL BY SWITCHING TO HOME-GROWN HEAT.
• INVESTORS: RENEWABLES GROWTH IS SLOWER BUT STEADY
• NEW MILL OWNER KEEN TO EXPAND EUROPEAN TRADE
• CAMDEN COMEBACK SLOWED
• TORREFACTION OF WOOD PELLETS OFFERS SUBSTITUTE TO COAL
• IS BURNING FIREWOOD A FORM OF GREEN ENERGY?
• REOPENED KREMMLING RAIL SPUR READY TO ROLL
• PELLET POWER
• CN GROWING "GREEN" WOOD PELLET TRAFFIC AT DOUBLE-DIGIT RATES
• NEW NEXT STEP RELACE COAL PELLET?
• TORREFACTION OF WOOD PELLETS OFFERS SUBSTITUTE TO COAL
• FORESTRY BUDGET SLASH, ROADLESS EXTENSION, MORE
• PELLET PLANT DELAYED FOR LACK OF MONEY
• BIOMASS BATTLE HEATS UP
• RESPONSE TO MANOMET STUDY
• ESSENT'S AMER POWER PLANT TAKES A HISTORIC STEP
• U.S. SOUTH COULD BE BIOMASS BREADBASKET
• FOREST OWNERS REACTS TO GHG REGULATION
• ENERGY COMPANIES IN EUROPE SHOW INCREASED INTEREST IN SOURCING BIOMASS FROM THE US SOUTH
• WOOD SUPPLY WAIT MEANS DELAY FOR ATIKOKAN RENEWABLE FUELS
• ENEWABLE ENERGY SALARIES SURGE IN THE UK ON TALENT WAR
• FIVE QUESTIONS FOR EPA
• WOOD PELLET FACILITY TO OPEN IN JASPER COUNTY, SC WILL CREATE 22 JOBS
• GROUP AIMS TO HEAT MORE WITH WOOD
• GRASS PELLET STOVES AND FUEL
• WOOD SUPPLY WAIT MEANS DELAY FOR ATIKOKAN RENEWABLE FUELS
• ISU TESTING BIOMASS/COAL BLEND TO REDUCE EMISSIONS
• ISU POWER PLANT RUNS TESTS WITH WOOD PELLETS
• DRYDEN FIRM HAS PLANS FOR EUROPEAN-STYLE DISTRICT HEATING PLANT
• EPA ANNOUNCES LONG-AWAITED CAIR REPLACEMENT
• ENTENZA BOOSTS RENEWABLES AT MSU
• BURNING OHIO TREES AT BURGER SETS FIRE TO DEBATE
• GREEN GEM GOES BUST
• WOOD PELLETS DIVERSIFIED
• FIREFIGHTERS EXTINGUISH FLARE UP AT SITE OF MASSIVE SHEBOYGAN CO. FIRE
• RIVERSTONE-BACKED BIOMASS COMPANY CLOSE TO SCORING MAJOR SUPPLY CONTRACT
• NORTHEAST BIOMASS CONFERENCE & EXPO TOURS FEATURE DISTRICT HEATING, PELLETIZING
• BRAZILIAN PAPER OUTFIT TO FORM ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SPINOFF
• LAZIO, RUNNING MATE VISIT NEW ENGLAND WOOD PELLET FACILITY
• NET DEBUTS ON AIM TO RAISE £5M
• LOGISTIC AND WOODPELLETS COMPLEX AND STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS
• DNR’S FOREST BIOMASS INITIATIVE SHOWING RESULTS; NIPPON PAPER ANNOUNCES $71 MILLION PROJECT IN PORT ANGELES
• NEW EARTH PELLETS LAUNCHES WOOD PELLET COMPANY
• FIRSTENERGY SEEKS OK TO BURN BIOMASS AT BURGER PLANT IN SOUTHERN OHIO
• FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES ARE 12 TIMES SUPPORT FOR RENEWABLES, STUDY SHOWS
• OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION INVESTIGATES EXPLOSION AT MARION PELLET PLANT
• FIRSTENERGY SWITCHES FROM COAL TO BIOMASS
• BIOMASS FIRM WINS MAJOR CONTRACT
• TESTING WOOD A POSITIVE STEP IN UNC ENERGY USE
BIOMASS ENERGY BOILER RULE COULD DECREASE CHANCES OF MEETING RENEWABLE STANDARDS
26 August 2010-- The Biomass Power Association (BPA) said if the Environmental Protection Agency adopts its proposed Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule, it could bring an end the biomass industry and decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would meet its renewable energy goals.
The Biomass Power Association submitted detailed comments and suggestions in a letter to the EPA August 23. In the letter, BPA asks the EPA to consider allowing facilities to demonstrate that emissions of certain pollutants do not pose a public threat, subcategorize units and provide facilities with the opportunity to meet standards at reasonable costs and to use a method to set emissions standards that are based on what the real world best performing units actually can achieve.
"It is unfair to expect the biomass industry, which contributes significantly to the nation's power supply and renewable energy goals, to adhere to emissions standards above and beyond the standards applied to other industries," said BPA president and CEO Bob Cleaves during a conference call. “We hope to work with the EPA to develop emissions standards that reasonably apply to our industry while protecting public health and the environment."
The boiler MACT rule, if passed, would increase emissions standards for biomass facilities across the country. The Department of Energy said that biomass could potentially supply as much as 14 percent of the nation's overall energy by the year 2030.
WOOD PELLET PRODUCTION TO SURGE THROUGH 2020, LOBBY GROUP SAYS
June 30, 2010, 7:01 AM EDT
By Jeremy van Loon
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Global production of wood pellets, an alternative fuel for heating, will grow by multiples over the next decade, helped by the European Union’s renewable energy regulations, an industry lobby group said.
Production will increase to 100 million tons from about 12 million tons now, Christian Rakos, head of the association of Austrian pellet producers, said today in Brussels. Much of the increase will come from Canada and the southern U.S.
The EU aims to boost the use of renewable energy to 20 percent of the region’s total by 2020, with almost two-thirds of that coming from plant-based biofuels, pellets and biomass, Rakos said. Pellets are made by compressing sawdust and chips from pulp and paper production.
Europe is currently the biggest producer and consumer of wood pellets with companies including Sweden’s Vapo Group among the largest producers.
--Editors: Randall Hackley, Reed Landberg
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy van Loon in Brussels via jvanloon@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net
STUDY: WOOD PELLETS COULD BOOST REGION
By The Mainebiz News Staff
06/28/10
________________________________________
A new study concluded the Northeast could retain $4.5 billion in its regional economy by increasing its use of wood pellets over the next 15 years.
The study, "A Bold Vision for 2025," reports that the region could cut its dependence on heating oil by 25% by switching 1.4 million homes in Maine and six other regional states from oil heat to biomass boilers, according to the Maine Sunday Telegram. The switch would cut annual oil use by 1.14 billion gallons and lead to 140,200 new jobs. The study was prepared by five trade groups, including the Maine Pellet Fuels Association and the Biomass Thermal Energy Council, according to the paper.
Meanwhile, plans to build a $20 million, 100,000-ton-per-year wood pellet plant in Burnham have been put on hold until the fall of 2011. Steven Mueller, president of International WoodFuels, told the paper the delay is due to a combination of difficult market conditions and restricted access to debt and equity financing. Maine currently has four wood pellet plants, two of which are rebuilding from fires.
Go to the article on the report from the Maine Sunday Telegram >>
Go to the article on the Burnham plant from the Maine Sunday Telegram >>
WOOD PELLET EXPORTS ARE ON THE UP IN AUSTRALIA
Following Australia’s lowest wood chip export figures in ten years, demand is on the rise.
According to the Wood Resource Quarterly exports for pine chips have risen 38%, while eucalyptus chips are up 12%. In addition, around 100,000 tonnes of wood pellets are set to be transported to Europe by the end of this year.
Australia saw its wood export market fall to a ten-year-low in 2009 when wood chips exports dropped 32%. Between 2008 and 2009 hardwood chip exports fell 41% and softwood chip shipments dropped 26%. This saw just 790,000 tonnes of the chips being exported from Australia.
However throughout the first four months of 2010 the Wood Resource Quarterly reported that conifer wood chip exports have risen by 38% since 2009 and eucalyptus chips are up by 12%. Demand has grown in Japan and Taiwan, while it has dropped significantly in China. Between 2008 and 2009 shipments to the region increased by almost 300%, reaching 670,000 tonnes. But between January and April this year exports plummeted 86% and reached just 23,000 tonnes.
One Australian company is working towards increasing exports to the European biomass market. At the end of 2009 the first batches of pellets were exported to an energy company in the Netherlands. This year alone has seen the exportation of 20,000 tonnes of wood pellets to Europe.
Associate publisher, Biofuels International Magazine
BioEnergy News
e: margaret@bioenergy-news.com
t: +44 208 687 4126
f: +44 208 687 4130
CONSIDERATIONS FOR FACTORING BIOMASS INTO CLEAN ENERGY
Monday, July 5, 2010
WHEN YOU think of next-generation energy technologies, burning wood pellets probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But buried in energy proposals across Capitol Hill are policies that promote doing just that.
Many lawmakers want the government to require utilities to derive a certain percentage of their electricity from clean sources. And one of the sources that would probably qualify is so-called renewable biomass -- everything from forest debris to algae, which can be burned in some power plants. Sure, the logic goes, you produce carbon emissions when you burn this material. But when the stuff grows back, it takes carbon out of the atmosphere, too.
That logic works well if harvesting biomass results in additional net plant growth, or if you're collecting discarded forest debris that would otherwise degrade and release its carbon into the atmosphere anyway. Chopping down and burning forest that gobbles up and stores lots of carbon, on the other hand, could easily do more harm than good.
This should be a simple problem to address: Require that qualifying biomass have low net emissions across the course of harvesting, burning and regrowth. But there are political obstacles to this, not least the farm bloc in Congress, which prefers a different regulatory scheme and also doesn't want certain land-use changes to factor into such "life cycle" emissions calculations, a critical part of accounting for biomass's carbon cost.
In a recent letter to Congress, 90 scientists pointed out that biomass's accounting problems only get worse from there. Climate legislation and international treaties, for example, don't count emissions from the burning of biomass, treating it as though it produced none at all. "Improper accounting," they say, could lead to massive clearing of the world's forests. And some argue that this effect is already visible as plants open in the South to produce wood pellets for burning in European power plants, which can receive carbon credits under similar policies.
Even if you don't share the scientists' degree of alarm, it's hard to disagree with the resulting policy conclusions. Any biomass that qualifies as "renewable" or "clean" should significantly reduce emissions relative to natural gas. That calculation must honestly account for land-use changes attributable to the harvesting of biomass. And any net emissions that result should be counted as such under any carbon cap.
90 SCIENTISTS URGE CONGRESS NOT TO 'COOK THE BOOKS' IN CO2 ACCOUNTING FOR BIOFUELS, OTHER BIOENERGY SOURCES
Concerns Expressed About Treatment of Bioenergy Sources in U.S. House and Senate Climate/Energy Bills; Improper Accounting Could Lead to Large-Scale Destruction of Forests, Undercutting of Other Climate Change Gains.
WASHINGTON, May 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ninety of America's leading scientists today urged U.S. House and Senate leaders to make sure that any climate/energy bill or regulation accurately accounts for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions when it comes to bioenergy, including biofuels such as ethanol.
In the letter to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Majority Leader Harry Reid, and key Obama Administration officials, the scientists caution that ignoring the carbon impact of bioenergy can actually lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions because not all forms of bioenergy produce less carbon dioxide pollution than fossil fuels. They write: "Replacement of fossil fuels with bioenergy does not directly stop carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes or smokestacks. Although fossil fuel emissions are reduced or eliminated, the combustion of biomass replaces fossil emissions with its own emissions (which may even be higher per unit of energy because of the lower energy to carbon ratio of biomass)."
"There may be a public perception that all biofuels and bioenergy are equally good for the environment and are all lower in carbon emissions than fossil fuels, but that's not true," said Dr. William Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, one of the scientists who signed the letter. "Many produce just as much or more carbon pollution than oil, gas, and coal. If our laws and regulations treat high-carbon-impact bioenergy sources, like today's corn ethanol, as if they are low-carbon, we're fooling ourselves and undercutting the purpose of those same laws and regulations."
According to the scientists, what the United States decides to do in terms of accounting for bioenergy will have major repercussions around the globe. "U.S. laws will also influence world treatment of bioenergy. A number of studies in distinguished journals have estimated that globally improper accounting of bioenergy could lead to large-scale clearing of the world's forests."
Failure to properly account for bioenergy CO2 emissions could seriously undermine other efforts to address climate change, the scientists warn. "Many international treaties and domestic laws and bills account for bioenergy incorrectly by treating all bioenergy as causing a 100% reduction in emissions regardless of the source of the biomass. … Under some scenarios, this approach could eliminate most of the expected greenhouse gas reductions during the next several decades …"
The letter from the scientists cautions decision makers about the basic mistake that biomass is "carbon neutral," explaining: "Clearing or cutting forests for energy, either to burn trees directly in power plants or to replace forests with bioenergy crops, has the net effect of releasing otherwise sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, just like the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. That creates a carbon debt, may reduce ongoing carbon uptake by the forest, and as a result may increase net greenhouse gas emissions for an extended time period and thereby undercut greenhouse gas reductions needed over the next several decades."
For the full list of the 90 scientists and the text of the joint letter, go to http://216.250.243.12/90scientistsletter.pdf.
SOURCE Dr. William Schlesinger, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
The Washington Post
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PRIVATE DEVELOPER PROJECTS Ireland
Clonowan, Kilcormac13 two-bedroom, three-bedroom and four-bedroom houses were built on the Ballyboy Road close to the Centre of Kilcormac. The developers aim was a small eco-friendly development, planned with rising oil prices in mind and the need for something for the environmentally conscious.
200 Houses in Killeagh 200 low energy/low C02 houses at Killeagh that do not rely on an oil or gas as the fuel to supply the space and water heating demand.
NuTech designed a system with a low enough energy demand that an internal wood pellet boiler could be used to satisfy the back-up energy required.
Because the back-up energy demand is low it did not require a large tonnage of wood pellets per year. This meant that the supply of wood pellets could be by way of the standard 18kg bags rather than by three tonne lots to a storage room.
The system arrived at for these well-insualted and air-tight houses included
Solar assisted Heat Recovery Ventilation SystemUse this system and thereby saved on a full central heating system
Wood pellet boiler placed in the main fireplace of the house. This "room sealed" boiler removes the problem of the draughts caused by the typical open chimney in the house.
Intergrated all of these technologies together and controlled them by way of a single house thermostat and a boiler timer.
This system is now know as the NuTech Sunwarm 140 system and under testing by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) it was confirmed that these houses had achieved an A3 rating on the BER Scale. This means that they had a designed Primary Energy use of less than 75 kWh/m2/Year for space heating, ventilation, hot water and lighting.
Full Details can be found at
http://constructireland.ie/Articles/Case-Studies/200-house-low-energy-/-low-co2-development-at-Killeagh-Co.-Cork.html
These houses also featured on RTE's ABout the house, which you can view online at
http://www.rte.ie/tv/showhouse/prog4.html
Forest Road, Swords
The "Cedars" , Ridgewood comprised of 50 four-bedroom townhouses, 66 three bed-room townhosues, 16 two-bedroom townhouses and 18 own-door two bedroom apartments.
50 of the houses were built as part of the SEI (Sustainable Energy Ireland) House of Tommorrow Programme
Many of the Ridgewood houses were classified as low-energy/low C02 homes. They include an innovative heating and ventilation system which combines quality construction and high levels of insualtion with clever use of renewable energy to provide maximum comfort in all seasons.
Full Details can be found at http://constructireland.ie/Articles/Sustainable-Building-Technology/Swords-housing-project-with-solar-heat-recovery-system-timber-frame/Page-2.html
THE STATE CAN REDUCE ITS DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL BY SWITCHING TO HOME-GROWN HEAT.
Maine has choices to make when it comes to its energy future. Our state has already invested millions in off-shore wind development, and has steered millions more into home weatherization initiatives.
Those are both wise investments, but our investments should not stop there. Maine should also be aggressive in helping people shift from oil to wood pellets for home heating.
Maine residents are heavily dependent on heating oil, making us vulnerable to price shocks. It also guarantees that we will export billions of dollars from the state economy.
Maine has the sustainably harvested biomass and the manufacturing infrastructure to produce wood pellets to be burned for heating. All we need is to develop the market for this renewable, alternative fuel.
That would require significant investment. Efficient wood-fired boilers are common in parts of Europe, where a 30 percent government subsidy in some countries defrays the cost of installation.
But they are barely making a dent here because of their initial cost. Depending on the size of a house, installing a wood-fired boiler can cost twice as much as a new oil-fired unit. A homeowner would still likely save money by converting as oil prices climb, but the payback is too gradual for many people to make the switch. The international recession, which has depressed oil prices for two years, slows the process down.
State and federal green energy policy should do more to promote conversion to modern wood-fired heat.
Biomass generation got some bad press last month, when it was reported that a Massachusetts study found it less clean than coal when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.
Reports of the study were oversimplified in many of the stories, but the critical comments were focused on biomass electric generation plants, not home heating.
But the same report had favorable comments about the environmental impact of burning wood pellets for heat.
Maine is not like most of the country. It is unusually dependent on heating oil and has abundant wood resources.
Maine will benefit from investments in wind power and weatherization, but it would also benefit by converting to pellet heat. Our energy policy should reflect that.
Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram One City Center, 5th floor
Portland, ME 04101-5009 1-800-442-6036 (within Maine) (207) 791-6650
INVESTORS: RENEWABLES GROWTH IS SLOWER BUT STEADY
by Stephen Lacey, Podcast Producer
Published: July 5, 2010
New York, New York In just one year, the story line for the renewable energy industry has been flipped on its head. Last summer, as investors tried to figure out the stimulus package, there was a lack of capital and a pent up demand for projects. This summer, there are far fewer projects being developed, but more willingness to lend from financiers.
Because the sluggish economy has made some renewables less competitive, there's a “flight to quality” in the space, according to investors at this year's Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York City.
“The capital is there..but having a project that can be financed is difficult. I think the developers are struggling. So we have not been as busy as we've been in the past,” said Kevin Walsh, managing director of renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services.
The combination of low fossil energy prices and lower demand for power has stymied growth in some sectors, particularly wind. In the U.S., wind installations are expected to fall by 40% this year. In Europe, installations will likely fall flat.
Solar PV will be the fastest growing industry, as it is less capital intensive, is faster to build out and does not face many of the same regulatory challenges as wind, geothermal and concentrating solar power. GE, which has been heavily involved in the wind space, is now looking to invest in large scale solar PV plants.
“We really like what we see in solar right now. That's going to be a greater focus for us as well,” said Walsh.
Over the last 18 months, companies like GE have changed up their investment strategies. In 2008, tax equity was the project financing option of choice. Those were the days when tax equity players owed enough money in taxes to take advantage of the credits. Then the financial crisis hit, reducing the tax appetite of investors. The problem was particularly bad in the wind industry. Today, because of the grant program created by the stimulus package, the tool of choice is debt.
Last year, over $5 billion was invested in wind energy projects in the U.S. Only $1.8 billion of that was in the form of tax equity.
Many developers are borrowing against the cash grant to raise money for construction, then handing the payment over to the construction lender when the project is completed. The program has already helped bring about 4,200 MW of projects online.
Unfortunately, fewer developers are now able to take advantage of the grant program because there is less demand for their energy. Even so, it's been a lifeline for the industry in the last 12 months.
Keith Martin, an attorney with Chadbourne and Parke, said that investors are very comfortable with the grant program. The big unknown is what will happen when the grant program expires at the end of this year. Most people in the industry are calling for an extension of the program until 2012, saying that the industry will shrink without it.
“The levers of public policy in Washington are broken. I just don't know if something will happen this year,” said Martin. “[investors] have to be savvy about this. You have to look at parts of the market that can stand on their own...without the support of public policy.”
That's pretty much every technology.
According to figures from the International Energy Agency released earlier this month, fossil energies got about $550 billion in subsidies in 2008, compared to $50 billion for renewables. With such heavy support for fossil energies, renewables will continue to be dependent on public policy.
Investors are watching the (seemingly always) uncertain policy debate in Washington, wondering how it will impact their current strategies. Without the grant program, a national target or a price on carbon, renewables may look less attractive to investors. The large shale gas finds in the U.S. – which will likely keep natural gas prices low for many years to come – are also going to impact the economics of renewable energy projects.
Michael Liebreich, CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said that these are all factors that the industry must deal with. They are creating the “New Normal,” where renewables grow at a more subdued and sustainable pace.
“We're neither in the depth of a trough, nor are we in an overheated stage. So this is a kind of normal year in the development of an industry,” Liebreich said.
NEW MILL OWNER KEEN TO EXPAND EUROPEAN TRADE
FORESTRY: Eacom buys Domtar plants
Posted By RON GRECH THE DAILY PRESS
The new owner of the former Domtar-owned Timmins sawmill believes the facility is in a prime position to benefit from a new corporate direction.
"We're very excited about all the operations we're acquiring including Timmins," said Rick Doman, president and chief executive of Eacom Timber Corporation.
"Over the next few years we plan to invest capital to make the sawmills more efficient.
Eacom struck a deal in April to acquire Domtar's forest products operations. That deal closed on July 1.
"We would also like to work with government to ensure sustainable timber allocations. We will look at opportunities to upgrade mills to potentially increase capacity, especially if more wood allocations are made available."
Doman is very keen on expanding trade with Europe and said the sawmills he is acquiring in Ontario and Quebec have a strong potential to tap into that market.
"We believe Eastern Canada is well positioned to ship lumber to the United Kingdom and northern Europe," he said. "It's certainly our goal to diversify where we can. It might mean getting into value-added products or producing wood pellets."
It's part of Doman's plan for Eacom to be less reliant on the U.S.
He aims to build up a more diversified market for the company by expanding sales to Europe, the Middle East and within Canada.
"One of the areas of growth would be selling more in Quebec and Ontario," he said. "There are 20 million people here. We'd like to service many of our clients here and expand on that."
With problems B.C. has had with the mountain pine beetle wiping out much of its pine forests, Doman said a substantial reduction in that province's annual allowable cut is expected.
"When you consider that 50% of all wood produced in Canada comes from the B.C. interior, we anticipate as supply starts declining in B.C., it should be positive for our operations in Quebec and Ontario."
Prior to the sale, Domtar had been looking to sell its forest products business and focus on the pulp and paper side. The acquisition price for Eacom was approximately $127 million, out of which Domtar is taking 19% of that price in shares. Domtar will retain about 11% ownership.
The transaction included five operating sawmills in Ontario and Quebec. The Timmins sawmill, which specializes in dimensional lumber, is part of that package. Domtar acquired the former McChesney Lumber sawmill in 1998.
"I think after we take over, we're going to review all of our operations," Doman told The Daily Press in a recent interview prior to the deal closing. "It's certainly our goal to diversify where we can. It might mean getting into value-added products or producing wood pellets."
Eacom also acquired two non-operating mills in Ear Falls, Ont., and Ste-Marie, Que., a remanufacturing operation in Quebec, as well as Domtar's shared interests in both a flange I-joist manufacturing facility in Sault Ste. Marie and a planing mill in Elk Lake. As part of the transaction, Eacom will also receive the harvesting rights to eight million hectares of timberland in Ontario and Quebec.
The 46-year-old Doman has a long history in the forest industry. He was previously chief executive of Western Forest Products. That company evolved from a family-owned business, Doman Industries Limited, which was started up by Doman's father Herb.
Herb got his son working in the industry, when the boy was 12, sweeping up sawdust.
While Doman has plans to improve and expand operations, he said he also believes in the careful management of corporate finances that supports expansion without taking on great debts.
"I believe in cautious growth. My history is studying the markets, building up a surplus and expanding on a gradual basis."
Eacom is currently based in Richmond, B.C., but Doman plans to relocate the company to Montreal. He said he will retain Domtar's management team.
"I think Domtar has done an excellent job in maintaining productive mills during some of the worst years in my life in the forest industry," Doman said.
The Timmins sawmill employs more than 100 people.
In addition to the assets being acquired through Domtar, Eacom currently owns one other operation, an idled sawmill in Big River, Sask., which it purchased in December.
CAMDEN COMEBACK SLOWED
By: Doug Smith Arkansas Times
Things have not gone well for Camden in recent years for most of South Arkansas, really but they seemed to be looking up last summer. State and federal officials turned out for a ground-breaking ceremony for a new plant, in a town that has grown more accustomed to plant closings. The new plant possessed symbolic significance too, in that it would be on the old International Paper Company property. From 1927 until it closed in 2000, the IP paper mill was a major employer in Camden. More than a thousand people lost their jobs when the mill shut down. (Also shut down was the plant's strong odor, but Camden residents never noticed the smell anyway. Visitors did.)
The new plant would also be part of the fashionable "green" movement, intended to help 21st century America move away from foreign and dirty sources of energy, into the clean-energy uplands. Here was industrial development that was good for the economy and good for the environment. Cheering was prevalent.
No one was happier or prouder last Aug. 13 than Camden Mayor Chris Claybaker. "I'm the one that first talked with Phoenix [Renewable Energy] and convinced them they should locate on this old IP site," Claybaker said in a recent interview. "We felt something like this would help turn us around not a panacea but a good step in the right direction."
A year later, all stepping has ceased. There's been no construction on the proposed new plant June 4 was a projected starting date that passed unobserved and Phoenix has yet to obtain the final approval it seeks from state environmental-quality officials under the "brownfield" program. That final approval won't be given until some rather expensive work has been done to remove contaminants left over from the paper mill operations. Presumably, the money would have to come from Phoenix or from the Camden Area Industrial Development Corp., which now owns the IP property and is leasing it to Phoenix.
Even worse, the state securities commissioner determined that Phoenix was selling stock in violation of state law and ordered it to stop. Investigation is continuing.
And, certain information about Phoenix executives that might have aroused suspicion had it been known earlier has now come to light. Skepticism is growing that the Phoenix plant will ever become operational, much less be the boon that was hoped for.
The situation has become a "nightmare," Claybaker told the Arkansas Times, before he stopped returning our phone calls.
Some 400 people were on hand at the groundbreaking Aug. 13, 2009, according to a news release. They'd been told that Phoenix would build a $180 million wood-pellet plant on 44 acres of the old IP property, and that the pellets would be shipped to Europe where "cap-and-trade" laws forced the burning of pellets instead of coal to generate electricity. The plant would employ up to 60 people, it was said, and create 450 more jobs in timber, transportation and other industries that would serve the plant.
Among the officials who spoke at the ceremony were U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor and U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, who is a vocal supporter of biomass, such as wood pellets. Pryor, whose family has deep roots in Camden, said that South Arkansas needed clean-energy jobs. Representatives of environmental groups the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society were on hand, some waving "Clean Energy" signs. Gov. Mike Beebe sent a representative to the event, as did U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who also issued a statement from Washington: "Phoenix Renewable Energy is poised to help make our state a leader in renewable energy production." (Spokesmen for Pryor, Lincoln, Ross and Beebe say they were invited by Mayor Claybaker and others, and that they routinely attend or comment on industrial groundbreakings.)
A featured speaker at the ceremony was Sam L. Anderson of Hot Springs, CEO of Phoenix Renewable Energy. He said two things made the new plant possible: a change of administration in Washington, and the European cap-and-trade laws requiring the use of clean energy.
"I believe if it were not for the Obama administration's stimulus plan (and) concept of a new economy, the business we're about to engage in would not be profitable," Anderson said, adding that the American business community should be more positive about cap and trade.
"Those Phoenix guys are infectious in their enthusiasm," Claybaker told the Times. It's unclear whether he knew last August of Anderson's background; it's safe to assume that many of those in attendance did not. A Phoenix brochure says, "Mr. Anderson, a founding member of Phoenix Renewable Energy with many years as a practicing attorney, oversees all aspects of the company." A casual reader might think that Anderson is still a practicing attorney, but no. He lost his license in December 1986, after being convicted in 1985 of distributing cocaine. Roger Clinton, brother of the then-governor, was convicted in the same case. Anderson was quoted in the newspaper at the time as saying that State Police were out to get him because of some of the clients he'd represented. He did time in federal prison and was released in December 1987.
Another Phoenix official listed in the brochure is "Steve Walker, Director of Development." In May, state Securities Commissioner Heath Abshure ordered Phoenix and Stephen R. Walker to stop soliciting and selling securities in violation of the Arkansas Securities Act. The order said that the securities sold by Walker and PRE were neither registered nor exempt from registration as required by the Securities Act. In addition, Walker violated the Act by soliciting and selling the securities without being registered with the Securities Department himself, Abshure said. The order said that more than 50 people had invested in Phoenix, with some $1.4 million invested in 2009 and 2010. During the same time period, the company had expenditures of about $1.4 million, with over $250,000 in payments made directly to Walker and over $80,000 in payments to Anderson, his companies and his family, according to Abshure. The Securities Department is continuing its investigation of the matter.
Anderson told the Times that the securities commissioner's order wouldn't stop construction of the Camden plant. Phoenix will simply have to find another way to raise money, he said. "We think we can stay in business without selling stock. We'll do whatever we need to do."
More bad news for Walker came in June. He was indicted in federal court on charges of income tax evasion and failure to pay taxes. It was reported also that in 2009 he'd agreed to pay $410,000 to settle a civil lawsuit that accused him of fraud.
Camden had a population of 13,154 in the last census, Claybaker said. He expects the figure to be nearer 12,000 in the new census, continuing a downward trend. "The school district has taken a big hit with loss of students," Claybaker said. "Forty to 60 new industrial jobs would be important to a town that's lost so many industrial jobs. We felt something like this new plant would help turn us around."
"Biomass" and "brownfields" are buzz words in the environmental movement, and both apply to the situation in Camden. Biomass is biological material, such as wood, that can be used as a renewable energy source. Phoenix plans to use wood to make pellets that would then be sold as fuel. Some environmentalists have questions about biomass, but it's recognized as a cleaner energy source than coal.
Glen Hooks of the Little Rock office of the Sierra Club said, "We generally support biomass as long as it's done in a sustainable way. We understand that Phoenix plans to use wastewood, and wouldn't be cutting down old-growth forests. We support things like that over coal." Hooks has on his desk a bag of pellets given out by Phoenix for promotional purposes, but he said he hadn't heard anything about the proposed Camden plant in awhile.
Claybaker says he's been going to conferences on the brownfield program for years, and thought Phoenix would be a good fit. The idea is to re-use old industrial property, rather than green space, for new industrial purposes. The federal Environmental Protection Agency defines brownfields as "real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant." The IP property in Camden fits that definition. Phoenix is working on getting brownfields approval from the state Department of Environmental Quality. The process is taking longer than was expected, according to Anderson and Claybaker, who said he's called state officials trying to speed things up. ADEQ officials have identified the remedial actions that Phoenix must take to rid the IP property of contamination left by the paper mill. When that remediation is complete, the property can get brownfield certification, which means that Phoenix would be exempt from liability in lawsuits involving the land's previous use by International Paper.
"We were pretty ecstatic about getting this state-of-the-art 'green' system using wood from the timber around here," Claybaker said. "In talking with them [Phoenix], they seemed to know exactly what they're talking about. I was in the oil and gas business for almost 15 years. You see a lot of bullshitters. I figured I had a pretty good bullshit detector, and I didn't get that from these guys at all. They had people from Denver, New Mexico, Germany they sure made an impression on me."
They also had political connections. Bob Mathis, a former state representative and former mayor of Hot Springs, is on the Phoenix board of directors. He's now a lobbyist in Little Rock. Another board member is Jason Willett, former chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party.
Despite the setbacks for Phoenix, "They still give me assurances they're coming," Claybaker said. "As soon as they get approval from ADEQ, they'll start doing something. Whether it'll be to the same extent, I'm a little bit in the dark about that."
At one time, Phoenix was talking about pellet plants across South Arkansas Monticello, Warren, Rison. That talk seems to have died out. Now, Anderson says that he still believes the market would support multiple sites, but the Camden plant "will be our first and primary site. That's the one that all the engineering has been done on. We felt like we'd made a commitment to that community."
A reporter wondered if the state Economic Development Commission, which hands out state money to new industries, had invested in Phoenix. A spokesman said no. He sounded pleased.
TORREFACTION OF WOOD PELLETS OFFERS SUBSTITUTE TO COAL
Part of: Renewable energy
Wood pellets could offer a substitute to coal
The most common and oldest form of biomass is wood. In these critical times for the economy and the climate, wood comes once more to the fore as a potential key solution for the production of clean energy. RWE Innogy, a Dutch subsidiary of the German utility RWE, recently announced the commencement of the construction of a plant to produce ‘bio coal’ wood pellets that can be used as a perfect substitute for coal in coal-fired power plants. According to RWE this product could set the ground for the decarbonisation of ‘our existing coal power infrastructure’. Ilias Vazaios, 07/07-2010
The new plant, which will be built by a joint venture of RWE Innogy and torrified pellet manufacturer Topell Energy, will initially have a yearly production capacity of 60,000 tons of pellets. The plant will be operational by 2011. The goal is that the new plant becomes a solid basis for the commercialisation of a new process that could guarantee efficient production of second generation bio-fuels deriving from raw materials that cannot be used for food. This process is called torrefaction and involves ‘a thermo-chemical treatment of biomass that removes water and volatiles…and ultimately produces a solid fuel that resembles coal’.
Essent will be the first company to use the produced pellets to be fired alongside coal in its Amer plant for the first 5 years of production. The Essent coal-fired power plant has been tested to be capable of up to 50% biomass co-firing. This was ‘the first time that a coal-fired power plant has achieved this level of substitution’ according to the CEO of Essent, Peter Terium. Further investments will be carried out to achieve this level permanently in the next few years.
But what is so attractive about wood pellets? The answer is that they are not only a climate-friendly and efficient form of biomass, they are also cheap! Co-firing biocoal pellets with regular coal can be extremely economical as no alterations to the existing equipment are needed, for example separate storage, and they have relatively high density and caloric value. A case study has estimated the CO2 emissions from the entire production chain of Topell at 49 grams per ton, compared to 760 grams CO2 per ton for traditional coal-fired power production. The production cost is calculated at €7.50 per Gigajoule, slightly more expensive than the €4.50-5.00 needed per Gigajoule for coal-fired power, but excluding CO2 costs.
Based on these promising estimates, RWE is determined to pursue further the potential of wood pellets as a source of energy. It has decided to proceed with the construction of one of the world’s biggest wood pellet plants in Georgia, US, which will have a yearly output capacity of 750,000 tonnes. The pellets will be used in pure biomass power plants as well as for the co-firing of coal and biomass in the US.
IS BURNING FIREWOOD A FORM OF GREEN ENERGY?
Firewood has been used for heating since well before modern civilization. Many homes still use wood heat, whether it be from firewood or wood pellets and the amount of wood being burned is increasing. This trend has some people worried about the environmental impacts of clearing forests to provide this wood. But many suggest that burning wood is actually a form of green energy.
It is natural for people to think of cutting trees as being a bad thing since trees are very important to the environment. But for people who actually have hands on experience with forests and are familiar with the ways that forests work, they know that cutting trees can actually be a good thing for forests and the environment.
First of all, ancient forests in the modern world are not being cleared to make firewood. So when we talk about cutting trees we are not talking about the ancient redwoods or other pristine untouched forests. Most wood in the US today is produced from tree farms and forests that are relatively young. The trees that are made into fuel wood are usually low grade trees that are often left behind after harvesting the more valuable trees that are harvested to make other more valuable products like lumber. In many cases the wood that you burn may have otherwise been left to rot or burned in the forest.
A huge problem in many modern forests is that there are way too many trees. Trees have grown up too thick over the past decades since people started putting out natural wildfires. Also after logging and other forest disturbances, trees naturally sprout back, usually with too many trees competing for the same resources, like sunlight, water and nutrients.
When a forest is over crowded with trees, the trees grow slower, and are not as resistant to diseases and wildfires. To solve the problem, foresters harvest some of the trees so the ones that are left have more space and resources to grow. This allows the trees to grow faster and healthier.
This process can be labor intensive and expensive but if the trees can be turned into valuable products, like lumber or firewood, it can help offset the cost or even make the operation profitable. If you chose to buy your firewood from a source that harvests trees from responsible forest enhancing projects, you can be contributing to forest health by burning wood.
Burning wood is a natural part of the carbon cycle, and many would consider it to be carbon neutral. As long as you choose a responsible firewood supplier, wood heat can be an environmentally sound choice.
Buy wholesale firewood and learn about firewood storage.
REOPENED KREMMLING RAIL SPUR READY TO ROLL
By Reid Armstrong
Sky-Hi News
Grand County, CO Colorado
A Union Pacific spur that once served the Kremmling depot will soon reopen now that a contract has been signed between the railroad and Confluence Energy.
The spur is a strategic and critical transportation tool for moving wood pellets and other Colorado beetle kill products to markets across the nation, said Confluence Energy founder and CEO Mark Mathis, who has been in negotiations with Union Pacific over reopening the spur for three years.
Per the 5-year-contract, Union Pacific will provide up to 23 empty cars a week on the siderail and once a week will come to haul the full cars to their destination.
“I won't be able to fill all the cars with my product,” Mathis said, “so I'm inviting other people who are looking for an opportunity to transport material out of the region to places you can't get to with rubber tires cost effectively.”
Mathis said he isn't planning to profit off the partnerships, he's just hoping to open up the opportunity to more regional businesses.
The 1,500-foot spur hasn't been active commercially in quite some time, Mathis said. More than 25 years ago, the railroad mothballed the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railway train depot that had served as a loading point for passengers and mail since 1906.
The Grand County Historical Association saved the depot from demolition two years ago. With donations and support from the community, the depot was moved to the Heritage Park Museum site.
The Town of Kremmling helped return the loading area to usable condition in recent weeks, grading the road, building up the loading area so water wouldn't pool there, working with the utilities and improving the access off the main road.
Train-pooling
Mathis said he has been talking to some of his logging partners and friends in the mill business about taking advantage of the opportunity to share space on the train cars, although he's open to partnering with just about any business that would benefit from rail service.
Mathis believes that revitalizing the spur will help create jobs by providing more movement in product.
With all the beetle kill still standing in the county and no market for it here, timber sales have been slow, he said: “If somebody can figure out how to get the logs out of here, it would definitely be an economic driver.”
The pellet plant in Kremmling is still running at about half-speed and sales are struggling, Mathis said. But, he added, he's kept about 16 people on staff and is working on deals to add more value to his product.
While the focus has been on using the rail to move beetle kill products, the opportunity doesn't end there, said Kremmling Mayor Thomas Clark.
“This is a benefit to the whole community,” he said. “This is an outlet to ship some of this material out of here — pellets or any other wood products — but, it's not just limited to that. If somebody wants to ship grain or lettuce that would be fine too.”
As for the focus on beetle kill, however, Clark said: “This is the first new industry we've had come in here in many years, and it's as a result of dead trees.”
In search of a market
The major issue for the timber industry is finding a market for the logs. Currently there are log stacks sitting in the woods around the county ready to go, but there is no market, no sawmills and the truckers have all but disappeared, Clark said.
“Rail is the cheapest way to ship things besides boat,” he added. “This is opening up an opportunity for folks.”
For its part, Union Pacific is looking for opportunities to increase its smaller customer base wherever it can said Mark Davis, media relations director for Union Pacific.
“Because of the recession, we have a lot of capacity that we didn't have four years ago,” Davis said. “We are re-reaching out to customers, both those who have used rail before and first timers to see if we can find other needs for those idle cars.”
Davis added that rail is generally only competitive when the market is more than 200 miles away.
For instance, he said, with the lumber mill in Montrose closed now, there may be an opportunity to move the logs longer distances to a mill, particularly if the mill is also served by rail. But, even if it isn't, a “short burst of truck” can be used to help the product reach its final destination, he said.
— Reid Armstrong can be reached at 970-887-3334 ext. 19610 or rarmstrong@skyhidailynews.com.
PELLET POWER
A North American wood pellet race has begun, and Maine is trying to get out of the starting gate.
Developers are planning or building manufacturing plants that together could produce 1 million tons or more of wood pellets a year. Maine mills in Corinth and Athens are part of the rush.
The pellets are made by compressing sawdust and other dried wood waste into a dense, high-combustion fuel source. Mainers may be familiar with stoves that burn these wood pellets for home heating.
But a larger market is evolving in Europe, where regulations designed to combat global climate change have created incentives for power companies to boost their use of renewable resources. Europe already consumes nearly 8 million tons of wood pellets a year, to run factories and power plants, and to heat entire neighborhoods. The expected growth is leading entrepreneurs in timber-growing regions from Florida to Maine and Canada to build or expand pellet mills.
Heavily forested and located close to Europe, Maine could become a player in the overseas wood pellet market. State officials see pellets as a way to generate new jobs and create export opportunities for a forest-products industry that's been losing its traditional manufacturing base.
"It's just a perfect marriage," said John Richardson, the state's new economic development commissioner.
As papermaking shrinks in Maine, officials are encouraging investment in innovative, niche enterprises, such as wood pellets. Three weeks ago, Richardson and Gov. John Baldacci attended the grand opening of the Corinth mill, which is located in an area that qualifies for state tax subsidies.
But like other energy and trade ventures, wood pellets are a risky business.
A warm winter in Europe this year hurt sales for existing producers. And it's still too early to say whether Maine plants can make and transport the pellets economically, and who will develop the port-side storage and loading systems needed for export.
The larger Maine plant is Corinth Wood Pellets LLC. The venture represents $4 million in private investment. A dozen or so workers were ironing out some equipment kinks last week, to ramp up production.
Corinth Wood Pellets has ambitious plans to become one of the nation's largest pellet makers, producing over 300,000 tons a year. Half the production will be sold domestically, the other half in Europe, according to Ken Eldredge, the company's president and co-owner.
Eldredge declined to discuss efforts to secure deals in Europe, but said he's working with Sprague Energy, which has cargo piers at Portland and Searsport.
Corinth Wood Pellets will benefit by being located in a Pine Tree Development Zone. That makes it eligible for sales tax exemptions and refunds that lower the cost of business, in exchange for creating jobs in a rural area.
Another mill, Maine Wood Pellets Co., has been proposed at the site of former biomass power generator in Athens. It's a partnership between Linkletter & Sons, a local logging firm, and Maine Biomass Fuels of Belmont. The plant would process some of the waste wood generated by Linkletter & Sons.
The partners want the Athens plant to be operating this summer, according to recent media reports, but say they need state and local grants to get going. It's not clear how many tons the plant would produce or the status of the project. One of the partners, George Rybarczyk, did not return repeated phone calls last week; the Linkletter family was vacationing and not available.
One way to consider the challenges facing Maine's nascent pellet industry is to look at some of its competition.
Energex Pellet Fuel Inc. currently bills itself as North America's largest pellet fuel maker, producing 200,000 tons a year from plants in Quebec and Pennsylvania.
That output will easily be exceeded by a $100 million plant in Jackson County, Fla. Green Circle Bio Energy, owned by a Swedish company, is building what it calls the largest wood pellet plant in the world, capable of producing 560,000 tons a year. Much of it will be sent to Europe.
Another venture that's also calling itself the world's largest pellet plant, Dixie Pellets LLC, is under way near Selma, Ala. European-bound pellets will be barged down the Alabama River and shipped out of Mobile.
Near Baxley, Ga., Fram Renewable Fuels is building a 145,000-ton- a-year pellet plant, called Appling County Pellets LLC. It's all headed to Europe, shipping through Savannah and Brunswick, Ga.
"There aren't too many of us exporting wood pellets successfully, but a lot of us are trying," said John Colquitt, Fram's president.
Colquitt made European contacts while operating a pellet mill outside Halifax, N.S. The overseas market is poised to grow because of a directive in the European Union linked to the Kyoto Protocol, which requires participating countries to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. One strategy is to mix in wood pellets at coal-burning power plants.
But the market can be fickle. A warm winter in Europe cut demand for all heating fuels, which hurt sales.
"There has been a real shaking out this spring," he said. "Some companies couldn't weather the storm."
Europeans are paying roughly $150 a ton wholesale for pellets landed there, Colquitt said. That's attractive, but exporters need to factor in the cost of wood supply, ocean freight, exchange rates and storage.
Those issues are being studied carefully by Armand Demers, the forest products director at Sprague Energy. He's been working with Ken Eldredge at Corinth Wood Pellets.
Corinth isn't near a rail line, so pellets would have to be trucked to Portland or Searsport. Pellets must stay bone dry, so they need special storage. And they degrade with heavy handling, so a conveyor system must be installed. Moving and storing wood pellets will require a multimillion-dollar investment, Demers said.
"The challenge is going to be how to get them from the mill to Europe and not make it uncompetitive," he said.
Charles Niebling hasn't been able to make the numbers add up.
Niebling is the procurement and sales manager at New England Wood Pellets LLC in Jaffrey, N.H., which currently calls itself the nation's largest pellet maker. The nine-year old mill turns out 75,000 tons a year. The company also bags 80,000 tons a year of pellets shipped by rail from British Columbia, and is building a 100,000-ton plant in Schuyler, N.Y.
Niebling has been selling bagged pellets for home heating in Europe, but saw sales drop this winter. And he hasn't been able to figure out an economic way to send bulk shipments to Europe, noting that American pellet makers also are competing with established companies in Scandinavia, Germany and Russia.
Niebling laments that Americans don't burn more wood pellets. The only sizable commercial burner he's aware of in New England is a new manufacturing and office building in Hinesburg, Vt., owned by wind energy equipment maker NRG Systems. That pellet boiler burns roughly 30 tons a year, he said.
Increased demand for pellets in American homes and businesses might boost supply and cut prices, said Matt Boucher, store manager at Yerxa's Lawn & Garden in South Portland.
The company has a subsidiary that sells the Harman Stove Co. pellet stoves. One popular model, which is thermostatically controlled and can keep an average house warm for 24 hours with 40 pounds of pellets, sells from $2,695.
Boucher was charging $250 a ton for pellets this year, up from $190 the previous winter. More domestic supply could drive prices back into the $200-a-ton range, he said, and that would make pellets more competitive with oil heat.
By Niebling's estimate, if only 5 percent of the oil-fired boilers in New England were replaced by pellet burners, a 300,000-ton-a-year plant could sell all its output at home. But in the absence of aggressive policies to displace oil in the United States, it's not surprising that wood pellet developers see opportunity in Europe.
"We're becoming a Third World nation, exporting our renewable resources," Niebling said.
Staff writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or
tturkel@pressherald.com
CN GROWING "GREEN" WOOD PELLET TRAFFIC AT DOUBLE-DIGIT RATES
Posted on: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST
MONTREAL, Nov. 5, 2009 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) --
North America's largest mover of forest products - is on track to haul more than 800,000 tons of wood pellets (http://www.cn.ca/woodpellets) this year and sees more opportunities in the future for this "green" source of heating energy.
"Since 2005, we have experienced a 16 per cent compounded annual growth in our wood pellet traffic, and we see growing potential for this business in domestic and international markets," said James Foote, executive vice-president, Sales and Marketing.
"Wood pellets are a renewable resource, right in our backyard," Foote added. "Our network has direct access to wood pellet production areas and reaches key consumption markets in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S., as well as key export terminals on the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts."
Major power plants and residential consumers in North America, Europe and Asia are turning to wood pellets as an alternative to fuel oil, gas or electricity to heat homes. In addition, wood pellets are being used increasingly in industrial applications such as district heating plants, greenhouses, and cement and aluminum production facilities.
Wood pellets, made from waste wood such as wood shavings and sawdust, are carbon neutral and do not contribute to global warming because they emit the lowest greenhouses gases of any fuel burned. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has endorsed wood pellet heat as one of the cleanest burning, most renewable energy sources on the planet.
Global wood pellet production in 2008 was almost 11 million tons, and some analysts believe worldwide production could double by 2014. North American consumption is expected to exceed 3.3 million tons in 2010.
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) -- one of North America's largest producers of electricity -- is studying conversion of some coal-fired generating units to agricultural and forest-based biomass. OPG is targetting 2012 for the first conversion - the Atikokan station in northwestern Ontario. CN serves the plant.
Canada's 29 wood pellet plants have a combined production capacity of approximately 2.2 million tons. Most producers are located in British Columbia, with some in Alberta and a few in Quebec. Facilities are also opening on CN lines in Wisconsin and Mississippi this year, and the first major Ontario producers are expected to start production in 2010.
CN's network reach and solid service are critical factors in the growth of a number of wood pellet producers:
Granules LG, located in Saint-Felicien in Quebec's Lac Saint-Jean region, is building a rail connection into its plant, which will allow direct rail loading instead of trucking to a nearby reload facility. Direct access to CN will lower the producer's transportation costs and improve its competitiveness in the market.
Pinnacle Pellet Inc. operates five plants in British Columbia, all located on CN's network. CN's network reach enables this producer to ship product for export via the ports of Prince Rupert and Vancouver, and to reach domestic markets across Canada, the U.S. Midwest and northeast.
Wood pellets are one of CN's expanding sustainable energy business segments, which include biodiesel, ethanol and wind turbine components.
CN, as a railway, can help play a key role in addressing climate change challenge. Rail emits six times less greenhouse gases (GHG) than heavy trucks. Plus, CN can move one tonne of freight 197 kilometres on just one litre of fuel. Using less fuel means fewer GHG emissions.
Rail also relieves traffic congestion, improves mobility in urban areas, and can ease pressure to renew road infrastructure by taking goods off highways.
NEW NEXT STEP RELACE COAL PELLET?
Next Step focuses on all the important operational steps between the field and the fuel to make non-food biomass an affordable, reliable source of clean energy and environmentally-friendly bio-chemicals.
Next Step understands that the methods of harvesting, processing, storing, and transporting biomass make or break the economic case for using biomass to generate electricity, provide heat & power to industry, make cellulosic biofuels, or manufacture green, petro-chemical substitutes.
A New Market for Farmers
Next Step works with farmers and other biomass producers to secure long-term, price-predictable supplies for conversion into PowerPellets.
Next Step knows that without the whole-hearted buy-in of the American farmer, the full potential of biomass will never be achieved. That's why we offer a turnkey solution. We not only pay farmers for stover, but also manage the harvest, shredding, and baling of stover for free!
Next Step's Biomass Procurement Specialists work diligently to structure mutually-beneficial contracts that properly reward farmers and other biomass suppliers, keep our PowerPellet plants working at full capacity, and, most importantly, give end-users such as coal-fired power generators and bio-refiners the confidence they need to depend on biomass as a fundamental input for their businesses.
The Power of the Pellet
Next Step converts biomass into proprietary PowerPellets™ that are dense, dry, and free from binders. PowerPellets store and ship exactly like grain, which means no new material-handling infrastructure is required.
PowerPellets can be added to most coal-fired electrical plants with minimal retrofitting. And, PowerPellets perform on par with PRB (Pine River Basin) coal while at the same time reducing the coal-fired plant's overall carbon footprint as well as its SOx (sulphur oxides), NOx (nitrous oxides), and Hg (mercury) emissions:
PowerPellets can also be specifically formulated for optimal conversion to cellulosic biofuels or bio-chemicals. And, PowerPellets can be made from corn stover, wood residue, and many other forms of abundant, agri-industrial wastes.
Charateristics of Biomass
________________________________________
Heat Content -- 7,283 BTUs/lb (HHV)
________________________________________
Composition (% of mass)
Moisture 7.90
Ash 9.05
Volatile 63.40
Fix Carbon 19.70
Sulfur 0.18
Mineral Analysis of Ash (%)
________________________________________
Phosphorous Pent Oxide 24.80
Silicon Dioxide 18.00
Ferric Oxide 1.85
Aluminum Oxide 2.56
Titanium Dioxide 0.16
Manganese Dioxide 6.93
Calcium Dioxide 21.20
Magnesium Oxide 2.92
Potassium Oxide 20.80
Sodium Oxide 0.48
Sulfur Trioxide 2.56
Barium Oxide 0.16
Strontium 0.08
Undetermined 0.80
Mailing Address & Phone Number:
Next Step Biofuels
7832 S. 225th St.
Gretna, NE 68028
TORREFACTION OF WOOD PELLETS OFFERS SUBSTITUTE TO COAL
Part of: Renewable energy
Wood pellets could offer a substitute to coal
The most common and oldest form of biomass is wood. In these critical times for the economy and the climate, wood comes once more to the fore as a potential key solution for the production of clean energy. RWE Innogy, a Dutch subsidiary of the German utility RWE, recently announced the commencement of the construction of a plant to produce ‘bio coal’ wood pellets that can be used as a perfect substitute for coal in coal-fired power plants. According to RWE this product could set the ground for the decarbonisation of ‘our existing coal power infrastructure’. Ilias Vazaios, 07/07-2010
The new plant, which will be built by a joint venture of RWE Innogy and torrified pellet manufacturer Topell Energy, will initially have a yearly production capacity of 60,000 tons of pellets. The plant will be operational by 2011. The goal is that the new plant becomes a solid basis for the commercialisation of a new process that could guarantee efficient production of second generation bio-fuels deriving from raw materials that cannot be used for food. This process is called torrefaction and involves ‘a thermo-chemical treatment of biomass that removes water and volatiles…and ultimately produces a solid fuel that resembles coal’.
Essent will be the first company to use the produced pellets to be fired alongside coal in its Amer plant for the first 5 years of production. The Essent coal-fired power plant has been tested to be capable of up to 50% biomass co-firing. This was ‘the first time that a coal-fired power plant has achieved this level of substitution’ according to the CEO of Essent, Peter Terium. Further investments will be carried out to achieve this level permanently in the next few years.
But what is so attractive about wood pellets? The answer is that they are not only a climate-friendly and efficient form of biomass, they are also cheap! Co-firing biocoal pellets with regular coal can be extremely economical as no alterations to the existing equipment are needed, for example separate storage, and they have relatively high density and caloric value. A case study has estimated the CO2 emissions from the entire production chain of Topell at 49 grams per ton, compared to 760 grams CO2 per ton for traditional coal-fired power production. The production cost is calculated at €7.50 per Gigajoule, slightly more expensive than the €4.50-5.00 needed per Gigajoule for coal-fired power, but excluding CO2 costs.
Based on these promising estimates, RWE is determined to pursue further the potential of wood pellets as a source of energy. It has decided to proceed with the construction of one of the world’s biggest wood pellet plants in Georgia, US, which will have a yearly output capacity of 750,000 tonnes. The pellets will be used in pure biomass power plants as well as for the co-firing of coal and biomass in the US.
FORESTRY BUDGET SLASH, ROADLESS EXTENSION, MORE
July 12, 2010
Forest Policy Briefs
by Rex Storm, Forest Policy Manager
Associated Oregon Loggers
State Forestry Sees Further Budget Cuts: In May, the State Economist released the latest state revenue forecast, showing continued weakness in the economy and a $577 million shortfall in state income tax & fee revenue for the current 2009-2011 budget. Governor Kulongoski directed all agencies to immediately reduce general fund spending by 9%. Combined with required losses in private cost-share dollars, this means OR Dept. of Forestry reductions of $4 million in fire protection, $226,000 in private forests, and $158,000 in administration. Private forests and administration will absorb losses through unfilled vacancies and deferred purchases, while fire would have to severely reduce initial attack capability.
Roadless Prohibition Extended: US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack extended for another year a moratorium on logging and other national forest management for 63 million acres of so-called “roadless areas,” defined during the Clinton-era. Under Vilsack, most USFS management projects in roadless areas have been shelved, while waiting for federal courts to resolve the decade-long legal battle waged in federal courts. In 2005, the US Forest Service tried to free roadless areas, by authorizing state-written plans to determine roadless area management. However, environmentalists overturned this state-plan compromise, and the Obama administration reinstituted the Clinton-era 2000 roadless prohibitions.
Field Hearing on Eastside Forest Bill: The US Senate Public Lands & Forests Subcommittee held a June 4th hearing in Bend. It took testimony on Senator Ron Wyden’s controversial election-year bill (S.2895), which offers a distasteful compromise that would attempt to increase thinning east of the Cascades. For decades environmentalists have litigated to stall eastside national forest timber management—nearly eliminating the forest sector infrastructure in that region. Seeking more logs for the remaining mills, some in the industry are desperate for the bill’s promise of possible federal small-log timber supply. Environmentalists like the bill because it permanently enacts into law prohibitions on cutting trees over 21” diameter and expands stream buffers widths beyond reason.
Interior Secretary Meeting Requested: In May, several of Oregon’s Congressional delegation sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar requesting a meeting in the immediate future to get an update on what actions the Department of Interior is taking to address implementation of BLM forest management in western Oregon. The delegation wants Salazar to disclose his strategy for replacing the Western Oregon Plan Revision for BLM forests, and the ongoing lack of timber sales from bLM forests.
Federal Clean Air Rule Hurts Biomass Power: In May, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final Tailoring Rule that defines which manufacturing plant emission controls for greenhouse gases (GHG), beginning January 2011. For the first time, EPA proposes to include GHG emissions from biomass power plants, as a way to constrain future biomass plants under the Clean Air Act. The forest products industry will be severely impacted by this regulation. EPA’s recent decision is will discourage responsible development and utilization of renewable biomass in the future.
Land Board Approves Forest Plan: The Oregon State Land Board in June approved an amendment to the NW OR State Forest Management Plan, would increase Tillamook & Clatsop State Forest timber harvest to 195 million bdft/year, a 5% increase from current volume. Although the OR Board of Forestry had previously adopted the plan amendment in April, Land Board made its approval contingent upon conducting another scientific report subject to their approval. The Land Board—Governor Kulongoski, Secretary of State Brown, and Treasurer Wheeler—has jurisdiction over less than 4% of the NW state forests.
ODF Bows to Reduce Fire Protection: Oregon Dept. of Forestry’s fire program budget has previously been drained to barely provide the legally-required “adequate level of protection.” At the same time timber industry lobby was working to restore the lost $4 million for fire protection, ODF State Forester Brown, told the Legislature and Governor that the funds were not needed. Contrasting forest landowners, ODF says that $4 million can be cut from its fire budget. Industrial landowners and protection associations were previously on record saying that ODF fire protection district budgets cannot be cut further without putting private forests at severe risk of failed initial attack needed to keep small fires from escaping.
New ‘Gilchrist State Forest’: After four years of legislative arrangements, the Klamath County Commission and Oregon’s Board of Forestry approved the purchase of 43,235 acres of lodgepole & ponderosa pine forestland, located 45 miles south of Bend and east of US Hwy 97. The purchase is funded by a 2009 Legislature-passed law, which authorized $15 million in lottery-backed bonds. The Forestry Board targeted the purchase to avoid its division into small real estate tracts. An adjacent 26,453 acres is held by the non-profit ‘Conservation Trust,’ targeted for purchase within a decade using additional lottery funds.
Biofuel Plant at Boardman: In June, Colorado-based ZeaChem, Inc. broke ground on a biorefinery near Boardman. By year-end, the $73 million plant will be capable of producing 250,000 gallons/year of cellulosic biofuel from woody biomass. GreenWood Resources will supply hybrid poplar from its local fiber farms as feedstock. The plant will initially produce ethyl acetate, and in 2011 begin making cellulosic ethanol. The project is supported by a $25 million federal USDOE renewable energy grant, and will qualify state & federal for biomass production tax credits. Although such renewable energy is touted as the so-called “sustainable” future, it’s interesting that every startup has been subsidized by taxpayer-funded grants and renewable mandates.
Biomass Power Plant in K. Falls: Several months ago, Klamath Falls Bioenergy, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northwest Energy Systems, LLC, applied for permits to construct a bioenergy plant in Klamath Falls. Their intent is to build a 35 megawatt power plant costing between $70-120 million. The location is on property owned by Collins Timber Co. Fuel for the plant for the first 20 years would come mostly from JWTR lands and sawmill residuals, rather than national forests. Plans are for construction to begin May 2011, and to be operating by June 2012.
Biomass Energy Rises in Sweden: In 2009, biomass surpassed oil to become the top energy source in Sweden, accounting for 32% of total energy consumption. Driven by major energy tax, subsidy and regulatory laws, biomass power and heat is projected to increase another 10% in 2011 alone. Biomass power companies in Sweden increasingly compete with pulp mills for roundwood and mill waste. Last year, the Swedish government passed a law pushing renewable energy to reach 50% of the nation’s total energy use by 2020.
Biomass Power Plants Have Critics Barking: Plans for electricity-generating biomass plants are in the works around the country, and they’re under attack from environmentalist critics, who claim that burning wood is not as environmentally-friendly as other types of so-called alternative energy—such as wind, solar or geothermal.
Schools Installing Wood Heat: Oregon’s Elkton and Days Creek school districts are installing wood-fired biomass boilers, replacing their former oil and diesel boilers. With grant funding from the state, through the federal stimulus program, each school will use wood pellets to heat their school buildings. The capital investment should be paid off in a few years from the heating cost savings amounting to tens of thousands of dollars per year. Other commercial heating across the nation is converting to wood pellet heat, as such systems are becoming more cost effective.
Forestry Biography: ‘Corks & Suspenders: Memoir of an Early Forester’ is Bill Hagenstein’s story. In his 35 years as executive vice president of the Industrial Forestry Association, he helped to advance the cause of science-based forest management. Now 95, he remains as passionate about forestry as he was 70 years ago, and his message has never changed: good forestry is good for America. Copies of his book can be ordered at: www.corksandsuspenders.com
Don’t Let a Catastrophe Go to Waste: President Obama spent June trying to channel public outrage about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill into support for the Democrat’s boondoggle “climate-change bill” in Congress. The Pres. pitched for the costly cap & tax carbon emission legislation, arguing that the Gulf’s environmental catastrophe makes the case for breaking the nation’s “addiction to fossil fuels.” He vowed to gather votes for a climate bill in the coming months—a threat that would regulate & tax every petroleum use known to man.
PELLET PLANT DELAYED FOR LACK OF MONEY
By Ethan Andrews | Jul 12, 2010
Burnham — A $20 million wood pellet plant slated for construction in Burnham this summer by International WoodFuels has been put on hold until 2011, according to a company representative.
Last year's announcement of a plan to construct a new plant next to a facility run by wooden golf tee manufacturer Pride Sports was trumpeted by the state at a time when any alternative to heating oil was receiving favorable reviews.
The two companies, Pride Sports and IWF, would share a log yard at the new facility and IWF would be able to use some of the wood waste from the tee manufacturer. Plans were to break ground last fall, but IWF spokeswoman Laura Sawall said the company was still trying to secure financing.
"With the economy, what we ended up doing is focusing on our new plant in [Louisa County], Virginia, that went into operation this spring," she said. "We pooled our resources there."
Sawall said the project is still in the "very preliminary stages," including permitting. IWF plans to have the plant operating by fall 2011, she said.
At the time of the original announcement, the Burnham wood pellet plant was anticipated to cost from $15 million to $20 million to build. It would be capable of producing 100,000 tons of pellets per year from locally sourced wood and would employ up to 35 people. Sawall said the project had not changed since it was proposed.
"Essentially we're just trying to raise money," she said.
BIOMASS BATTLE HEATS UP
By: Jay Fitzgerald -- The Boston Herald
Photo of Ian Bowles
Biomass-plant developers yesterday blasted the Patrick administrations move to curtail use of wood-burning power plants in Massachusetts, saying the decision was based on a "mischaracterized" state environmental study.
"It has the potential of shutting down biomass power plants in New England," Robert Cleaves, president of the Biomass Power Association, said of state Environmental Secretary Ian Bowles' move to re-evaluate the state's overall policy toward wood-burning energy.
"They're sort of acting as judge, jury and executioner all in one," said Cleaves of the expected biomass clampdown.
"Anyone developing any biomass facility in Massachusetts is now in jeopardy," said Matt Wolfe, the developer of a proposed biomass plant in Greenfield.
Cleaves said a state-commissioned study, which was released last month, was used as a basis for Bowles' decision - and Cleaves asserted the study was both "flawed" and "mischaracterized" by the administration.
Even some of the authors of the so-called "Manomet" report said the study's findings about the pluses and minuses of burning wood to make electricity were "mischaracterized."
But they mostly blamed the media for distorting what the report found, pointing to such wire service headlines as "Mass. study: Wood power worse polluter than coal."
Andrea Colnes, policy director at the Biomass Energy Resource Center in Vermont, said the report she worked on with others made clear there were distinct short-term drawbacks to burning wood to generate electricity, largely due to the initial release of large amounts of carbon emissions.
But the Manomet report made clear that the long-term benefits of biomass fuels far outweighed fossil fuels, largely due to ability to "recycle" trees by planting new ones that then absorb carbon dioxide, she said. "Any claim that says biomass energy over time is worse than fossil fuels is inaccurate," said Colnes, echoing the sentiment of other study authors contacted by the Herald. "The conclusion is that if you do it right, over time, biomass can reduce carbon emissions."
Bob Keough, a spokesman for Bowles, said that the administration didn't misconstrue the study's findings and that Bowles has simply ordered up tighter rules for biomass energy, using new scientific research as a guide.
But critics suggested Bowles is trying to appease an anti-biomass group, Stop Spewing Carbon, which earlier this week nixed its plan for a November referendum to ban state incentives for wood-burning power plants. The group dropped its ballot question after Bowles said the administration will change how it evaluates biomass emissions.
RESPONSE TO MANOMET STUDY
By: Bill Carlson -- Carlson Small Power Consultants
First, let me state that these are not the observations of a scientist, but of a practitioner; an engineer who has participated in and observed the development of the biomass power and biomass CHP industries for over 30 years and who knows its' economics, drivers, opportunities and limitations intimately. First, in reviewing the Manomet Study, it is obvious that it takes a lot of words, pages and graphs to paper over a flawed premise. That premise is that the biomass power industry is and will be built on the harvest of merchantable green trees, and thus that should be the focus of their analysis, to the exclusion of all other pathways and fuels.
To begin with that premise, one must first suspend all laws of economics and pretend that all that is holding back our worst fears: the denuding MA's forests, is the power of this study. That belief brings a laser like focus on a narrow issue; in the process reducing a nationwide problem of forest health, lack of investment in private forests and loss of forestland to other uses, to a massive threat to a single stand of trees in MA. It ignores all more readily available, cheaper and more beneficial sources of biomass to fuel an expanding industry.
The biomass power and CHP industries in the U.S. have always been the "garbage men" of the forest products, agricultural and solid waste industries. We clean up the scraps after all the higher value has been extracted. It is a synergistic relationship for the most part, making their cleanup costs lower and perhaps giving those industries the chance to do a better job at their core business. But, it also makes us uniformly "unsexy", having to fight for our rights with the poster children; wind and solar. And to top it all off, we have a smokestack to explain. Believe me, we never look at a pristine forest and say "wow, that would make great fuel for biomass power". Instead, we seek out a pile of slash following a real timber harvest and hope we can find the owner before he lights off the pile, and perhaps get it for the price of removal. Likewise, when we approach a private landowner, we dont do so to make an offer on the trees, we ask about his management plans and see if we can help him with the thinning that is needed for stand improvement: improving overall growth rates (same as carbon sequestration rates), insect and disease resistance, lowering of fire potential or change in species mix.
When we begin to think we are somebody, bad things happen! In CA in the mid to late 1980's the biomass power industry began to flex its muscle, building nearly 60 plants, most of them just plopped down in the middle of a fuel supply circle, with no direct connections to any of the previously mentioned primary industry sectors. When the fuel failed to materialize in the quantities expected, the industry did not go out and cut big green trees, the biomass power industry just quietly closed its' doors until nearly half the plants were gone and the inexpensive fuel was back in balance. And surprisingly, this was at a time when the plants were receiving compensation for their output similar to what the Manomet Study says is available to plants in MA today. A big example from a big state, with exactly the opposite outcome that would be predicted by the Manomet study.
You get a glimpse of this phenomenon from Manomet, when they mention that there have been 243 announcements of biomass plants in the New England ISO, but only one plant completed. The study fails to mention that that one plant was built by an investor owned utility in its own service territory. Without that protection, there would have been NO plants completed. Unlike the study, the financial community never suspends the laws of economics as an academic exercise (except maybe that subprime thing). It would be interesting to peruse the list of 243 plants and see how many of them are proposed by existing industry players. I would guess you could count those on one hand. Those folks already know the economics and how difficult it is to put together a viable project.
There are many reasons that biomass power economics will never approach the high compensation case in the Manomet Study. We are one of a number of renewable technologies available to meet a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), either within a state or nationally. Of these, we are one of the more expensive, though not the most expensive, and the only one where regulators carefully define our fuel supply and often our emission characteristics before we can even be counted. Secondly, at the end of the day, REC's notwithstanding, there is a relationship to the cost of fossil fueled electricity that holds back our numbers.
The Manomet Study focuses on the wrong threat, the carbon "debt" that must be repaid over time when stands of trees are harvested for bioenergy. The bigger carbon implication is the loss of those trees permanently to other uses (shopping centers, housing developments, soybean fields) because the private landowner no longer has markets for his timber, and thus has no income, and converts the land to other uses. Bioenergy development at least gives him an outlet for his previously waste material as he continues to pursue shrinking pulpwood and sawtimber markets. Preventing the loss of private timberlands to land conversion should be foremost in this debate. The study mentions that at least 5,000 acres are lost annually in MA, and that loss will accelerate with loss of markets.
The primary output of the study, as least as far as the media is concerned, is the concept of a "carbon debt" for biomass that is greater than that even of coal, that can only be repaid over a long period of time. This is a concept that is difficult for the average citizen to comprehend. If a man is walking along the road and finds a stick that has fallen off a tree, is he better to take it to his local biopower facility and let them burn it for power to keep from mining more coal, or to leave it laying there. He has read, that on an instantaneous basis, the stick produces more CO2/MWh. The informed person picks up the stick every time.
My real reason for writing this response, however, is not to defend the practice of burning whole stands of trees for power or heat. It is because of the collateral damage that will be done to the "real" biomass power industry, not the fictitious one described in the study. The Boston Globe, in its article, did not carefully parse the industry by saying that "biomass power, made from individual stands of whole trees, when considered isolated from the larger landscape, have carbon emissions worse than coal". No, they said "biomass power has worse emissions that coal", period. I, and many others in the existing industry, take great pains in assembling biomass power projects, typically CHP, that are appropriately sized for the resource, use the least valuable but most socially beneficial fuels, and those that pay back the "debt" as quickly as possible; assuming there was one to pay back at all. It was actually offensive to read in the study that though we know there are a lot of residuals out there, and they have better carbon consequences, we are not going to consider them.
It is a good thing that Manomet was not reporting on medical practices instead of biomass power, however, as the Globe headlines would be:
"Cancer surgery increases chance of death"
Or
"Transfusion worsens condition of patient"
As both have a temporary "debt" in the form of an incision or needle prick that must be "repaid" before the benefit is realized.
To believe the study, you have to conclude that we must just continue to mine and burn coal into oblivion because it is just too dangerous to change to a renewable fuel such as biomass, whose carbon is already in circulation in the atmosphere. Ridiculous!
Lest I finish on a negative note, let me say that I agree with many of the minor conclusions in the study, such as:
1.Sustainability is the proper measure when determining whether to go forward with a project, or an industry
2.Thermal uses should be rewarded as well as electrical uses
3.Higher the overall efficiency, the better the project
4.Bigger is not always more economic or appropriate; there is a correct size for a biomass installation that varies with each situation
5.It is possible to overincentivize an industry and cause irrational behavior
I close with the following questions to the informed layman:
The world needs energy and can get it from a variety of sources. The world has a carbon inventory that is above ground and constantly exchanges between the oceans, vegetation and the soil surface. Underground is another inventory of carbon tied up in fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal). To get our energy, we can either pull that buried inventory out of the ground and release it into the atmosphere, though we are being told that may have dire consequences for mankind. Or, once we assure it is sustainable, we can utilize the carbon in vegetation for our energy before it is released back into the atmosphere naturally. Which would you prefer?
OR, more simply:
If the world got all its' energy from sustainably grown biomass, would we have a carbon buildup problem?
ESSENT'S AMER POWER PLANT TAKES A HISTORIC STEP
Source: ENP Newswire All Business
During the test, coal was replaced by wood pellets for the production of sustainable power.
This was the first time in the world that a power plant that originally ran on fossil fuel had been converted at this scale to renewable fuel for the production of sustainable energy. Wood pellets are made from clean wood (sawdust) which is compressed to form pellets.
The test demonstrated that 50 percent biomass is technically possible for a short period of time. In order to be able to achieve the objective of 30 percent continuous co-firing of biomass now to 50 percent co-firing in 2015, further investments in the next coming years are required.
Since 2001, Essent has produced sustainable energy through large-scale co-firing of biomass. The Amer Power Plant in Geertruidenberg is currently already the largest biomass power plant in Europe: 30 percent of the fuels that are used to generate green energy is already sustainable. Towards the end of 2009, an important milestone was reached. Since 2001, 3 million tonnes (3 billion kilograms) of biomass has been used to produce green energy. Enough for one and a half million households. To this end, fifteen hundred inland vessels carrying wood pellets docked at Amer Power Plant's biomass quay.
Green coal
The latest form of biomass for which Essent envisages a significant future is so-called biocoal. This does not involve a form of coal. Biocoal is a name given to woody biomass that is 'torrefied' (heated to a maximum of 300-degreeC) so that this takes on the characteristics of hard coal. This ensures that biocoal can be fired in power stations together with ordinary coal. Essent is to carry out comprehensive testing over several years using biocoal in the Amer Power Plant. It is expected that more than 400,000 tonnes of biocoal will be co-fired as a substitute fuel for coal over the next five years. This will result in biocoal being responsible for a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. Essent has entered into contracts with Stramproy Green Coal and Topell Energy for delivery of the biocoal.
Today Topell Nederland, a joint venture of RWE Innogy (49.9 %) and Topell Energy (50.1 %) is starting the construction of a biocoal production plant with a capacity of 60,000 tons per year. It is due to be commissioned early in 2011. The investment in the plant will total some EUR 15 million. RWE Innogy had already taken a share in the young, Dutch technology company Topell Energy two years ago as part of its venture capital activities.
Use of biomass indispensable for fulfilling climate objectives
With its large- scale co -firing of biomass, Essent is making a significant contribution to the objectives agreed on a European level to generate electricity sustainably. Essent has 900,000 Green Energy customers, making it market leader in green energy in the Netherlands.
In order to be able to fulfil the climate objectives set for 2020, the use of biomass as a substitute fuel for coal - as well as the continued development of (offshore) wind farms - is a necessity. Essent's aim to achieve a biomass co-firing percentage of 50 percent by 2015 will most definitely contribute significantly to the climate objectives.
Throughout the world, the potential of biomass produced from sylvicultural and agricultural remains is huge. Power plants in which such biomass is able partly to replace fossil fuels already exist on a large scale. Essent is proving this with the Amer Power Plant in Geertruidenberg. The use of biomass is one way in which CO2 emissions can be driven down extremely quickly and on a large scale. Not only quickly, but in a cost-effective manner.
U.S. SOUTH COULD BE BIOMASS BREADBASKET
Written by Hakan Ekstrom | Wood Resources International
July 13, 2010, Seattle, WA – Demand for woody biomass, in the form of wood chips, wood pellets, and torrefied pellets, will increase substantially in Europe over the next 10 years. Exactly how much, though, is unclear because the size of the increase will depend on policies and subsidies implemented by governments in individual countries within the European Union. The cost of locally sourced biomass on the continent has increased for many energy plants, resulting in increased interest in importing wood chips and pellets from neighboring countries or overseas.
The U.S. South is at the top of the list as a long-term biomass supply source for a number of energy companies. This is because the region has a stable supply of pulpwood, a well functioning infrastructure, and competitive wood fibre costs, as compared to most other markets in the world. According to the Wood Resource Quarterly, only Chile and the Western United States had lower softwood pulpwood prices than the U.S. South during the first quarter of 2010. Hardwood wood fibre prices were well below the global average hardwood price index.
One region in the U.S. South that has drawn much attention is the tri-state area of southern Georgia, southeast Alabama, and northern Florida, a wood fibre hotspot that is profiled in the latest issue of the North American Wood Fiber Review. Within this area, a significant number of new wood-to-energy facilities have been announced, with one major pellet plant already operating. Sited in northern Florida, Green Circle Bioenergy began operations in early 2008 and is exporting the entire production to energy plants in Europe.
Two additional large-scale, export-oriented pellet plants are on the drawing board. The German company RWE’s plant in southern Georgia is under construction, with plans to commence production in the third quarter of 2011. Magnolia Biopower has announced plans for its own pellet export plant, also to be sited in southern Georgia.
This expanding renewable energy sector is situated within a stronghold of the traditional southern pulp industry, with seven pulp mills within this southeastern sub-region. The high concentration of wood fibre consumers within a fairly limited area has pushed wood costs higher in the past few years. Pine stumpage prices have increased faster in this region than the average price across the southern United States. In the second quarter of 2010, prices were more than 50% higher than two years ago. With the expected increase in wood consumption by the energy sector in this sub-region, it is likely that pulpwood costs will continue to be higher in this sub-region than the average for the U.S. South.
FOREST OWNERS REACTS TO GHG REGULATION
July 13, 2010, Washington, D.C. – David P. Tenny, president and CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners, has issued a statement on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Call for Information on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with Bioenergy and Other Biogenic Sources.
"The EPA's response to the requests of key stakeholders and the admonitions of Congress is welcome. However the announced action is a very modest step forward and does not convey a sense of urgency. We continue to call upon EPA to suspend application of the regulation to greenhouse gas emissions from biomass facilities while developing its policy, as many stakeholders and members of Congress have requested.”
"We are at a critical juncture at which both policy makers and the marketplace are considering our nation's path forward on renewable energy. EPA must act quickly to clarify the treatment of biomass energy under the Tailoring Rule and remove the confusion resulting from their sudden and significant shift in policy. Each moment of delay jeopardizes existing and future investments in low-carbon biomass energy that are essential to meeting our national renewable energy goals and reducing our dependence on high-carbon-emitting fossil fuels.”
"References by the EPA to greenhouse gas inventories and international conventions and protocols acknowledged by experts as the most accepted approaches to accounting for carbon emissions from biomass energy is appropriate. These set as a baseline the internationally accepted position that accounting for carbon emissions from forests for all uses, including energy production, is most appropriately done at the national scale, rather than through site-by-site analyses that can easily create a distorted picture of the forest carbon cycle.”
"The National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) looks forward to contributing to the already significant body of information demonstrating the carbon benefits of biomass energy. NAFO also looks forward to the earnest engagement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is well positioned to vigorously represent the contributions of agriculture and forestry to produce renewable energy that significantly reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions. It will be critical for EPA and USDA to work together and to work quickly. Our nation's renewable energy future is waiting."
ENERGY COMPANIES IN EUROPE SHOW INCREASED INTEREST IN SOURCING BIOMASS FROM THE US SOUTH
Energy Companies in Europe Show Increased Interest in Sourcing Biomass from the US South, Reports the North American Wood Fiber Review
Woody biomass in the US South is attracting interest from European energy companies in their search for long-term, reliable and competitively priced supply sources, reports the North American Wood Fiber Review. The increased competition for wood fiber has pushed pine pulpwood prices upward in the Southeastern states this past year.
Seattle, WA, July 16, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Demand for woody biomass, in the form of wood chips, wood pellets and torrified pellets will increase substantially in Europe over the next ten years, exactly how much though, is unclear as the size of the increase depends on policies and subsidies implemented by governments in individual countries within the European Union. The cost of locally sourced biomass on the continent has gone up for many energy plants, resulting in increase interest in importation of wood chips and pellets from neighboring countries or from overseas.
The US South is on the top of the list as a long-term biomass supply source for a number of energy companies. This is because the region has a stable supply of pulpwood, a well-functioning infrastructure, and competitive wood fiber costs as compared to most other markets in the world. According to the Wood Resource Quarterly, only Chile and the Western US had lower softwood pulpwood prices than the US South during the 1Q/2010. Hardwood wood fiber prices were well below the global average hardwood price index (GHPI).
One region in the US South that has drawn much attention lately is the tri-state area of Southern Georgia, Southeast Alabama, and northern Florida, a wood fiber hotspot profiled in the latest issue of the North American Wood Fiber Review. Within this area, a significant number of new wood-to-energy facilities have been announced with one major pellet plant already operating. Sited in Northern Florida, Green Circle Bioenergy began operations in early 2008 and is exporting the entire production to energy plants in Europe.
Two additional large-scale, export-oriented pellet plants are on the drawing boards. The German company RWE plant in southern Georgia is under construction with plans to commence production in the 3Q of 2011, and Magnolia Biopower has announced plans for its own pellet export plant to also be sited in Southern Georgia.
This expanding green energy sector is situated within a stronghold of the traditional southern pulp industry with seven pulpmills within this Southeastern sub-region. The high concentration of wood fiber consumers within a fairly limited area has pushed wood costs higher the past few years. Pine stumpage prices have increased faster in this region than the average price across the South. In the 2Q/2010, prices were more than 50 percent higher than two years ago. With the expected increase in wood consumption by the energy sector in this sub-region it is likely that pulpwood costs will continue to be higher in this sub-region than the average for the US South.
Biomass, wood chip and pulpwood market updates are included in the 24-page publication North American Wood Fiber Review. The report, established in 1982 and with readers in a large number of forest and energy companies in North America and Europe, tracks wood fiber prices in 15 key markets of the US and Canada.
Contact Information
Wood Resources International LLC
Hakan Ekstrom
info@wri-ltd.com
www.woodprices.com
WOOD SUPPLY WAIT MEANS DELAY FOR ATIKOKAN RENEWABLE FUELS
by Atikokan Progress on July 14, 2010
Michael McKinnon
The competitive wood supply process launched late last year by the province is still months away from actually awarding any new wood supplies, and that “has severely hampered our project,” said Atikokan Renewable Fuels’ Ed Fukushima late last month.
“When Larry [Levchak, a partner in ARF] and I and Mayor Brown met with the MNR, the indication was that the forest allocation and award of a forest facility license was not going to be an issue. That was over a year ago. Since that time the new Ministry of Northern Development, Mimes and Forests created the competition for unused and underutilized forest species. We are now told at every level of government that this allocation will not occur until late fall of this year,” he said.
“This whole chain of events will surely cause us to miss this winter’s wood pellet heating season as supply contracts are negotiated now.”
ARF did get some forest allocation when it purchased the defunct Fibratech plant from the town in early 2009, but has been working to increase that allocation since first expressing interest in the plant.
Part of the issue now is that ARF wants to design its pellet-making machinery to take best advantage of the fibre mix they will be handling. “We do not know what fibre supply we will be getting, so we are unable to get our machines approved for production,” said Fukushima.
He added that the crew at work in the plant “will continue to make improvements to the equipment and infrastructure we will be using; the next step being refurbishing of the dryers to suit our product and testing to get our Ministry of Environment certification.”
In May, Mayor Brown wrote MNDMF’s Michael Gravelle about the issue, and was advised the province had received 115 submissions under the wood supply competitive process. The Minister indicated that it would take six months to review the submissions, meaning any award of new fibre will likely not come until October or November.
“We want to put our wood to work as quickly as possible, and this competition will help to do that in a fair and equitable manner,” he said.
ENEWABLE ENERGY SALARIES SURGE IN THE UK ON TALENT WAR
14 July 2010 - A shortage of talent in the renewable energy sector is inflating salaries as companies strive to halt defections to competitors, according to a study by global management consultancy Hay Group.
In contrast to the rest of the UK market in general, organizations are pushing up pay in order to hold on to key talent, according to a flash survey of 25 HR professionals at 20 major businesses operating in the renewables sector.
The latest research complements the 2009 salary research survey for the sector, which looked at pay trends, by examining the drivers behind the trends. The 2010 survey will take place over summer 2010 in conjunction with RenewableUK, the trade and professional body for the UK wind and marine renewables industries.
Hay Group spoke to organizations across the renewables sector, including major utilities, manufacturers, developers and consultancies, to discover how businesses are planning their HR strategies over the coming year. Gavin Brown, reward information consultant at Hay Group, said: “Even during a very difficult economic period, growing sectors like renewables are defying the rest of the employment market by increasing pay as companies try to establish themselves as market leaders.”
Across the employment market, HR professionals are having to work within increasingly constrained budgets, pushing down salary increases and bonus payments. In the renewable energy sector, where many businesses also operate in other, extremely lucrative, areas of the energy market, talented individuals can command a premium over comparable pay grades in other sectors.
Some 69 per cent of respondents said they found recruitment difficult in the current market as the salary inflation bubble grows. A skills shortfall was felt keenly by the majority of respondents (64 per cent), who reported concerns about growing the business in the future. Half cited strong competition for talent within the market as the main factor.
In an attempt to overcome the problem, 75 per cent of companies are looking to overcome the problem by training existing staff to a higher level. However, more than two-thirds (67 per cent) are advertising positions further up the payscale in the hope of directly attracting the most talented individuals to their organisation.
As a result of fierce competition for talent, renewables employers fear an unsustainable salary inflation bubble, with one respondent saying: “Company budget constraints might not meet employee expectations in terms of compensation.” In total, 73 per cent of employers reported concerns about retaining key talent this year. Only one in five (21 per cent) are offering cash or non-cash incentives – e.g. a long-term shares scheme – to differentiate themselves from the competition.
However, the survey showed that money was not the main motivator for renewables professionals. Most businesses (72 per cent) reported that career progression opportunities were the primary reasons cited for employees leaving the company. Only 21 per cent left for financial gain.
Despite the pressures felt by the industry, staff turnover is not unusually high, at just under four per cent over the last 12 months. Staff involved in offshore projects, such as offshore technicians and project managers, were most likely to leave. When staff do leave, they don’t go far. 86 per cent of employees head elsewhere in the industry while competitors attract a smaller proportion, with 14 per cent going to a direct competitor.
Gavin Brown said: “Our 2009 reward survey showed us that the renewables industry is among the best rewarded sectors in the UK economy with salaries consistently above the UK average. The relatively small talent pool of employees and the competition to attract and retain expertise within the sector has created an employee driven salary market in which organisations are paying what they have to in order to attract the right candidate.”
FIVE QUESTIONS FOR EPA
By Robynn Andracsek, P.E., Burns & McDonnell and Contributing Editor
At this year’s Coal-Gen conference to be held in Pittsburgh from August 10-13, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Robert Wayland, Ph.D., is scheduled to give a keynote address outlining EPA’s upcoming regulatory agenda.
The timing of his topic seems particularly appropriate. After all, uncertainty has been the watchword for much of the coal-fired industry ever since the Obama administration took office. I plan to attend his speech and hope Dr. Wayland addresses these five issues, which have been raised repeatedly by industry.
1. Who should regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) - EPA or Congress? Utilities are already forced to comply with regulations that are a moving target. EPA’s rules are subject to court overrule (for example, Clean Air Interstate Rule, CAIR; Clean Air Mercury Rule, CAMR). EPA’s “tailoring rule” is likely to see legal challenges from groups that think it is too lenient. EPA has already suggested the applicability threshold be raised, somewhat arbitrarily, from 25,000 tons per year of CO2 to 75,000. Members of Congress have voiced concern about the prudence of EPA taking on GHG regulation under Clean Air Act authority.
EPA is still dealing with the aftermath of CAIR v1.0 in which utilities initiated compliance through emissions trading and retrofit projects. Then CAIR was initially vacated and ultimately remanded by the courts, an action neither side sought, but was left in place until EPA issues a new replacement rule. One lesson from the CAIR experience is that EPA must consider its programs’ resiliency to legal scrutiny. Therefore, given the shaky legal footing of the “tailoring rule,” wouldn’t utilities have more certainty if GHGs were regulated by legislation passed by Congress?
2. Will EPA integrate and coordinate the multiple rules that will affect coal-fired boilers? If yes, how will it do so and over what period of time? Some regulations that could affect a given coal-fired boiler include:
• Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) for control of hazardous air pollutants
• National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), specifically 1-hour averages for SO2 and NO2
• Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) for non-attainment areas
• Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) to protect visibility.
Each of these rules can require retrofitting control devices onto existing boilers, but to different control levels for the same pollutant and for multiple pollutants. A coordinated effort would possibly create its own synergies to the benefit of all parties. When this might happen and how EPA might accomplish it are of keen interest.
3. Will EPA ever define, in statute and in detail, what constitutes routine maintenance repair and replacement (RMRR)? Although an exemption from New Source Review (NSR) is clearly allowed for in the case of RMRR, the crucial definition (what does “routine” mean) is absent. Imagine if RMRR applied to legally operating your car. You could be ticketed based on how fast you’ve been driving the last two years, when your last oil change took place, who the mayor is of the town you’re driving through and how many passengers are in the car. The WEPCo decision, which is used as a rough substitute for a clear definition, is 20 years old. Isn’t it time to codify the meaning of “routine?”
4. What provisions will EPA allow to make utility MACT implementation feasible? This rule could create a need for 800 baghouse and 600 scrubber retrofits. The compliance timeline for MACT is three years from promulgation. A timeline of five years is just long enough to get a single project done, which means all these projects will need to be done in parallel and simultaneously. The sudden increase in retrofit demand may well increase the cost for raw materials and create a dearth of equipment and engineering design talent. Will EPA grant provisions to mothball a unit until a retrofit becomes feasible without demanding a PSD permit? In meeting the utility MACT, priority will likely be given by vendors to larger utilities. Will EPA grant extra compliance time to smaller power generators who are initially shut out of the market? Will extensions be allowed to modify a plant’s “Unit A” if “Unit B” is shut down?
5. How can today’s EPA insulate utilities from the change in priorities of future EPA administrations? The current EPA has plans and priorities that likely will differ from its successors. NSR reform is needed, but most Bush-era NSR reforms have been rolled back by the Obama administration (PM2.5 grandfathering, aggregation, reasonable possibility, fugitive emissions and so on). There will be a new administration in Washington D.C. in either two or six years. How will EPA insulate upcoming initiatives (CAIR replacement, utility MACT, tailoring rule, among others) from judicial repeal and ensure continuity—and certainty—for the utility industry?
Rhetorically I ask these final questions: At what point do humans become a threatened and endangered species? In this era of anti-coal rhetoric, how do utilities meet their mandates to keep the lights on and essential services (water treatment facilities, traffic lights, bank computers, refrigeration) operating? What will EPA do to simultaneously protect our environment and our way of life?
WOOD PELLET FACILITY TO OPEN IN JASPER COUNTY, SC WILL CREATE 22 JOBS
Staff Report
Published July 7, 2010
A new wood fuel manufacturing facility in Jasper County will create 22 new jobs, the S.C. Department of Commerce said in June.
Champion Wood Pellets is expected to invest $2 million in the operation.
The company will supply wood pellets for home heating fuel, alternative industrial energy and equine bedding markets. The facility is expected to be fully operational by Aug. 1, according to officials.
Champion Wood Pellets will begin hiring for the new positions immediately. Anyone interested in job opportunities with the company can apply at the business office at 523 Nimmer Turf Road in Ridgeland.
GROUP AIMS TO HEAT MORE WITH WOOD
By DAVID BROOKS
To determine whether wood-pellet boiler and furnace is suitable for a home, officials in the industry suggest talking either to a firm that sells the appliances or one that sells pellets.
The rebate application can be found online at www.puc.nh.gov/Sustainable_Energy/Renewable EnergyRebates.htm
For more information on this program, call the PUC’s Sustainable Energy Division, 271-6011.
There’s a simple goal behind a new state subsidy of whole-house pellet boilers: Switch from an imported heating fuel to one that’s literally grown next door.
“The goal is to see if we can’t replace the oil delivery truck in New Hampshire with the wood pellet delivery truck,” said Barbara Bernstein, sustainable energy analyst with the state Public Utilities Commission.
The PUC recently announced a rebate program for home pellet boiler systems to heat entire homes. Using federal stimulus funds, it will rebate up to $6,000, or 30 percent of the total system and installation cost of a system, which can run $25,000 or so, if an existing system is replaced.
These systems are similar to oil- or gas-fueled heating systems that heat buildings with forced hot air or hot water except they burn wood pellets, typically delivered in 3-ton shipments.
They are not to be confused with wood pellet stoves, which radiate heat from one location inside a living space, or outdoor wood boilers, which burn cordwood rather than pellets and thus cannot have automated fuel feed.
Scott Nichols, president of BioheatUSA, a Lyme-based distributor of such systems, estimated that “100 or so” residential wood pellet central furnaces exist in the state, and at least three companies fill home pellet-storage silos. T
hese often deliver pellets from tankers that blow pellets through four-inch hoses into silos via an outdoor connector, just as oil is delivered into basement oil tanks through hoses from tankers.
In general, Nichols said, a wood-pellet furnace and boiler takes up slightly more room than the equivalent oil-fired machinery. Because wood pellets have much less energy density than oil, however, more must be stored: The industry standard is three tons, which stores approximately the same amount of heating energy as the standard 275-gallon oil tank but takes up three times as much floor space.
Nichols said an average New Hampshire home uses about 8 tons of wood pellets in a winter.
At current prices, wood pellets are almost one-third cheaper than heating oil.
Oil cost $2.82 per gallon at the end of the winter, which the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning said is the equivalent to wood pellets costing $330 per ton, although their cost is currently around $230 per ton.
The rebate program is an attempt to jump-start the wood pellet industry, which alternative-energy advocates said is an important part of any attempt by New Hampshire to reduce the state’s pollution and to develop wood industry jobs.
Northern New England uses more oil for heating than any other part of the country and also has a higher percentage of wooded land.
“The goal of the program is to help spark the growth of the wood-pellet central boiler/furnace market and bulk-fuel delivery,” said Laura Richardson, of the Office of Energy and Planning. “In order for that to happen, systems need to be convenient and transparent for the consumer, and the industry needs to feel secure knowing there is a viable market.”
The rebates are available for bulk-fuel fed, indoor wood- pellet central heating boilers and furnaces that become operational between April 14, 2010, and Feb. 15, 2012, or whenever funds run out.
Funds for this program are made available through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act’s state energy programs and the New Hampshire Office of Energy & Planning.
Wood pellets are often made of compacted sawdust, created from scrap, residue from logging or other types of less-marketable wood. They have much less moisture than cord wood and thus can burn hotter and produce much less ash.
The roll of wood and other types of biomass power in attempts to limit greenhouse gas emission has been the subject of debate recently because of concerns that it will lead to levels of forest destruction, reducing woodland’s ability to absorb CO2. Massachusetts is looking to tighten its biomass power rules as a result.
Much of that concern, however, deals with burning wood to create electricity, a less efficient process than burning it for heat.
David Brooks can be reached at 594-5831 or dbrooks@nashuatelegraph.com.
GRASS PELLET STOVES AND FUEL
More and more countries are beginning to pick up on this new low-cost technology. Canada has research facilities get up on farms in rural locations that pellet a variety of different grass species. Europe is producing reed canary grass pellets in small scale pellet boilers and right here in the US, researchers have noticed that we have a huge amount of acreage of agricultural land that is currently unused. Some of the US’s land is in the conservatory program and is reverting back to woody growth, but there is still ample land available to grow grass and produce an efficient bioenergy. The grass fields can be cut mid to late summer, left to dry or leach right where they lay, then baled and pelleted. This process of leaching removes the drying costs, which automatically makes them cheaper than corn or wood pellets.
Currently there are no manufacturers that are building stoves specifically designed to handle the ash content created by burning grass pellets. However, there are manufacturers that are working closely with researchers at Cornell University; testing different stoves already on the market that would be able do the job. Bixby Energy Maxfire corn stoves, Harman corn stoves, and CountryFlame corn stoves have all burned grass pellets successfully; however they are all corn stoves and not grass stoves. These pellets have a history of causing premature corrosion to the combustion equipment and are said to cause clinkers a lot quicker. You see, it’s not so much the quantity of the ash but rather the composition of the ash that poses the most problems.
Calcium and phosphorus were found in high levels inside of switch-grass, which creates a lower melting point in the ash. The cool part though is that in each study done, grass pellets gave off just as much heat as wood pellets, which makes them just as effective. Moisture inside the grass pellets is actually welcomed unlike corn and wood pellets. Researchers say leaving the grass pellets in the rain helps them burn longer and have a negative impact on greenhouse gas production. As these pellets get more popular, hopefully it doesn’t take the world too long to see that this is a renewable source of energy, we will begin to see our demand on oil, gas, propane and electricity drop in statistical numbers.
WOOD SUPPLY WAIT MEANS DELAY FOR ATIKOKAN RENEWABLE FUELS
by Atikokan Progress on July 14, 2010
Michael McKinnon
The competitive wood supply process launched late last year by the province is still months away from actually awarding any new wood supplies, and that “has severely hampered our project,” said Atikokan Renewable Fuels’ Ed Fukushima late last month.
“When Larry [Levchak, a partner in ARF] and I and Mayor Brown met with the MNR, the indication was that the forest allocation and award of a forest facility license was not going to be an issue. That was over a year ago. Since that time the new Ministry of Northern Development, Mimes and Forests created the competition for unused and underutilized forest species. We are now told at every level of government that this allocation will not occur until late fall of this year,” he said.
“This whole chain of events will surely cause us to miss this winter’s wood pellet heating season as supply contracts are negotiated now.”
ARF did get some forest allocation when it purchased the defunct Fibratech plant from the town in early 2009, but has been working to increase that allocation since first expressing interest in the plant.
Part of the issue now is that ARF wants to design its pellet-making machinery to take best advantage of the fibre mix they will be handling. “We do not know what fibre supply we will be getting, so we are unable to get our machines approved for production,” said Fukushima.
He added that the crew at work in the plant “will continue to make improvements to the equipment and infrastructure we will be using; the next step being refurbishing of the dryers to suit our product and testing to get our Ministry of Environment certification.”
In May, Mayor Brown wrote MNDMF’s Michael Gravelle about the issue, and was advised the province had received 115 submissions under the wood supply competitive process. The Minister indicated that it would take six months to review the submissions, meaning any award of new fibre will likely not come until October or November.
“We want to put our wood to work as quickly as possible, and this competition will help to do that in a fair and equitable manner,” he said.
Tagged as: Atikokan Renewable Fuels, MNR competitive wood supply process
ISU TESTING BIOMASS/COAL BLEND TO REDUCE EMISSIONS
July 22nd, 2010
In a recent article published in Inside Iowa State (ISU), researchers are looking into the replacement of some coal with wood pellets. The biomass is being studied as an additive to coal, to reduce it’s carbon footprint. Beginning on July 15, 2010, two coal-fired boilers located on the ISU campus, began to burn wood pellets as part of a series of tests that utilities staff are conducting over several weeks. The tests will help officials assess the feasibility of replacing some coal with biomass, which is considered a cleaner fuel source, according to Jeff Witt, assistant director of utilities.
“We’re doing this to see what other alternative energy sources are feasible,” he said. “We’ll be assessing both the environmental and economic impacts of using these sources.”
The first test will involve a mix of 10 percent wood pellets with 90 percent coal. In a recent test the mix was 5 percent wood pellets to 95 percent coal. The researchers have approval from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to test up to a 20 percent wood pellet blend. The study is estimated to take three months with air emissions one of the major components of the project.
The wood being used in the tests is from Colorado pine trees that have been decimated by pine beetles. For more than a decade, pine beetles have been attacking the trees and currently in Colorado and Wyoming, more than 3 million acres of trees have been lost.
One of the drawbacks of using wood pellets is the expense – nearly double the cost of coal – according to Witt. He notes, however, that like other technologies, long-term contracts and the maturity of a technology will lower the costs.
ISU POWER PLANT RUNS TESTS WITH WOOD PELLETS
By James Pusey
Staff Writer
Published: Friday, July 23, 2010 10:59 AM CDT
Tests at Iowa State University’s power plant over the next few weeks will determine whether burning wood pellets can help lower the university’s dependence on coal.
Jeff Witt, assistant director of utilities at ISU, said testing started in early July with the wood-coal mixture, first at a rate of 5 percent wood pellets, then 10 percent. Tests with larger wood chips will begin next week, Witt said, followed by a possible final test that will up the amount of wood to 15 percent.
“What we’re trying to find out is what are the effects of this, and can we burn a wood product as a supplemental fuel source,” Witt said.
Wood pellets could possibly account for about 5 to 6 percent of the university’s total energy production, Witt said, bringing the university closer to the Iowa Board of Regent’s resolution that all regents institutions run on 10 percent renewable energy by 2015.
However, the pellets cost about twice as much as coal, Witt said.
“The fuel weighs a lot less and has less energy, so it takes a lot more trucks to bring the same amount of fuel to the plant,” Witt said.
Even though wood is regarded as a green energy source, it still carries emissions concerns because it releases higher levels of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant regulated by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
The wood pellets are being provided to ISU for free by Nextgen Biofuels, based in Underwood, a company that works in partnership with the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Pellet Company. The pellets are produced from Colorado pine trees that have been ravaged by pine beetles, Witt said.
Though the pellets are paid for, ISU is still paying to have them transported to Iowa for about $23,000.
Merry Rankin, sustainability director for ISU, said the pellet testing is a big step for the university reducing its coal intake and achieving its renewable energy goals.
“You’ve got to get the ball rolling and start looking at some cost-benefit analyses, so it’s a very important piece of the puzzle in that respect,” Rankin said.
Preliminary tests will continue through the next couple weeks, Witt said, and if all goes well, the next step will be to undergo official DNR testing sometime in September.
James Pusey can be reached at (515) 663-6922
or jpusey@amestrib.com.
DRYDEN FIRM HAS PLANS FOR EUROPEAN-STYLE DISTRICT HEATING PLANT
Fired up by biomass
By: Ian Ross
Bryan Tardiff has big plans to produce wood pellets and briquettes to heat business parks and communities in northwestern Ontario.
Dryden’s Bryan Tardiff wants to unlock the vast potential of local energy independence in northwestern Ontario.
The local fuel distributor is spearheading a plan that will introduce some cutting-edge European technology for a district heating system for two industrial parks now under construction.
Tardiff has teamed up with trucker Louie Ricci, an Ignace log hauler, to form Far North Biomass. They have partnered with German engineering firm Lambion, a global expert in converting biomass to energy.
“We want to start developing a domestic market for more wood pellets and briquettes,” said Tardiff.
Lambion makes high-efficiency boiler combustion systems using low-grade biomass and various wood residuals for energy generation.
“They specialize in burning stuff that people say won’t burn,” said Tardiff.
Through their negotiations, they have a commitment with Lambion and the City of Dryden to study the feasibility of a district energy system using a German-designed boiler.
The entire project is a joint venture with the Dryden Development Corporation to supply heat to future businesses in the Norwill Industrial Park and the Centennial Business Park, as well as businesses along the Highway 17 corridor.
Tardiff is pitching the whole venture as an opportunity for Dryden and Northern communities to take their economy into their own hands, keep dollars local, and create local jobs.
“Dryden, like every community, is trying to attract industry, and what better way than to provide them with heat before they even build their plant?”
The joint Far North-Lambion partnership would supply heat energy to the local utility for distribution to consumers. Lambion would be a 50-per-cent owner in the district heating system.
The technology allows them to pipe heat as far as 12 kilometres. Currently they are surveying retailers along the Highway 17 commercial strip.
Tardiff believes businesses could save between 20 to 30 per cent on their current energy costs.
His company has also signed on with an Austrian appliance manufacturer, Gilles Biomass Heating, to bring European wood pellet-fired boilers to North American consumers. Tardiff’s company is signing a deal to be their exclusive distributor.
Lambion officials, who were scouting the Dryden area in early June, are considering setting up their North American headquarters in town. They would contract local machine shops and fabricators to build their equipment.
Tardiff said the district energy system would also serve as a working pilot unit for Lambion and a training centre for operators of future plants.
Tardiff and Ricci would also come in on the biomass fuel side by constructing a wood pellet and hog briquette plant to ensure there is a stable fuel supply for future district energy systems.
They would source fibre from local harvesters and from residuals produced by Aspenware, a British Columbia maker of biodegradable cutlery, which is slated to move into the Norwill Industrial Park.
Tardiff said they are in talks with Aspenware to supply them on the front end with veneer-quality aspen, birch and poplar to make the utensils, while using their residual waste on the back end for the district heating system.
If all goes well with their feasibility study, they could be producing energy by September 2011.
Tardiff and Ricci originally started the company to participate in the province’s fibre competition. They had the idea of establishing a local wood pellet plant to supply Ontario Power Generation as well as a lucrative European market.
The partners began their research by flying to Europe to attend sustainable energy and wood pellet conferences in Germany and were completely blown away by the technology they saw.
They made company contacts in Austria and Italy, and their plan began to diversify.
When they couldn’t figure out the economics and the logistical bottlenecks of moving pellets overseas, they convinced Lambion to come to Canada.
Lambion-designed boilers produce little in the way of emissions and the feedstock can include almost any type of wood waste, including bark and tree limbs.
“We’ve worked every angle we can,” said Tardiff, who’s been to Europe four times in the last year.
With pellets selling for $300 a tonne in North America for residential use, they decided to focus on developing a domestic market.
“We decided that Europe was something we’d look at later and the Ontario Power Generation process wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. But there was so much potential with these types of appliances that we needed to develop a domestic market somehow.”
Tardiff and his partners believe there is even more potential to service First Nation communities and the exploration companies in the James Bay Ring of Fire.
He envisions a series of small biomass-fueled generating stations across the Far North.
It would allow remote communities to be more energy independent rather than relying on expensive aviation hauls of diesel fuel for generators.
“There is so much potential if we can get everyone on board.”
EPA ANNOUNCES LONG-AWAITED CAIR REPLACEMENT
July 13th, 2010
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As you likely already know, on July 6th the EPA announced the long-awaited replacement to the CAIR regulations for NOx and SO2. A December 2008 court decision kept the requirements of CAIR in place temporarily but directed EPA to issue a new rule to implement the Clean Air Act requirements concerning the transport of air pollution across state boundaries, for which the new “Transport Rule” is the EPA’s response.
The EPA’s new proposal requires 31 states and the District of Columbia to significantly improve air quality by 2012 through reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and fine particle pollution in other states. It sets a pollution limit for each of the 31 covered states and the District of Columbia and — in the EPA’s preferred alternative — allows for unlimited intrastate allowance trading, in addition to limited interstate trading if states involved in the trades can assure they will still meet the state-specific emissions limits.
The new rule requires faster and larger cuts in SO2 and NOx that cross state lines than under the CAIR rule. These pollutants react in the atmosphere to form fine particles and ground-level ozone and are transported long distances, making it difficult for other states to comply with the Clean Air Act and its amendments. The new rule will be finalized following a 60-day public comment period which began on July 6th when the announcement was made.
The EPA notes that large additional NOx reductions will be needed beyond those required by this rule in order for the nation to meet both the existing ozone and particulate standards, and anticipated further reductions in both the ozone and particulate standards. Both of these standards are anticipated to be ratcheted down further within the next year. Accordingly, the EPA plans a modified rule to address these additional requirements in 2011 and finalize them in 2012. Each time the EPA changes national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), they will evaluate whether or not the new emission reductions will be required from upwind states.
I plan to be following up on this with a more detailed blog once my colleagues & I have had a chance to fully digest the proposed rule and its implications for our customers. We’re also working to inform our views by talking with key customers to get their take on the proposed rule and how it might affect their companies.
For now, suffice to say that the rule as proposed will: 1) require substantial incremental NOx reductions in a timeframe (16.5 months) that precludes major hardware retrofits; 2) force companies to analyze and address compliance requirements on their entire fleets within each state; and 3) exacerbate the uncertainties already imposed by the expected further reductions in particulate and ozone NAQQS requirements, potential federal CO2 regulations, and the Maximum Available Control Technology (MACT) requirements replacing the former CAMR rule for mercury reduction also struck down by the U.S. Circuit Court.
So more to come, but one thing is clear: the need to reduce NOx in a manner that can be achieved quickly and avoid capital investments for plants that are needed now but whose longer-term fate remains uncertain has never been greater.
July 27, 2010
ENTENZA BOOSTS RENEWABLES AT MSU
By Mark Fischenich The Free Press
MANKATO — Democratic candidate for governor Matt Entenza came to Minnesota State University to talk about his plan to boost the rural Minnesota economy by investing in renewable energy.
A pair of MSU professors let Entenza know, regardless of who wins the DFL primary election and the Nov. 2 general election, that the university is already moving toward that clean energy economy. They showed off university labs that were testing the viability of using wood pellets for building heat, wood-based electrical generation, and dairy manure to produce methane fuels.
“I’ve really become convinced over the last 10 years that what you’re doing here is one of the best ways to help rural Minnesota grow,” said Entenza, a former state lawmaker and founder of the state think-tank Minnesota 2020.
The “here” Entenza was talking about was a section of a corrugated metal shed five or six miles south of Mankato. The space, rented from a building contractor whose business has slowed down because of the economic recession, is a temporary laboratory of the International Renewable Energy Technology Institute.
Retired MSU Prof. John Frey, the interim director of IRETI, rented the space because the Institute’s new home on campus is under construction and won’t be done until late September. The work IRETI is doing couldn’t wait, Frey said.
In the shed were expensive pieces of equipment to measure emissions from wood-burning furnaces. There was a machine that calculates how many calories of energy different types of wood pellets generate and the volume and variety of chemicals coming out of the flue.
There were stations set up to measure how the little furnaces impact the buildings they would be placed in, including the radiant heat they emit and how closely they could safely be placed near a wall. There was a machine that would essentially melt wood to its basic elements, using the released gases to fuel an electric generator.
“We started putting it together in January, and we’re just about ready to roll,” said Frey of the lab.
Much of the technology comes from Sweden and other European countries that are far ahead of the United States in developing clean-burning technology fueled by wood pellets. The lab constitutes IRETI’s combustible solid biomas unit. Other units focus on biogas, fuels generated from cellulose digesters, and wind and solar energy.
In every case, IRETI aims to connect research to commercial markets, working with existing companies and entrepreneurs with ideas they want to test.
More than a third of the energy consumed in the United States is used to heat and cool buildings, a share that tops even transportation consumption, Frey said. So renewable fuel alternatives such as wood pellets could be an important part of any national effort to reduce dependence on foreign fuels.
At another lab in MSU’s Trafton Science Center, a table-top device can simultaneously test the 15 different concoctions for their potential to produce methane gas through anaerobic digestion. The ingredients in the recipes — along with various enzymes — vary from cheese whey (a waste product for dairy processors) to dairy manure to human waste to various types of plant cellulose.
“We want to be there to serve the entrepreneur with an idea,” Frey said.
Entenza said that, if he’s elected governor, he wants to target state investments in the same way. Minnesota’s economy spends about $10 billion a year to buy electricity and another $10 billion for liquid fuels, he said. Most of it goes to energy producers outside the state.
If some of that revenue can end up in the hands of Minnesota-based renewable energy businesses, the result will be more jobs and a more vibrant economy, according to Entenza.
“We could potentially create new billion-dollar industries, and they’d be based in southern Minnesota,” he said.
Conserving energy is as important as creating renewable energy, he said, because it will allow Minnesota businesses to invest the savings in productivity and growth rather than sending it to out-of-state power companies.
On that side of the equation, Associate Professor Patrick Tebbe talked of an MSU initiative that brought local architects, construction firms and contractors together to talk about the opportunities and challenges of creating more energy-efficient buildings. The classes were offered both in Mankato and at the university’s Edina branch.
Entenza, who’s running against House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and former Sen. Mark Dayton for the DFL nomination, said the work being done at MSU is a reminder of why its important to maintain the state’s investment in higher education even in tough budget times.
“To make all these other things work, you’ve got to have quality higher education,” he said.
GREEN GEM GOES BUST
ENERGY
By HANK DANISZEWSKI, THE LONDON FREE PRESS
Last Updated: July 9, 2010 7:54am
A West Lorne plant once touted as a “green” energy star has been shut down and forced into receivership.
The Dynamotive Energy Systems Corp. plant was set up in 2005 to produce bio-oil from the wood waste of the adjoining Erie Flooring and Wood Products Ltd. plant.
Dynamotive received $5 million in federal grants for the project in 2003 and garnered national media coverage and international awards for its innovative, environmentally friendly technology.
But these days the Dynamotive plant is deserted and a receiver is planning to sell off the assets at the request of Erie Flooring, its main creditor.
“As a start-up company, I think they just basically ran out of money to pay their bills and employees,” said Chris Austin, general manager of Erie Flooring, which has filed a claim for $736,000.
Dynamotive, based in Vancouver, used a system called “fast pyrolysis” to convert wood waste into a biofuel that could be burned to produce 2.5 megawatts of electricity.
The plant attracted delegations from Japan, Russia and China. Last year Dynamotive officials received an award for renewable energy presented at United Nations headquarters in New York.
The Dynamotive process also produced a charcoal-like product that helps retain moisture when spread on farm fields. Last year the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food partnered with Dynamotive to test the product on a farm near Shakespeare.
Dynamotive’s most recent financial report showed a net loss of $4.3 million for the first nine months of 2009, compared with a $7.1-million loss for the same period in 2008.
As recently as last November the Dynamotive website reported the plant was operating at more than 75% of capacity and getting new orders for bio-oil from an unnamed U.S. customer.
But Austin said the Dynamotive plant never achieved its potential.
“It operated sporadically but never really achieved full commercial production.”
Dynamotive did not respond to calls and e-mails from The Free Press.
Officials from the federal agency responsible for the $5-million grant to the Dynamotive plant also could not be reached for comment.
Michael Trebilcock, a professor of law and economics at the University of Toronto, said governments should not risk taxpayers’ money in the emerging green energy sector.
“These technology-specific subsidies are highly risky. I see this as one more illustration of the folly of governments trying to pick technological winners.”
He said governments should stick to funding basic environmental research and use taxation policies to curb carbon emissions.
Dynamotive appeared to be drowning in red ink last year and defaulted on money owed to Erie Flooring for back rent, a $296,000 promissory note and work provided by Erie Flooring employees.
Dynamotive was also supposed to build a boiler to be used by Erie Flooring. But the parts for that boiler have been lying around the site rusting for the past 18 months.
Erie Flooring said getting the boiler into operation could cost about $1 million in addition to the other money owned by Dynamotive.
Austin said the failure of the Dynamotive plant does not affect the viability of Erie Flooring, which employs 130 to 150 people.
Austin said there is still valuable equipment at the Dynamotive plant and it the receiver, RSM Richter, could sell the assets to a buyer willing to revive the plant.
“Technically it’s still an operating site, it just not operating now.”
E-mail hank.daniszewski@sunmedia.ca or follow Hankatlfpress on Twitter.
WOOD PELLETS DIVERSIFIED
Pure wood pellets are moving in some very intriguing directions in 2010.
Written by Ron Nowakowski
July 20, 2010 – Wood pellets are a great source of heating fuel and are making their mark in replacing the many fuels of yesteryear. Fuels like coal, etc., are on their way out. Europe is certainly leading the way and is demonstrating where this will end up in North America.
Pellet stoves and pellet furnaces are creating a great wave for the future. Pellet barbeques are also making their way into the market.
What is getting very exciting is that we are just beginning to discover the many environmental uses this small wood pellet is offering the planet.
The horse/equine industry caught my eye when I saw how wood pellets replace shavings and straw for animal bedding. The pellet is incredibly absorbent and dust free. Furthermore, they quiet odors and minimize bacteria count. Thinking further, these pellets could be taken up by dairy farms, poultry farms, horse ranches, pet stores, zoos, hog farms, etc.
Once moistened, the pellets swell to absorb over four times their size and weight.
Pellets make good animal bedding by absorbing moisture.
My new recent discovery is for using wood pellets for plant bedding. Organic berry farms are stepping up to replace straw. Straw use can spread weed seeds. Pellets simply biodegrade and can be left on or worked into the soil.
There is more. Hazardous materials and oil spill experts are beginning to look at this product as well.
Only the future will show us the many other uses wood pellets will provide. It’s a definite “green” direction for all to enjoy.
Ron Nowakowski is president of Hole-In-One Enterprises. E-mail: holein1@mts.net
Firefighters Extinguish Flare Up At Site Of Massive Sheboygan Co. Fire
20 Fire Departments Fought Initial Blaze
TOWN OF WILSON, Wis. --
Firefighters fought a small flare up Thursday evening at the town of Wilson pallet company that caught fire a day earlier.
The Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department said that an officer that was stationed at the Lakeshore Pallet Co. noticed a flair up Thursday evening and reported it to the Fire Department.
Town of Wilson and Ootsburg fire departments responded.
The initial massive Sheboygan County fire took 20 fire departments to put out.
Images: Suspicious Fire Destroys Pallet Company
The fire started at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The first fire crews cleared the area around the pallet company over concern that propane tanks there could explode. Officials said that as they gained the upper hand, it was clear the business had been destroyed.
The Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department said when it arrived on the scene, the four-building complex was engulfed in flames.
It also said many of the departments were shuttling in water, since there were no fire hydrants in the area.
The 32,000-square foot facility is considered a total loss.
Town of Wilson Black River Fire Department Chief Brian Schmitt told 12 News it's almost certainly an arson fire because when he arrived, it was burning in three separate locations on the property.
Investigators will also be looking into whether there's surveillance video. There's a security camera at the massive Aldrich Chemical plant directly across the highway.
It's not believed anyone was inside the building when the fire started.
The Sheriff's Department said a firefighter injured his back Wednesday night. He was taken by ambulance to St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will also be investigating the fire.
Lakeshore makes wooden pallets and produces wood pellets for use in wood stoves; that part of their production is called Badgerland Pellet.
BURNING OHIO TREES AT BURGER SETS FIRE TO DEBATE
Opponents are hot that FirstEnergy will get credits, question if state can produce enough fuel for power plant
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Aug 01, 2010
Switching from dirty coal to clean wood at FirstEnergy Corp.'s R.E. Burger Power Plant will require millions of trees — year after year.
Where those trees will come from and new questions about whether the switch helps the environment have triggered objections from Ohio environmental and consumer-advocacy groups.
The dispute has brought Akron-basedFirstEnergy's application for renewable energy credits — a financial incentive to make the conversion — to a standstill at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
FirstEnergy said in early 2009 that it intended to switch to biomass fuels, a general term for wood, farm products, manure, landfill and food wastes. The change would help Ohio meet a goal of diversifying its sources of energy and reduce air pollutants.
Work on the $200 million conversion is under way and will continue into 2012.
While FirstEnergy remains committed, critics are concerned that the Burger plant at Shadyside, in Belmont County in eastern Ohio, could require as many as 10 million trees, or 3 million tons of wood, a year.
Ohio would have to nearly triple its logging to fuel the plant with 3 million tons of trees a year, critics say.
FirstEnergy says the numbers aren't that high.
Either way, the issue of supply is a big one, because other utilities with power plants in Ohio have similar proposals.
American Electric Power, Duke Energy and Dayton Power & Light have plans before the PUCO to burn biomass in various mixes with coal at seven other plants now fired by coal. A private company has plans for an electric-producing biomass plant in Lawrence County.
If those Ohio projects burned only wood, they would require 52 tons of wood per minute — or more than 27.3 million tons of wood annually — to produce only 2,100 megawatts of electricity, critics contend.
One ton of dried wood needs about two tons of fresh-cut wood.
That would require harvesting all the large and medium trees from one-seventh of Ohio's public and private forests every year, critics say. Such operations would be neither sustainable nor renewable, critics say.
''That's a lot of trees,'' said spokesman Will Reisinger, a staff attorney with the Columbus-based Ohio Environmental Council, a statewide eco-group.
Utility behind conversion
FirstEnergy is confident in what it is doing and is committed to complying with Ohio renewable-energy mandates, said Vice President Charles Laskey.
Converting the Burger plant will help FirstEnergy comply with Ohio's advanced energy portfolio, approved in 2008.
Burger would become one of the country's largest biomass-burning facilities, able to produce 312 megawatts, or enough electricity for 190,000 houses.
Under the new Ohio law, 12.5 percent of Ohio's energy must come from advanced and renewable energy by 2025. Sources may include wind, solar and biomass, and half of the total must be generated in-state.
FirstEnergy earns tradable renewable energy credits for producing clean energy, and the legislature gave First-Energy extra credits that other utilities cannot get as an incentive to keep the Burger plant open.
''It's a really good project,'' said spokeswoman Ellen Raines, adding that the credits are a key element of the proposal.
She said it is too early to predict the value of those credits to the utility and declined to offer any company estimates, but others say the credits will be worth tens of millions of dollars.
When the plan was outlined in April 2009, FirstEnergy said it intended to get its fuel for the aging coal-fired plant mostly within 75 miles in southeastern Ohio and surrounding states.
Renewafuel LLC, a subsidiary of Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources, was supply wood briquettes, but dropped out of the venture.
Since then, FirstEnergy has been tight-lipped about its wood source, saying it ''currently intends to utilize biomass obtained from the United States and/or Canada.''
FirstEnergy sought bids from potential suppliers in January and got 35 proposals, Laskey said. The company is negotiating with at least six and may have contracts by late August.
At least two of those suppliers intend to provide FirstEnergy with Southern yellow pines from the Deep South, although the exact quantity is not yet final, Laskey said.
Southern yellow pines — there are 10 species — from as far away as Mississippi, South Carolina and the Florida Panhandle could be sources, he said.
The fast-growing pines cover an estimated 30 million acres in the South, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Planted in large tracts, they are the backbone of the region's paper-making and wood-making industries.
Declines in those industries have made large tracts available for Burger, Laskey said.
The prices are generally stable and the supply is adequate for decades, he said.
Some of the wood might be in pellets and some might be dried and turned into a charcoal-type fuel to reduce moisture and make the wood more burnable, he said.
Pellets or briquettes are easier to ship than trees, Laskey said.
The utility could seek to recover its added transportation costs through the PUCO.
A majority of the fuel to be burned at Burger will be wood, Laskey said, with the rest being farm wastes and other biomass materials.
Ohio is one of the top five states in the country for biomass from farms, which also could be a major fuel resource, some say.
Burning biomass debate
The debate over burning biomass and the large-scale proposals in Ohio has, according to some, made the state ground zero. Burning biomass may accelerate greenhouse gases and aggravate global warming, according to recent studies.
One study done for the state of Massachusetts and released in June found that biomass-fired electricity would produce 3 percent more carbon dioxide, a key global warming gas, than coal by 2050.
That led Massachusetts officials to announce plans to impose rules that would probably end commercial biomass-burning electric plants in the state.
In mid-July, activists from such groups as the Massachusetts-based Biomass Accountability Project and the Vermont-based Biofuelwatch lobbied in Washington, D.C., against biomass-burning plants.
''It's hard to imagine a more ill-conceived environmental policy,'' said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group. ''Coal-burning utilities and the biomass industry are promoting policies that will jeopardize millions of acres of forests while virtually guaranteeing that CO2 reduction goals from the power energy sector are not realized.''
His group called the hoped-for emission reductions from burning biomass instead of coal ''illusory.''
The Ohio Environmental Council, the Buckeye Forest Council, the Office of Ohio Consumers' Counsel and the Environmental Law & Policy Center all want assurances that there will be environmental benefits from burning trees and that Ohio forests won't be destroyed.
Nationally, opponents are telling Congress that biomass is dirty energy, will foul the air and make people sick and add to global warming. The so-called Anti-Biomass Incineration/Forest Protection Campaign is against proposed federal renewable energy standards that encourage the use of biomass.
The opposing arguments in Ohio have resulted in a stalemate over the FirstEnergy renewable energy credit application before the PUCO.
The groups want to know whereFirstEnergy will get its Burger fuel and whether that source will be sustainable before the plant is certified as a renewable energy facility, said Anthony Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Ohio Consumers' Counsel.
It would be premature for the PUCO to approve the energy credits for First-Energy without knowing more about the fuel sources, he said, and First-Energy has provided little information.
The company, in papers filed with the PUCO, said it has complied with all the requirements and that no rule requires disclosure of the fuel source, so it should be granted the credits.
The PUCO has suspended the application indefinitely. Opponents want the application to be dismissed.
Cheryl Johncox of the Columbus-based Buckeye Forest Council said the problem is that federal and state incentives promoting renewable energy encourage utilities like FirstEnergy to cut down millions of trees at a time when trees could help curtail global warming by controlling carbon dioxide, a key global warming gas.
21 states burn biomass
Nationally, there are 102 biomass plants that generate electricity in 21 states, according to the Biomass Power Association, a national trade group. Biomass accounts for 1.2 percent of America's electricity.
More than 120 wood-burning biomass power plants have been proposed in the past three years. They would require 46,000 square miles of forests — an area the size of Pennsylvania — to be cleared by 2025, according to one national eco-group.
Most of the operating plants are smaller than Burger and Ohio's other proposed biomass facilities.
Barberton-based Babcock & Wilcox last spring conducted test burns of wood pellets for FirstEnergy in Barberton and at Burger. Those tests went well, Laskey said.
The emissions were ''much, much cleaner'' and showed substantial improvement, he said.
Laskey said the project will be sustainable and renewable — with First-Energy's long-range plan calling for the burned trees or grass to give off no more carbon dioxide than they absorb while growing.
This year, the company will run tests of biomass with coal. While the goal is to burn 100 percent biomass, the plant is allowed to burn up to 20 percent coal under a federal consent decree.
Either way, FirstEnergy has no plans to grow its own fuel.
Laskey said the utility likes the idea of biomass because it can produce electricity when renewable sources such as solar and wind can be thwarted by clouds or still air.
''That's huge,'' Laskey said.
Biomass as a solution
The utility remains convinced that the changes at Burger might be the solution to many of America's old, small coal-burning power plants, Raines said.
Retrofitting such plants with scrubbers to comply with federal clean-air mandates is very costly. Switching the plants to biomass might prove to be a better solution, especially as concerns grow over carbon dioxide, she said.
The PUCO already has approved a request by FirstEnergy to burn 10 percent biomass along with coke at its Bay Shore plant near Toledo.
Laskey said he had not read the Massachusetts study and could not comment about it. He said he was aware of other studies that support burning biomass as the way to go.
Despite the Massachusetts concerns, biomass is a good alternative and one that Ohio needs to develop, said Cleveland attorney Joe Koncelik of Frantz Ward LLP, author of the Ohio Environmental Law Blog and former head of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
Not everyone shares that optimism.
That new analysis, said Reisinger of the Ohio Environmental Council, is ''a big deal . . . and is a potential game changer. Biomass may not be as climate-friendly as everyone thought.''
All of Ohio's biomass projects could generate 48 million tons of carbon dioxide annually ''at a time when we must be reducing emissions rather than subsidizing their increase,'' said Johncox of the Ohio forest group.
Ohio's forests are important and helpful in cutting greenhouse gases, she said. ''Rate payers shouldn't pay a premium, as they will to subsidize utility companies' burning of tree biomass, unless the alternative energy is truly green and carbon neutral. Burning our forests is neither.''
________________________________________
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Switching from dirty coal to clean wood at FirstEnergy Corp.'s R.E. Burger Power Plant will require millions of trees — year after year.
Where those trees will come from and new questions about whether the switch helps the environment have triggered objections from Ohio environmental and consumer-advocacy groups.
The dispute has brought Akron-basedFirstEnergy's application for renewable energy credits — a financial incentive to make the conversion — to a standstill at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
FirstEnergy said in early 2009 that it intended to switch to biomass fuels, a general term for wood, farm products, manure, landfill and food wastes. The change would help Ohio meet a goal of diversifying its sources of energy and reduce air pollutants.
Work on the $200 million conversion is under way and will continue into 2012.
While FirstEnergy remains committed, critics are concerned that the Burger plant at Shadyside, in Belmont County in eastern Ohio, could require as many as 10 million trees, or 3 million tons of wood, a year.
Ohio would have to nearly triple its logging to fuel the plant with 3 million tons of trees a year, critics say.
FirstEnergy says the numbers aren't that high.
Either way, the issue of supply is a big one, because other utilities with power plants in Ohio have similar proposals.
American Electric Power, Duke Energy and Dayton Power & Light have plans before the PUCO to burn biomass in various mixes with coal at seven other plants now fired by coal. A private company has plans for an electric-producing biomass plant in Lawrence County.
If those Ohio projects burned only wood, they would require 52 tons of wood per minute — or more than 27.3 million tons of wood annually — to produce only 2,100 megawatts of electricity, critics contend.
One ton of dried wood needs about two tons of fresh-cut wood.
That would require harvesting all the large and medium trees from one-seventh of Ohio's public and private forests every year, critics say. Such operations would be neither sustainable nor renewable, critics say.
''That's a lot of trees,'' said spokesman Will Reisinger, a staff attorney with the Columbus-based Ohio Environmental Council, a statewide eco-group.
Utility behind conversion
FirstEnergy is confident in what it is doing and is committed to complying with Ohio renewable-energy mandates, said Vice President Charles Laskey.
Converting the Burger plant will help FirstEnergy comply with Ohio's advanced energy portfolio, approved in 2008.
Burger would become one of the country's largest biomass-burning facilities, able to produce 312 megawatts, or enough electricity for 190,000 houses.
Under the new Ohio law, 12.5 percent of Ohio's energy must come from advanced and renewable energy by 2025. Sources may include wind, solar and biomass, and half of the total must be generated in-state.
FirstEnergy earns tradable renewable energy credits for producing clean energy, and the legislature gave First-Energy extra credits that other utilities cannot get as an incentive to keep the Burger plant open.
''It's a really good project,'' said spokeswoman Ellen Raines, adding that the credits are a key element of the proposal.
She said it is too early to predict the value of those credits to the utility and declined to offer any company estimates, but others say the credits will be worth tens of millions of dollars.
When the plan was outlined in April 2009, FirstEnergy said it intended to get its fuel for the aging coal-fired plant mostly within 75 miles in southeastern Ohio and surrounding states.
Renewafuel LLC, a subsidiary of Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources, was supply wood briquettes, but dropped out of the venture.
Since then, FirstEnergy has been tight-lipped about its wood source, saying it ''currently intends to utilize biomass obtained from the United States and/or Canada.''
FirstEnergy sought bids from potential suppliers in January and got 35 proposals, Laskey said. The company is negotiating with at least six and may have contracts by late August.
At least two of those suppliers intend to provide FirstEnergy with Southern yellow pines from the Deep South, although the exact quantity is not yet final, Laskey said.
Southern yellow pines — there are 10 species — from as far away as Mississippi, South Carolina and the Florida Panhandle could be sources, he said.
The fast-growing pines cover an estimated 30 million acres in the South, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Planted in large tracts, they are the backbone of the region's paper-making and wood-making industries.
Declines in those industries have made large tracts available for Burger, Laskey said.
The prices are generally stable and the supply is adequate for decades, he said.
Some of the wood might be in pellets and some might be dried and turned into a charcoal-type fuel to reduce moisture and make the wood more burnable, he said.
Pellets or briquettes are easier to ship than trees, Laskey said.
The utility could seek to recover its added transportation costs through the PUCO.
A majority of the fuel to be burned at Burger will be wood, Laskey said, with the rest being farm wastes and other biomass materials.
Ohio is one of the top five states in the country for biomass from farms, which also could be a major fuel resource, some say.
Burning biomass debate
The debate over burning biomass and the large-scale proposals in Ohio has, according to some, made the state ground zero. Burning biomass may accelerate greenhouse gases and aggravate global warming, according to recent studies.
One study done for the state of Massachusetts and released in June found that biomass-fired electricity would produce 3 percent more carbon dioxide, a key global warming gas, than coal by 2050.
That led Massachusetts officials to announce plans to impose rules that would probably end commercial biomass-burning electric plants in the state.
In mid-July, activists from such groups as the Massachusetts-based Biomass Accountability Project and the Vermont-based Biofuelwatch lobbied in Washington, D.C., against biomass-burning plants.
''It's hard to imagine a more ill-conceived environmental policy,'' said Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group. ''Coal-burning utilities and the biomass industry are promoting policies that will jeopardize millions of acres of forests while virtually guaranteeing that CO2 reduction goals from the power energy sector are not realized.''
His group called the hoped-for emission reductions from burning biomass instead of coal ''illusory.''
The Ohio Environmental Council, the Buckeye Forest Council, the Office of Ohio Consumers' Counsel and the Environmental Law & Policy Center all want assurances that there will be environmental benefits from burning trees and that Ohio forests won't be destroyed.
Nationally, opponents are telling Congress that biomass is dirty energy, will foul the air and make people sick and add to global warming. The so-called Anti-Biomass Incineration/Forest Protection Campaign is against proposed federal renewable energy standards that encourage the use of biomass.
The opposing arguments in Ohio have resulted in a stalemate over the FirstEnergy renewable energy credit application before the PUCO.
The groups want to know whereFirstEnergy will get its Burger fuel and whether that source will be sustainable before the plant is certified as a renewable energy facility, said Anthony Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Ohio Consumers' Counsel.
It would be premature for the PUCO to approve the energy credits for First-Energy without knowing more about the fuel sources, he said, and First-Energy has provided little information.
The company, in papers filed with the PUCO, said it has complied with all the requirements and that no rule requires disclosure of the fuel source, so it should be granted the credits.
The PUCO has suspended the application indefinitely. Opponents want the application to be dismissed.
Cheryl Johncox of the Columbus-based Buckeye Forest Council said the problem is that federal and state incentives promoting renewable energy encourage utilities like FirstEnergy to cut down millions of trees at a time when trees could help curtail global warming by controlling carbon dioxide, a key global warming gas.
21 states burn biomass
Nationally, there are 102 biomass plants that generate electricity in 21 states, according to the Biomass Power Association, a national trade group. Biomass accounts for 1.2 percent of America's electricity.
More than 120 wood-burning biomass power plants have been proposed in the past three years. They would require 46,000 square miles of forests — an area the size of Pennsylvania — to be cleared by 2025, according to one national eco-group.
Most of the operating plants are smaller than Burger and Ohio's other proposed biomass facilities.
Barberton-based Babcock & Wilcox last spring conducted test burns of wood pellets for FirstEnergy in Barberton and at Burger. Those tests went well, Laskey said.
The emissions were ''much, much cleaner'' and showed substantial improvement, he said.
Laskey said the project will be sustainable and renewable — with First-Energy's long-range plan calling for the burned trees or grass to give off no more carbon dioxide than they absorb while growing.
This year, the company will run tests of biomass with coal. While the goal is to burn 100 percent biomass, the plant is allowed to burn up to 20 percent coal under a federal consent decree.
Either way, FirstEnergy has no plans to grow its own fuel.
Laskey said the utility likes the idea of biomass because it can produce electricity when renewable sources such as solar and wind can be thwarted by clouds or still air.
''That's huge,'' Laskey said.
Biomass as a solution
The utility remains convinced that the changes at Burger might be the solution to many of America's old, small coal-burning power plants, Raines said.
Retrofitting such plants with scrubbers to comply with federal clean-air mandates is very costly. Switching the plants to biomass might prove to be a better solution, especially as concerns grow over carbon dioxide, she said.
The PUCO already has approved a request by FirstEnergy to burn 10 percent biomass along with coke at its Bay Shore plant near Toledo.
Laskey said he had not read the Massachusetts study and could not comment about it. He said he was aware of other studies that support burning biomass as the way to go.
Despite the Massachusetts concerns, biomass is a good alternative and one that Ohio needs to develop, said Cleveland attorney Joe Koncelik of Frantz Ward LLP, author of the Ohio Environmental Law Blog and former head of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
Not everyone shares that optimism.
That new analysis, said Reisinger of the Ohio Environmental Council, is ''a big deal . . . and is a potential game changer. Biomass may not be as climate-friendly as everyone thought.''
All of Ohio's biomass projects could generate 48 million tons of carbon dioxide annually ''at a time when we must be reducing emissions rather than subsidizing their increase,'' said Johncox of the Ohio forest group.
Ohio's forests are important and helpful in cutting greenhouse gases, she said. ''Rate payers shouldn't pay a premium, as they will to subsidize utility companies' burning of tree biomass, unless the alternative energy is truly green and carbon neutral. Burning our forests is neither.''
RIVERSTONE-BACKED BIOMASS COMPANY CLOSE TO SCORING MAJOR SUPPLY CONTRACT
Intrinergy, a Richmond, Va. biomass renewable energy company, is close to signing a long-term wood pellet supply contract with a European power company.
Negotiations are ongoing, an industry source tells G.E.R., and a contract could be signed in the next few weeks. Intrinergy, which was co-founded in 2004 by CEO John Keppler, sources and processes biomass feedstocks, like dead trees or sawdust, into pellets.
Last spring energy-focused private equity fund Riverstone Holdings invested an undisclosed amount in Intrinergy, which plans to use some of the proceeds to grow its U.S. wood pellet production to about 1 million ton a year over the next three-to-five years.
Most of the demand for pellets these days comes from Europe, which is requiring utilities to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2020. U.S. demand could pick up with the establishment of a federal Renewable Electricity Standard. An RES would push utilities to burn wood pellets (the cheapest source of renewable power compared to sun or wind power) alongside coal in existing power plants.
CO2 emissions of wood pellets are equal to what about a dead tree would emit, making the whole process largely carbon neutral.
NORTHEAST BIOMASS CONFERENCE & EXPO TOURS FEATURE DISTRICT HEATING, PELLETIZING
By By Anna Austin and Lisa Gibson
The New England Wood Pellet plant in Jaffrey, N.H., is ringed by trees and sits on a lot piled high with bags of wood pellets, ready for sale to the company’s residential customer base.
The site was one of two tour locations during Biomass Magazine’s Northeast Biomass Conference & Expo Aug. 4-6 in Boston. Nearly 40 tour participants were able to observe facility operations and witness how pellets are manufactured. The company has been making pellets for 19 years, according to Steve Walker, president and CEO, and designs and manufacturers much of its own equipment.
Participants saw trucks dumping the raw wood onto massive piles of sawdust, wood chips, and hunks of other wood. The supply, 20 percent soft wood and the rest hard wood, comes from forestry, sawmills, chipping contractors and secondary manufacturers that make products such as furniture.
Some of the raw wood needs to be dried, so before being pelletized, it is fed into a screener that takes out the big chunks, as well as the fine ones because those can blow up and cause fires more easily, Walker said. Then, the wood pieces are pulverized to the size of a toothpick and dumped into a silo before finally being fed into the large, cylindrical, rotating dryer, which is powered by the woody biomass. “This is exactly the same as a clothes dryer,” Walker joked, looking at the massive machinery. “A little bigger.” The residence time for the wood in the dryer is between 1.5 and 2 minutes, he added.
The dried wood, along with the wood that was dry enough to skip the drying process, is put in silos where it waits to be pelletized at temperatures up to 256 degrees Fahrenheit, Walker explained, picking up cooled pellets and passing them around. “They’re pretty uncomfortable right when they first come out,” he said.
The pellets are poured into bags on a conveyor belt, piled on pallets, wrapped in plastic and stored on-site at the facility. The residential customer base is large, Walker said, but does fluctuate depending on oil prices. ”The market here in the northeast has grown, but not nearly as fast as Europe,” he said. There’s an enormous overcapacity in the Northeast, he said and the market is much smaller than popularly perceived. “What we have to focus on is the customer,” he said.
Tour guests were also granted a tour of the company’s research and development facility, which it uses to design its own equipment, and research new designs.
Mount Wachusett Community College in northern Massachusetts was the other tour destination, a previously all-electric heated facility that now houses a state-of-the-art hydronic biomass-fired district heating system.
Powered by a Messersmith wood chip combustion boiler, the biomass system heats the college’s entire campus, some 500,000 square feet of classrooms, libraries and laboratories, and has saved MWCC $300,000 in annual fuel costs since it was installed in 2002.
MWCC Director of Maintenance and Mechanical Systems Bill Swift said three to five truckloads--each truck averaging 2 to 3 tons--of hardwood wood chips are hauled to the plant per week to fuel the district energy system. Though mill wood chips—which Swift described as unusable slabs of wood cut from the sides of a debarked logs—are a more desirable fuel due to its consistency, the plant currently uses mostly chips derived from wood typically destined to be utilized as firewood, he said. “Since many sawmills have been closed in the state as a result of the lagging economy, mill chips aren’t available to us.”
Last year, the school paid about $54 per ton for mill chips and $58 per ton for the firewood chips, requiring about 1,400 tons of wood chips annually. Swift said he expected to pay the same figures next year, though he admitted concerns of eventual supply issues if multiple proposed projects in the state proceed, and if the economy does not improve.
When asked for advice to give those planning to install a similar biomass heating system, Swift had four tips to offer—don’t run wires underneath the boiler, marry baghouse controls to boiler controls, find a very good controls company, and size the wood chip bin one-third bigger than originally thought to be needed.
BRAZILIAN PAPER OUTFIT TO FORM ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SPINOFF
By Shannon Roxborough on August 6, 2010
Suzano Papel e Celulose SA (PINK: SUZBY), a Brazilian pulp and paper product maker founded with the goal of becoming the leader in the global wood pellets market, plans to sink US$1.3 billion into the formation of a renewable energy unit to help reach that objective.
The proposed firm, to be called Suzano Energia Renovavel, will set out to build three wood pellets plants, each capable of producing 1 million tonnes of product annually. The facilities are expected to be operational sometime between 2013 and 2014, with two additional facilities possible by 2019.
The pellets will likely to be sold to European power producers, who areincreasingly using the biomass fuel to help meet growing clean energy demand. Europe's wood pellet consumption, which came in at 8 million tons in 2009, is expected to reach 50 million tons by 2020, according to the European Biomass Association.
Concentrated sources of electricity, milled dried wood pellets are typically made from sawdust and can be used in household wood stoves and burned for industrial heating applications and utilities to produce lower emission electricity.
Brazil, a major producer of energy from renewable sources, primarily hydroelectricity and bioethanol from sugarcane—the South American nation leads the world in ethanol production—invested $7.4 billion in clean energy last year.
LAZIO, RUNNING MATE VISIT NEW ENGLAND WOOD PELLET FACILITY
By Stephanie Sorrell-White
GateHouse News Service
Posted Aug 04, 2010 @ 11:01 PM
Schuyler, N.Y. —
The gubernatorial candidate that has the backing of the Republican party visited a local wood pellet facility Wednesday afternoon to discuss the opportunities for job growth in Herkimer County.
Rick Lazio, along with lieutenant governor candidate Greg Edwards, talked to reporters and got a tour of the New England Wood Pellet facility saying that it was the perfect example of what needs to be done elsewhere in the state.
“This has been a particularly innovative business in energy efficiency. The company is really the prototype of what needs to be done,” said Lazio, during a conference with reporters.
He said the state needs to lower property taxes to help attract these kinds of businesses to prime economic areas like Herkimer County where there is a skilled workforce. Lazio said he would appoint Edwards to make sure that upstate gets the attention it needs for economic growth upon election.
“There isn’t a better place to plant businesses then here in Herkimer County,” he said.
Edwards said his experience as the Chautauqua county executive has helped prepare him to deal with economic growth issues for upstate New York.
Herkimer County Legislator Vincent Bono, R-Schuyler, attended the tour with Lazio and Edwards and said he was glad to have the candidates visit the area.
“It’s a great opportunity for [Lazio] to see what we’re about and to see what we have,” he said.
Rocco A. Bouse, director of sales and marketing for the Schuyler branch, also said they were glad to have the gubernatorial candidate visit their facility.
“We wanted to show them a little bit about what we’re doing and the growth we are experiencing,” he said.
The plant opened in 2007 and has become one of the largest wood pellet manufacturers and distributors in the northeastern United States, with Bouse noting the company did approximately $13.5 million last month.
Joe Farrington, production supervisor, said the facility takes in paper wood chips — no bark or dirt — from companies within a 100 to 150 mile radius and process them into pellets. He said the items would have ended up in a landfill if they had not been filtered out, which ultimately helps to save on resources. Farrington showed Lazio and Edwards the functions of the facility, including where the wood chips are dumped and where they go to be converted into pellets, which can be used as another form of fuel.
Lazio also commented on the late state budget that passed Tuesday nearly four months overdue, calling the legislators in Albany “dysfunctional” and “incompetent.”
“I would never tolerate that as governor,” he said.
Also running for governor is Carl Palladino, a Buffalo developer and political activist. The Democrats have picked Andrew Cuomo, currently the state’s attorney general, to run on their ticket for the Nov. 2 election.
Lazio, 52, served as a prosecutor in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office before being elected to its legislature. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1992 after he defeated an 18-year incumbent for the position. In 2000, Lazio lost a bid for the U.S. senate against Hillary Rodham Clinton and has since stayed in the limelight. He announced his bid for governor in September and has received the backing of the Republican and Conservative parties.
NET DEBUTS ON AIM TO RAISE £5M
By Margareta Pagano
Sunday, 8 August 2010
New Energy Technologies, a wood- chips-to-pellets supplier to the power industry, is planning its debut on the Alternate Investment Market next month to raise £5m tfor new plants.
Robin Parker, NET's chairman, said he is bringing the fledgling biomass company to the stock market to raise capital to build the latest wood-generation plants, allowing it to supply local users as well as the UK's big power stations with renewable fuel.
Mr Parker said: "Wood is proving to be one of the most sustainable fuel sources. With the UK facing power shortages, investing in biomass-sourced energy is highly efficient." He added the market for wood pellets is forecast to rise from two million tonnes a year in 2008 to more than 25 million tonnes by 2017.
Mr Parker is in negotiations with Drax, EDF, Scottish and Southern and other power generators to supply the biomass. Drax said last week that it could stop burning coal by the end of the next decade by switching to biomass. But it warned it would only go ahead with such plans if it had state subsidies.
LOGISTIC AND WOODPELLETS COMPLEX AND STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS
Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Author: Michael Beikircher
Title: Logistic And Woodpellets Complex And Stringent Requirements
Article: It is imperative that the quality standards be maintained while the wood pellets are being transported. Thus there are stringent rules laid down to ensure high quality during transportation right from the manufacturer till the consumer. The organization responsible for setting the standards of logistics aspects is called DIN CERTCO. The exact rules and regulations regarding transportation issues have been laid down with great detail inside the scheme of certification. The entire ONORM M 7136 details have been elaborated inside this scheme. There are also several other vital considerations which have been mentioned in the scheme regarding implementing these standards. Two major standards There are two vital product standards namely the DIN 5173 and the ONORM M 7135 which are also incorporated while considering logistics aspects of transporting wood pellets. The DIN 5173 standard is all about the testing of all solid fuel types such as untreated and compressed wood. Responsibilities of the transporting company The company which is transporting the wood pellets needs to provide certain proofs of the quality. For example the company needs to supply proof that the wood pellets have all been certified and come with the seal of quality stating DIN Plus. These wood pellets then need to be delivered and supplied. It is also mandatory that the wood pellets which are not certified are transported in a separate vehicle from the certified pellets. The warehousing aspect of the logistics also needs to satisfy certain regulations. In addition, aspects regarding immediate storage, as well as end delivery to user and regarding transportation vehicles etc. as well as delivery personnel must adhere to the regulations. Quality checks performed First the transportation company will need to perform quality management checks inside its own premises in order to ensure adherence to standards. In addition to these checks it is also ensured that the implementation aspects are also in strict accordance with the regulations as stated in the logistics standards. These checks are performed on an annual basis by third party personnel who are commissioned from the organization DIN CERTCO. Improvement areas As far as logistics is concerned in the transportation and distribution of wood pellets there are certain areas that seriously need improvement. For example the overall quality of the wood pellets need to be raised dramatically, the costs of transportation issues also need to be significantly reduced and the overall confidence of the end user needs to be enhanced. Only then will the usage of biomass increase and so will the storage, distribution, delivery as well as transportation of wood pellets improve. Being an alternative source of fuel which is carbon neutral it is imperative that the quality standards be implemented stringently. Michael Beikircher contact person for wood pellets at Beikicher Grunland GmbH, Lana, Italy. The offical website address is http://www.pelletdilegno.com.
DNR’S FOREST BIOMASS INITIATIVE SHOWING RESULTS; NIPPON PAPER ANNOUNCES $71 MILLION PROJECT IN PORT ANGELES
By Ear to the Ground
Thinings removed from over-stocked forests to reduce fire dangers are part of the supply of forest biomass available for clean energy. Photo: DNR
Nippon Paper Industries USA’s plan to produce “green energy” from foresty biomass at its paper mill in Port Angeles is welcome news to the local economy… and to DNR. Nippon Paper’s $71 million project, announced Friday, will include a steam boiler and turbine generator capable of producing 20 megawatts of energy at the plant using residue from local timber operations. In addition to the construction jobs, it is expected to create 20 or more permanent jobs, the Peninsula News reports.
Nippon Paper Industries USA was one of four private sector partners selected earlier this year by state Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark for DNR’s Forest Biomass Initiative. Through the initiative DNR seeks to assure local green energy producers of a sustainable supply of woody (forest) biomass for new projects.
The other partners with DNR in the initiative are:
• Parametrix, which is launching a pilot to convert woody biomass into liquid fuels in Bingen (Klickitat County) using fast pyrolysis technology;
• Borgford BioEnergy, LLC, which will use wood waste to generate electricity, bio-oil, syngas, and bio-char in Valley and Springdale (Stevens County); and
• Atlas Products in Omak (Okanogan County) which will use forest biomass to produce wood pellets for heating.
In addition to the renewable energy aspects, DNR’s Biomass Initiative is helping to create sustainable jobs, especially in rural areas that have been hit hard by the recession and decline of timber harvesting.
A bill passed by the 2010 State Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Chris Gregoire allows DNR to enter into long-term agreements to supply the initiative’s partners market-rate priced biomass, typically timber harvest slash not needed for restoration on state trust land. It also includes thinnings from over-crowded, fire-prone forests. No state general funds were invested; the partnership and long-term agreements are intended to help build the fledgling forest bio-mass market in Washington State.
NEW EARTH PELLETS LAUNCHES WOOD PELLET COMPANY
Colorado Biomass Fuel Organization Hosts Grand Opening of Retail Location
New Earth Pellets, a Colorado-based wood pellet biomass fuel company, announced today the launch of the organization and its first retail location. Dedicated to changing the local energy paradigm by creating a local pellet utility company that provides a one stop source for pellet appliances, fuel and education, New Earth Pellets is a locally available, carbon neutral alternative to fossil fuels.
On August 14th New Earth Pellets will host the Grand Opening at the first of many local distribution and retail centers (New Earth Pellet Depots) where a wide variety of wood pellet appliances from stoves, furnaces and boilers, to unique items like pellet BBQ grills and beetle kill furniture are available for purchase. All products are available with financing, installation, home delivery of pellets in bulk or bags and service to take the fear and inconvenience out of making the change.
"We are inspiring a wood pellet revolution by informing the public about the benefits of changing over to pellet fuel as a primary source of heat to minimize fossil fuel use," said Rosalie Bianco, CEO, New Earth Pellets. "Public awareness of the financial and ecological benefits of switching to pellet fuel is key to shifting the nation's energy paradigms to greener more local fuel sources. New Earth Pellets is making a commitment to partner with local communities to facilitate this change."
Wood pellets are an environmentally friendly, locally available, affordable replacement to fossil fuels. Cleaner, greener and more affordable than other forms of energy, New Earth Pellets are safe and significantly cheaper to use than electricity, oil or propane gas per BTU.
More important than cost is the environmental impact of using New Earth Pellets for home heating. A recent study by the University of California in Irvine found that a single wood pellet stove offsets more carbon than two hybrid cars (if using natural gas), when using electricity powered by coal that number could be as high as seven hybrid cars.
New Earth Pellets are made from damaged lodge pole pine trees from the Pine Beetle devastation in Colorado. In the future, New Earth Pellets will be made from trees that are part of the forest management thinning programs, which will help maintain a healthier balance in our forests.
In partnership with its sister company Environmental Energy Partners, New Earth Pellets has created a biomass community model that includes the opening of several small local pellet mills, that utilize local beetle kill trees from remediation and sustainable thinning projects. Smart management of these pellet mills will insure local customers will have a steady supply of pellets at a fair price. New Earth Pellets are made from a local product that will be sold to a local market.
The Grand Opening will happen on Saturday, August 14 from 10am-5pm at the New Earth Pellets Depot, 950 Simms Street, Lakewood, Colorado 80401.
About New Earth Pellets
New Earth Pellets (newearthpellets.com) is a Colorado-based wood pellet biomass fuel company dedicated to changing the local energy paradigm by creating a local pellet utility company that provides a one stop source for pellet appliances, fuel and education. The company's first New Earth Pellet Depot, based in Lakewood, CO provides a wide variety of wood pellet appliances from stoves, furnaces and boilers, to unique items like pellet BBQ grills and beetle kill furniture. For every bag of New Earth Pellets sold, a portion of the sale will go to the Yes! I Make a Difference non-profit foundation, an organization dedicated to educating and creating awareness about the problem of overcrowded forests.
FIRSTENERGY SEEKS OK TO BURN BIOMASS AT BURGER PLANT IN SOUTHERN OHIO
Published: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 8:04 PM Updated: Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 10:27 PM
John Funk, The Plain Dealer
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View full sizePlain Dealer fileBiomass fuel that FirstEnergy Corp. plans to burn in its R.E. Burger power plant in Shadyside, Ohio.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- FirstEnergy Corp is expected to win state approval Wednesday to burn wood pellets instead of coal at one of its smaller power plants.
The idea has environmentalists in an uproar, predicting that the authorization will lead to clear cutting the state's forests, gutting the state's renewable energy regulations and generating more carbon dioxide than burning coal would have.
By 2013, FirstEnergy intends to burn 80 percent wood pellets or briquettes with coal at its R.E. Burger power plant near Shadyside, Ohio, just down the Ohio River from Wheeling, W. Va.
The switch-over would make Burger's 312 million-watt (312 megawatt) generators the largest fired by "biomass" in the nation.
The company is trying to solve two problems with burning wood - getting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency off its back while meeting stiffening Ohio rules mandating a percentage of power be generated with renewable technologies instead of fossil fuels.
In a settlement to a federal suit, the EPA ordered the company to shut many of its old coal-fired power plants, or add pollution control equipment, or switch to a different fuel. Typically utilities have switched to natural gas, not wood pellets.
At the same time, Ohio has been trying to foster renewable energy technologies, usually thought of as power from solar panels or wind turbines, that policy makers believe will create jobs and improve the environment.
"Biomass" is included in the law as renewable if the trees or weeds or grass are renewable quickly enough that the fuel crops can keep up with the demand, that is, be sustainable. But that could be a tall order.
By 2025, at least 121/2 percent of the power every Ohio utility sells in the state must come from renewable resources. Utilities that can't generate that much will have to buy "credits" from other companies to make up the difference.
The state will keep track of a utility's progress with a complicated kind of credit score card. For every one million watts of power ( 1 megawatt ) sold, a utility will get one "renewable energy credit" or one "REC."
In the case of Burger, burning wood pellets will get "super RECs" because of a change in state law supported by Gov. Ted Strickland after FirstEnergy said it would shut Burger if it could not get the extra credits.
What's happening Wednesday is that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is considering an order designating Burger as a power plant that makes renewable energy credits when it burns the pellets.
A coaalition of environmental groups and the Ohio Consumers' Counsel want the PUCO to delay a ruling and hold hearings to determine the environmental impact of the switch to wood and force FirstEnergy to say just how it will meet fuel demands.
The problem, said Jennifer Miller, the conservation program manager for the Ohio chapter of the Sierra Club, is that while FirstEnergy may have been the first to announce a preference for biomass, it is not the only company to do so.
American Electric Power, Dayton Power and Light and Duke Energy Ohio have similar though smaller projects pending or already approved. Plus, an unregulated company has won approval to build a plant burning only biomass in southern Ohio.
All of these power plants will be trying to harvest wood and sawmill waste from Ohio and surrounding states, she said.
"We think PUCO has a responsibility to look at sustainability issues," Miller explained. "Trees are 'carbon sinks.' If we burn down too many trees to make electricity, we have not helped the environment. And we have concerns that the Burger plant encourages FirstEnergy to do little in terms of solar or wind.
The Ohio Environmental Council put it more starkly in a warning issued Tuesday.
"The company has provided no detail regarding the source of its biomass fuel, how the biomass will be transported, or whether the biomass fuel will be obtained using sustainable processes," the Council said in a statement.
In earlier legal pleadings jointly filed by the Environmental Council, the Consumers' Counsel, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the lawyers argued that Burger's switch over would eat up 2.9 millions tons of wood from Ohio's forests every year - or three times all of the logging done in 2006.
But Burger's 312 megawatts represents just a sixth of the wood that would be needed, the coalition argued, if the PUCO approves all of the requests to switch to biomass fuels in Ohio.
FirstEnergy spokeswoman Ellen Raines said the company doesn't plan to buy its fuel from just Ohio sources.
"Our research indicates there are ample supplies of potential renewable material that can come from a large geographic region," she said.
"For example, there are thousands acres in deep South that once supplied the pulp and paper industry. That is a potential source."
FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES ARE 12 TIMES SUPPORT FOR RENEWABLES, STUDY SHOWS
04 August 2010
Global subsidies for fossil fuels dwarf support given to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and biofuels, according to a new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
(Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance) Governments last year gave US$43 billion to US$46 billion of support to renewable energy through tax credits, guaranteed electricity prices (feed-in tariffs) and alternative energy credits, the London-based research group said in a statement. That compares with the US$557 billion that the International Energy Agency last month said was spent to subsidize fossil fuels in 2008.
“One of the reasons the clean energy sector is starved of funding is because mainstream investors worry that renewable energy only works with direct government support,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of New Energy Finance. “This analysis shows that the global direct subsidy for fossil fuels is around ten times the subsidy for renewables.”
Countries from the USA and Germany to Brazil and China are trying to boost power derived from crops, the wind and the sun in order to lower emissions of greenhouse gases while increasing the security of energy supplies. The Group of 20 nations a month ago renewed a commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies “over the medium term.” No target date was set.
The single most expensive clean energy subsidy last year was Germany’s feed-in tariff, which cost ratepayers US$9.6 billion, New Energy Finance said. Across Europe, such tariffs amounted to US$19.5 billion.
The USA in 2009 provided the most clean energy subsidies, at US$18.2 billion, according to New Energy Finance. China provided about US$2 billion of support, a “deceptive” figure because the country’s state-owned banks also provide “much crucial support” through low-interest loans, the group said.
So far this year, the state-controlled China Development Bank has extended US$24 billion in loans to Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., Trina Solar Ltd., Suntech Power Holdings Co., . Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., and Solarfun Power Holdings Co.
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION INVESTIGATES EXPLOSION AT MARION PELLET PLANT
By JIM HOOK Senior writer
Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania)
August 12, 2010
MARION -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating an explosion and fire at AJ Stoves & Pellets in Marion.
Nobody was injured in the Aug. 2 incident, according to fire officials.
An OSHA investigation is triggered automatically if there is a fatality in a workplace or a catastrophe that sends three workers to the hospital, according to spokeswoman Leni Fortson.
"That doesn't preclude us from investigating other accidents," Fortson said.
The plant at 5773 Colorado St. Extended in Guilford Township makes wood pellets to burn in wood-burning stoves. Wooden pallets are ground into dust that is formed into pellets. Fire officials suspect a spark from a nail going through a grinder may have ignited the dust.
The building and hoppers sustained little damage in the blast and fire, according to fire officials. About 30 firefighters from several fire companies were at the scene four hours.
The plant has had at least three explosions in two years. The former granary is near homes at the railroad tracks. Neighbors have complained.
Founded in 2005, the company employs two people, according to the 2009-10 Franklin County Area Development Corp. Industrial Directory.
Owner Archie Jones did not return telephone calls to his cell phone Wednesday.
A business answering machine indicated the company was selling wood pellets.
OSHA has proposed regulating combustible dust in industry, but rules have yet to be adopted. Combustible dust is generated at pellet plants, feed mills, rubber grinding plants and other operations.
OSHA investigated an explosion last year in a large Maine pellet mill and fined the company $27,000. OSHA claimed that workers had been exposed to potential dust explosions due to the design, construction or location of the plant.
OSHA earlier this month cited a Connecticut aircraft parts manufacturing plant for 44 alleged serious violations, including the risk of explosion from combustible dust in improperly designed dust processing equipment.
In July, Imperial Sugar Co. agreed to $6 million in fines for alleged OSHA violations after an explosion of sugar dust in 2008 left 14 people dead at a Georgia refinery.
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Jim Hook can be reached at 262-4759 and jhook@publicopinionnews.com .
Copyright 2010 Public OpinionAll Rights Reserved
Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania)
FIRSTENERGY SWITCHES FROM COAL TO BIOMASS
13 August 2010
In Cleveland, Ohio, US, Akron-headquartered energy company FirstEnergy is seeking approval to replace one of its coal-burning power plants with wood pellets.
Authorisation would see the firm’s R.E. Burger generators become the largest in the US to be fired with wood pellets.
The company is currently aiming for the R.E. Burger power generation facility to be burning 80% of wood pellets and briquettes alongside coal by 2013.
The switchover application comes after FirstEnergy was ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to close a number of its coal-fired power plants if it did not install pollution control equipment or change from burning fossil fuels.
However the proposal does not please environmental groups, who claim that the change over will result in deforestation and an increase in carbon dioxide.
The environmentalists are urging the Public Utilities Commission to postpone their final ruling until the environmental effects of burning pellets are determined and FirstEnergy explains how it will fuel the fuel mandates.
BIOMASS FIRM WINS MAJOR CONTRACT
By JOHN REID BLACKWELL | TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Published: August 25, 2010
A Richmond-based company that produces biomass products for energy has won a contract to supply wood pellets to a European utility company.
Enviva LP's agreement to supply 480,000 metric tons of wood pellets a year to Belgium-based Electrabel is the largest contract ever for the local firm.
"It certainly is a very important milestone in growing the business, and so we are very excited about it," said Thomas Meth, executive vice president of Intrinergy LLC, the parent company of Enviva.
Intrinergy was founded in 2004 to develop renewable, biomass energy products aimed at replacing fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Enviva and Intrinergy are based in Richmond and employ a total of about 120 people at operations in the United States and Europe. Privately owned Intrinergy does not release sales figures, and the value of its new contract was not disclosed.
Enviva produces wood pellets from discarded wood products, sawdust or pulpwood. The wood is milled, dried and pelletized and sold to produce energy at biomass plants, such as the one operated in Belgium by Electrabel, a subsidiary of utility company GDF Suez Group.
The contract means that Enviva must increase its production of wood pellets.
Its only U.S. plant is in Mississippi. Enviva announced this month that it had acquired CKS Energy Inc., a privately held company based in Amory, Miss., that makes wood pellets for industrial, commercial and residential uses. Enviva said it plans to increase capacity at the CKS plant in Mississippi from 50,000 tons to more than 100,000 tons a year.
Enviva also is considering adding plants, possibly in Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia. "We will start supplying next year," Meth said. "For that, we need to add more capacity. I expect it will be more than one site."
Enviva has a plant in Germany with a capacity of 120,000 tons of pellets a year, and a plant in Belgium with a capacity of 60,000 tons, he said.
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Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or jblackwell@timesdispatch.com.
TESTING WOOD A POSITIVE STEP IN UNC ENERGY USE
By LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Letters
Updated: 1:27 AM
TO THE EDITOR:
In response to “UNC trying to quit coal,” (Aug. 27) I am overjoyed by the earnestness of Chancellor Thorp and the University’s Energy Task Force to lead UNC to a coal-free future by 2020.
The decision to test wood pellets as an alternative source is also a positive development. Wood pellets, though initially more expensive than coal, are dense and significantly more efficient than other alternative energy sources. The pellets are made from leftover sawdust from lumber production or from already lifeless soft-wood trees.
Consequently, the process of burning these pellets has been declared relatively carbon neutral. This booming industry has also become largely American with some of the greatest global production taking place in southeastern U.S.
Still, my support for wood pellet combustion does not negate the importance for a diversified energy source portfolio. The new energy future requires that multiple sources be utilized, including biomass, natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear energy.
The overwhelming evidence of global climate change compounded with the gravity of dependence on foreign energy suppliers have presented unprecedented challenges to the United States.
I am extremely proud that the University has decided to lead on this issue and demonstrate to her counterparts that homegrown, sustainable, and efficient energy is feasible and necessary. I plead for the University to continue to advance this crucial agenda and for The Daily Tar Heel to hold the administration accountable to its promises.
Chris Scanzoni
Sophomore
Public Policy
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
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