Biomass

[While we are certainly not advocating for any form of burning, including firewood, it's interesting how the biomass industry competes with itself. -Ed.]

- by Anna Simet, October 03, 2014, Biomass Magazine

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"270","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"183","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 275px; height: 183px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"275"}}]]Last week, I blogged about the pellet availability situation in the Northeast (the “shortage” last year, what might happen this year, etc.) What I didn’t mention—new to my radar this week— is that right now, the very same thing is going on with cordwood that did with pellets. It’s been making headlines in several northeastern states.

So, I called up my friend and Biomass Magazine columnist John Ackerly, president of the Alliance for Green Heat, to get some more details on the situation. 

He said he’s never seen a situation like this.

- by  Ingrid Söderbergh, September 18, 2014, Phys.org

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"265","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 333px; height: 166px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Dioxins forms faster, at lower temperatures and under other conditions than previously thought. This may affect how we in the future construct sampling equipment, flue gas filtering systems for waste incineration and how to treat waste incineration fly ash. These are some of the conclusions Eva Weidemann draws in her doctoral thesis, which she defends at Umeå University on Friday the 26 of September.

Dioxins is a collective name for a specific group of chlorinated organic molecules where some exhibit hormone disrupting and carcinogenic properties. Dioxins can form in waste incineration, as the flue gases cool down.

"When you incinerate waste, some dioxin formation is inevitable, but with the modern flue gas cleaning systems the emission through the stack is minimized, The dioxins are filtered from the flue gases and end up in the fly ash", says Eva Weidemann.

- by Maeusz Perkoswki, September 16, 2014, Capital Press

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"263","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"225","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 225px; height: 225px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"225"}}]]Two biomass facilities in California that use agricultural waste to generate electricity claim the federal government owes them about $22 million.

The plaintiffs — Ampersand Chowchilla Biomass and Merced Power — claim the U.S. Treasury Department is wrongly withholding funds from an economic stimulus program that helps pay for renewable energy projects.

Each company invested more than $40 million to build facilities in Chowchilla and Merced that rely on boilers and turbines to produce energy from agricultural byproducts, such as orchard trimmings and nut shells, as well as other sources of waste.

The facilities became operational in 2011 and applied to the Treasury Department for reimbursements of 30 percent of the project costs, which were available through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Instead of providing each company with the full amount, roughly $12 million apiece, the government only reimbursed each of them for about $1 million, the complaint said.

- by Paul Tuthill, September 12, 2014, WAMC

- by Chad Hanson, August 28, 2014, Earth Island Journal 

[How much of the forests that experienced the Rim Fire will be feeding biomass incinerators? -Ed.]

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"258","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"359","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 555px; height: 415px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: David Lucas","width":"480"}}]]The US Forest Service issued a draft decision yesterday for a massive post-fire logging project in the Stanislaus National Forest portion of the 2013 California Rim Fire, which covered 257,171 acres on the national forest and Yosemite National Park. A final, signed decision on the proposal is expected this afternoon. 

The draft decision proposes over 37,000 acres of intensive post-fire logging, which would remove the majority of the rarest and most ecologically valuable habitat resulting from the fire on the Stanislaus National Forest: “snag forest habitat” created by high-intensity fire in mature conifer forest. (Forty one percent of the Rim Fire area was comprised of non-conifer vegetation, such as grassland and foothill chaparral, and most of the forest area burned at low/moderate-intensity, wherein only a portion of the trees were killed). 

This would include essentially clear-cutting 95 percent of the snags (standing fire-killed trees) in 19,462 acres of the fire area. An additional 17,706 acres of “roadside” logging is planned along roads, including old logging roads, which are not maintained for public use (and many of which are closed roads, long since decommissioned). Much of this would be clearcut too, including live, healthy, mature, and old-growth trees, which would be removed by the thousands, for no credible public safety benefit, based upon profoundly vague criteria that allow just about any tree to be cut.

- by Ryan Trowbridge, September 10, 2014, WGGB

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"138","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 180px; height: 134px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Wednesday night, the Springfield City Council took up the contentious issue of a planned biomass incinerator in the city.

Opponents claim the plant would only add more pollution to an already polluted city, but the state just ruled Springfield does not have the authority to stop its development.

It’s an issue several years in the making and Wednesday, the City Council met to vote on what it should do next in the battle to keep the plant from being built.

Palmer Renewable Energy is looking to build a $150 million biomass wood burning plant in Springfield. The biomass plant, near Page Boulevard and Cadwell Drive, Would produce 35 megawatts of electricity.

Opponents, however, say it’s dirty energy and would further pollute the Springfield area.

- by Richard Ball, August 31, 2014, The Washington Post

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"139","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"346","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 244px; height: 243px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"347"}}]]The Post’s Aug. 28 editorial “An answer to global warming” made good points about a carbon tax. However, a serious problem that was not mentioned is how to deal with adverse impacts from biomass energy sources, such as burning wood in power plants. Most proposed carbon control schemes do not control emissions from biomass energy, erroneously assuming they are carbon neutral.

If we tax carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and ignore the emissions and side effects from production of biomass energy, we will hasten the demise of most forests and worsen the availability and cost of food, perhaps increasing carbon dioxide emissions as well.

To avoid those problems, any carbon control scheme needs to close the “biomass loophole.” For example, we could tax emissions from burning biomass like any other source of carbon dioxide emissions, at least by default, and put the burden of proving otherwise on large biomass producers or users through an appropriate system of certification of emission reductions and sustainability of production methods.

Richard Ball of Annandale, Viriginia is Energy Issues Chair at Virginia Chapter Sierra Club and was lead author for Working Group II (Impacts and Adaptation) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1989-1995.  

- by Dave Miller, September 4, 2014, WALB News

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"255","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"220","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 200px; height: 220px; float: left; margin: 3px 10px;","width":"200"}}]]The Albany-­Dougherty Payroll Development Authority has given the go-ahead for its part in the proposed new biomass generator in conjunction with Procter&Gamble in Albany.

We reported Tuesday that the PDA Ok'ed a new lease for Procter and Gamble that could help them cut waste, and allowing the company to have another tenant.

The combined heat and power biomass facility at the Albany Procter & Gamble Paper Products Co. was touted as a boon for the local economy by strengthening existing industries, protecting jobs and positioning Albany as a premier location for renewable energy projects.

The utility scale biomass plant would be one of the largest in Georgia and represents up to $230 million of investment by Albany Green Energy, LLC. The potential project, which is being driven by Procter & Gamble, Constellation New Energy and Sterling Energy Assets, would create 25 to 35 full-­-time jobs and an average of 190 construction jobs across 21 months with a peak of 575 jobs, and create nearly $8 million in tax revenue over the two-decade deal.

[Interesting piece by industry PR person in regards to dealing with public opposition to dirty energy projects. -Ed.]

- by Al Maiorino, September 2, 2014, Renewable Energy Magazine

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"138","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 180px; height: 134px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Transylvania County in North Carolina is currently engaged in intensive internal debate about the role of biomass in their future. The current state of affairs began last year when Renewable Developers, a New York based LLC, proposed the construction of a biomass waste to energy conversion plant in the town of Penrose.

The new facility would utilize the pyrolysis method of conversion to turn wood chips and municipal solid waste into approximately four megawatts of renewably sourced electricity. Unfortunately, staunch public opposition lead by the NIMBY group People for Clean Mountains (PCM) immediately began to oppose the facility after it was announced.

- by Duane Shimgawa, August  28, 2014,  Pacific Business News

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"254","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 211px; height: 142px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: Cleanislands.com"}}]]The only coal-fired power plant in Hawaii, which is the single largest generating plant on Oahu, is under financial stress because there is no financial reserve, according to the Hawaiian Electric Co.'s new energy plan released this week.

Hawaiian Electric is also asking AES Hawaiito convert some of the energy being produced at the plant in Campbell Industrial Park to biomass from coal

Given the potential financial impact of an interruption of service associated with a financial default of AES Hawaii, HECO said it has been negotiating in good faith with the company to explore the possibility of an amendment to the power purchase agreement that would make financial sense to AES Hawaii and ratepayers.

As part of the ongoing negotiations for the change in the power purchase agreement, the state’s largest electric utility has asked AES Hawaii to convert some or all of the energy produced at the facility from coal to biomass, possibly from black pellets made from wood.