Burning Bio News

Officials with EcoPower generation in Hazard, KY, is getting the green light from Frankfort, to construct their new proposed biomass power plant facility. The plant will be built on a 125 acre site in northern Perry County. The 50 MW generating plant will be built in the Coal Fields Regional Industrial Park. Officials say the construction could begin the end of this year and be finished as soon as 2012.

Xcel Energy Corp. is rethinking its plans to build the largest biomass power plant in the Midwest after the projected cost rose by one-third. The power company, which has a Wisconsin utility based in Eau Claire, was planning to build a biomass gasifier that would replace an existing coal-fired power plant on the shore of Lake Superior in Ashland. The company initially pegged the project at $58.1 million, but after more work it was determined that it would cost $79.5 million - an increase of nearly 37%.

Funding is available from four USDA Rural Development renewable energy programs authorized by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Farm Bill). USDA is accepting applications for grants and loan guarantees in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) until June 30, 2010. In fiscal year 2009, this program helped fund 1,485 REAP projects in 50 states, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Western Pacific Islands.

National Grid has awarded a $750,000 grant to Newton Falls Fine Paper Co. (NY) for the mill’s $27 million biomass energy project. Switching its energy source from fuel oil to dried wood chips could save the mill $2.5 million a year and greatly reduce sulfur emissions. The company plans eventually to use the biomass boiler to power a 10-megawatt generator. Company officials have said the two projects could result in 15 new jobs at the plant and 80 spinoff jobs in the forestry industry.

Mesquite Fuels and Agriculture plans to gasify mesquite and juniper cedar wood to generate 20 MW of electricity near Brownwood, TX. This company is working to secure agreements with local land owners that allows them to clear land of mesquite trees and cedar at no cost to the owner and use the wood as fuel for their power plant. The company needs 150,000 acres of land to be available over a for harvesting through land owner agreements to enable them to secure financing from their investor. The land would not be harvested all at once, but over a 10 year period.

A team of Stanford engineers has managed to harness electrical energy directly from algae cells by inserting tiny gold nanoprobes into individual living algae cells, extracting electrons that the cells had produced during photosynthesis. While biofuel combustion typically only yields three to six percent of a plant’s stored solar energy, the Stanford study’s electron harvest yielded 20 percent. And unlike burning biofuels or biomass, there is no carbon released in electron harvesting.

Powers Energy hopes to power its planned $250 million bioethanol plant in Schneider, IN, using a solar panel system, company President Earl Powers. The Evansville-based company has been in talks with Northern Indiana Public Service Co. regarding the energy producing system, which Powers said would be placed on the roof of the plant’s 23-acre processing building. Powers said the plant would use only 50 percent of the energy it creates, and would sell the rest back to NIPSCO. The plant will be one of the first in the world to use a patented anaerobic fermentation process to produce ethanol from garbage on a large scale.

On March 26, 2010, the U.S. EPA published the Renewable Fuel Standard Program (RFS2) Final Rule. The ‘rule’ has been circulating for several months, but it was only published in the Federal Register last week. RFS2 builds on the first RFS program, included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That required 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended into gasoline by 2012. For more information about the rule, visit http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/index.htm.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland visited the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center on the Wooster, OH, campus recently to see first-hand the anaerobic digester Cleveland-based quasar is building there. The digester will turn agricultural and other waste streams into methane that can then be used to generate electricity, thermal heat, natural gas or vehicle fuel. The 550,000-gallon digester that will be able to process 30,000 wet tons of biomass annually with more than 750 kW of electrical generation capacity.

West Lampeter Township, Landcaster County, PA, is being courted by a company that wants to build a $45 to $50 million bug-based anaerobic manure digester system to pump out “green” electricity for up to 30 farms. In exchange for manure from poultry and pigs, farmers would get free power, free odorless fertilizer and a modest lease payment. Cow manure would not be used, at least initially, because it is often mixed with straw.

The parent company of the AB Foods-Washington Beef processing plant in Toppenish, WA, has won $2 million in grants and loans to create a biofuels company that will transform waste into diesel. AB Bioenergy will use the money to build a biofuels facility later this year in a yet-to-be determined Central Washington location. After it ramps up in the spring of 2011, the plant is expected to create 16 new jobs.

Gill’s Onions generates 300,000 lbs/day of residuals from the processing of fresh-cut onions. With an annual disposal bill of $500,000, it opted to install an AD system to treat the waste on-site and utilize the biogas. Onion waste is now an asset at Gill’s Onions in Oxnard, California, where a $9.5 million project is converting onion waste into renewable energy and cattle feed. The biogas powers two 300-kW fuel cells generating 0.6 MW of electricity to satisfy 75 percent of Gill’s base load power requirements. The fuel cells, supplied by Fuel Cell Energy in Danbury, Connecticut, operate on biogas and natural gas.

A Cargill built and operated anaerobic digester on the Bettencourt Dairy B6 Farm, in Idaho, is now converting manure from the farm’s 6,000 cows into 1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per month. The electricity is sold to the local power grid. The project builds on the success of a Cargill anaerobic digester operating since 2008 on another 10,000-cow Bettencourt Dairy farm nearby.

With the uncertainty of how future United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations might affect industrial boiler emissions, Georgia Power has decided to delay the conversion of coal-fueled Plant Mitchell in Albany, Georgia to biomass until the EPA rules are better defined in April 2010.

New York Gov. David Paterson says the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money will support 118 energy conservation projects. Local governments, public schools, colleges, hospitals and others across New York will get help conserving energy and cutting costs thanks to $40 million in stimulus funds.

Electricity customers will have to cough up 1 percent more to pay for a new plant that is designed to help lessen Hawaii’s dependency on imported fuel. The state Public Utilities Commission approved the increase Saturday, and it became effective that day, Hawaiian Electric Co. said. With the increase, a typical customer using 600 kilowatt-hours a month will see a $1.34 increase on a total bill of $149.57. – mj: This rate is 24.9 cents/kWh. The average for the US is 10 cents/kWh.

Bloom Energy launched its 100,000 kW fuel cell last week which sells for $700,000 to $800,000 - That is about $7,500/kW. Price per kWh without subsidies: Lux writes that: “Without incentives, we calculate electricity would cost $0.13/kWh to $0.14/kWh, with about $0.09/kWh from system cost and about $0.05/kWh coming from fuel cost. Note that this is high compared to average retail U.S. electricity costs of roughly $0.11/kWh.”

A 55 MW power plant has been proposed to be built in Shelton, WA. Construction of the biomass plant is a joint venture between equipment manufacturer John Deere, and Adage LLC. Once completes, the plant will provide approximately 125 direct and 150 indirect jobs.

The New York State Public Service Commission has approved up to $35 million to build a renewable power plant in Rome, NY. The proposed biomass facility will produce 9.6 megawatts of electricity and generate steam.

Chautauqua County (NY) Executive Gregory J. Edwards was on hand as the engines inside the County’s Methane-Electric Plant underwent their first, full capacity test February 12. The landfill gas powered generator has a capacity of 6.4 megawatts of electricity will result in a profit of over $2 million per year to the county.