Tag Archives: javascript
Shell Turning Closed Japanese Refinery Into Biomass Plant
Taylor Scott International Continue reading
Sen. Udall Applauds Gypsum Biomass Plant
GYPSUM — U.S. Sen. Mark Udall said the Gypsum biomass power plant is a “win-win-win” project when he and state Sen. Gail Schwartz toured the plant’s construction site on Friday afternoon. The Gypsum biomass plant is the first of its kind in Colorado and is on schedule to go online this December. The “woody” biomass plant will produce 11.5 megawatts of electricity per year by burning dead timber collected mostly from the White River National Forest. That main fuel source will be supplemented by other sources, such as wood construction waste that normally goes to the landfill. Of the 11.5 megawatts, 10 megawatts will be sold annually to Holy Cross Energy through a 20-year agreement and 1.5 megawatts will power the plant itself. “When this goes online it will put us over the top of our goal to have 20 percent of our power coming from renewable energy by 2015,” said Holy Cross CEO Del Worley. “This will put us at around 22 or 23.5 percent renewable energy.” Udall, who serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, touted the public-private project as a fine example of how to bolster the economy and help the environment while generating domestic power. “It’s a carbon-neutral, renewable energy source, it mitigates forest wildfire, it creates about 100 jobs in total and it’s going to be profitable,” Udall said. “There’s nothing wrong with profit — profit leads to reinvestment.” Eagle Valley Clean Energy LLC — a subsidiary of Evergreen Clean Energy Corporation — is the company behind the Gypsum plant, which will get the bulk of its fuel from West Range Reclamation LLC. West Range is a forest and land management company in Hotchkiss that was recently awarded a long-term stewardship contract with the U.S. Forest Service. West Range will receive $8.66 million through the 10-year contract. “The stewardship contract is at the heart of this,” Udall said. “It’s a beautifully fulfilling relationship.” Environmental health Schwartz said Colorado is 37th in the nation for utilizing biomass power but it is the No. 1 producer of biomass fuels. “We have 4 to 6 million acres of standing dead timber in our state,” she said. “We have 175,000 slash piles in Colorado that we will burn anyway. This biomass plant will help clean our forest and mitigate wildfires as well as create jobs and electricity.” Udall said the biomass plant is a market-based solution. “[Eagle Valley Clean Energy] is bringing value to forest slash and waste,” he said. Udall said the plant is carbon-neutral because the wood fuel contains carbon that is already in the environment. “It’s circulating, unlike coal, which is mined,” he said. Udall added that the biomass plant is “state-of-the-art” in terms of its filtration and monitoring systems for pollution. Dean Rostrom, a principal of Eagle Valley Clean Energy, said electrostatic precipitators will filter almost 100 percent of the ash from the burning wood fuel before it makes it into the air. “That smoke stack will look about the same when it’s operational as it does today — you won’t see anything coming out of it,” Udall said. Rostrom confirmed Udall’s statement that the company uses the latest technology to control emissions. “We exceed all air permit requirements,” he said. The Gypsum plant will burn about 250 tons of wood a day. More biomass? Rostrom said he thinks “it makes a lot of sense” to build more biomass plants in Colorado but there are several factors that have to align. “It’s a balancing act between an economy of scale and environmental sensitivity,” he said. “To date, most biomass proposals in Colorado have been 100 megawatt operations but they would consume too much [to be environmentally balanced].” Pam Motley of West Range Reclamation said it is important to find markets that are close to the wood source. “So much of the cost of wood is transporting it,” she said. “Markets need to be within 100 miles or it’s not economical and it’s not as carbon neutral because you’re trucking it so far.” That’s one of the reasons that makes Gypsum’s plant a good fit for the area — its proximity to the White River National Froest. “With modern mega-fires becoming a growing problem that threatens Colorado communities, our precious water supplies and our way of life in the West, we need to use every tool we have to reduce wildfire risks,” Udall said. “The Gypsum biomass power plant shows how we can reduce wildfire risks, create jobs and generate renewable energy sources. This biomass power plant also underscores the urgency for renewing the U.S. Forest Service’s Stewardship Contracting Authority by passing a farm bill. If Congress does not stand with me and act, job-creating public-private partnerships like this will grind to a halt.” Continue reading
Special UN Report: Biofuels Impact Food Prices and Availability
A new report from the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) out of Rome, for the United Nations, implicates biofuels as a cause of high food prices. The June 2013 report, released today, is titled, “Biofuels and food security” (PDF) . This comprehensive document includes many interesting graphics and it attempts to cover all aspects of biofuels production. Every-so-often I catch a headline or tweet from biofuels interest groups or lobbyists who periodically promote the story that biofuels do not contribute to high food prices. This document clearly states that they do. While the ripple effect of the production and consumption of biofuels is far-reaching and can even account for some increased income for small-shareholder farmers, they are being promoted especially by corporate agricultural interests. Just this week DuPont received much feel-good publicity in promoting their food, agriculture and alternative energy “innovation center” in Johnston, Iowa, where their Pioneer Hi-Bred business unit is located. What was (at least part of) the hoopla really about? Making cellulosic ethanol out of corn stover. Taxpayers are on the hook for funding second generation biofuels, by the way, and cellulosic ethanol from corn stover qualifies. Follow the money. Currently, in the EU, biofuels policies are being rewritten, and the biofuels industry there, just like it does here, is lobbying hard against new proposals before the Parliament and Council to limit the use of food crops for biofuels. Here are a few chosen, key statements from the United Nation’s report: 1. In the last few years (since 2004) of short-term commodity food price increase, biofuels did play an important role. 2. All crops compete for the same land or water, labour, capital, inputs and investment and there are no current magic non-food crops that can ensure more harmonious biofuel production on marginal lands. Therefore, non-food/feedcrops should be assessed with the same rigour as food/feedcrops for their direct and indirect food security impacts. 3. In the case of the US, the impact on food security is essentially through the global transmission of prices. 4. (O)n the technological frontier for biofuels, few … countries have the resources to move forward to second-generation biofuels, given the often proprietary nature of this technology, the elevated capital investments required, and the high demands that second-generation technologies make on infrastructure, logistics and human capital. 5. (I)ndustrial advances can take place more quickly than agronomic advances needed to lower feedstock costs of both conventional and advanced biofuels. 6. Given the increasing price of fossil fuels and more efficient production, biofuels, or at least some of them, will be competitive even without public support. Increasingly it will be the market rather than policies that will drive the development of the sector. 7. Biofuel development has both global and local effects, positive and negative, short and long term. Many of these effects take the form of increased competition, for food, for land, for water. There are links between biofuels and food security. Therefore biofuel policies have to integrate food security as a major concern. Included was a good summary of how corn ethanol in the U.S. has impacted other commodities: The US has historically been both the world’s leading producer and exporter of corn, responsible for as much as 50 percent of world trade. The share of US corn production directed to ethanol increased in one decade from less than 10 percent to over 40 percent in the 2010/11 crop year, and remained at that high level in 2011/2012. Not only did the US exports and share in international corn trade decline as a result, but a significant part of the expansion of corn production in the US came at the expense of other major global crops, including soybeans. This was seen to have two effects: an increase in the price of corn and of its close substitutes like wheat on world markets, and a stimulation of food and feed production in other regions of the world, at the same time as major quantities of corn were subtracted from the feed market. This next chart shows us how policy of individual nations affects trade and consumption of biofuels. I also wanted to include the chart from the report with EROI (net energy return on investments) values from various feedstocks, but when I looked at their numbers, they looked quite “off” to me, so I am not including it here. Unfortunately, EROI numbers, while important, fluctuate wildly and are difficult to obtain and keep current, I suppose. The report lists the environmental sustainability concerns of biofuels, one of my own major concerns, below. 1. Lifecycle GHG emmisions. 2. Soil quality. 3. Harvest levels of wood resources. 4. Emissions of non-GHG air pollutants, including air toxics. 5. Water use and efficiency. 6. Water quality. 7. Biological diversity in the landscape. 8. Land use and land-use change related to bioenergy feedstock production. Certainly, here in the U.S., we have seen large negative impacts on all of the items on this list, making a project such as corn ethanol production insanely unsustainable and destructive to our environment in its current policy form. …………………………………………………………………….. NOTE: A special thanks to ActionAid for alerting me to this report. Continue reading
