A recently written piece to the Bonanza by David McClure.
Basin Biomass Plant Examined
Placer County proposes to construct a Biomass power plant in Kings Beach. Their reasons are as follows: it’s a cleaner option than open burning, it reduces transportation costs (compared to locations outside the Basin), and furthers California’s goals of using renewable, green energy.
How can such reasons justify the combustion of 25-75 tons of woody biomass daily (1MW to 3MW) in the Lake Tahoe Basin? Some material would originate outside the Tahoe Basin, and trucked in and burned next to an Outstanding National Resource Water. Closer examination of the context for each reason reveals the faulty logic and half truths.
Controlled combustion emits less air pollution than open burning. Obviously. (TRPA banned open fireplaces in new construction years ago and placed restrictions to change out old woodstoves with new ones that meet Phase II emission requirements.) To assume this fact justifies a combustion power plant in the Basin ignores the comparison of duration and location of the two combustion options.
Do prescribed burns at Tahoe occur 24/7 at the same location for thirty years (the life of a Biomass incinerator)? A biomass plant, by definition, is stationary and burns constantly year round. Open burning is seasonal, lasts only for a matter of days, and occurs at sporadic locations around the Basin. Open burning is permitted only under favorable meteorological conditions. The Forest Service admits that prescribed burns will likely continue on slopes greater than 30% and for ecological purposes.
The choice is not between open burning versus controlled incineration in the Tahoe Basin. It’s between open burning and the harvesting (cutting, collection, chipping, transporting, and drying ) of forest material into a usable fuel. Open burning is the least expensive way to remove forest debris, whereas harvesting forest debris from fuels reduction (thinning) is very expensive and must be heavily subsidized. The current market for fuel grade biomass is about $30-50 per dry ton, while the cost of harvesting is four to seven times greater.
Biomass plants are viable when utilizing a ready-to-burn waste product such as from a sawmill. Logging operations may pile tree tops and branches for later utilization, but log sales revenue carries this cost. Forest thinning for fire fuels reduction is a costly process, dependent on public funds to carry the work in the forest along with the costs of conversion to fuel.
In general, transportation costs can be a significant portion of biomass conversion costs, but the proposed Kings Beach power plant has a different context. In the North and West shore areas of the Basin green material must first be transported to Cabin Creek (Eastern Regional Landfill) on Hwy 89 a few miles south of Truckee, well outside the Tahoe Basin. There the material has historically been stored, dried, and processed. About half the weight of green material is water, so a 25 ton van load contains only 13 tons of “Bone Dry” ready-to-burn fuel. A biomass plant at Cabin Creek would eliminate any further transportation costs.
If no plant is built at Cabin Creek the choice is to either continue hauling the final product 42 miles to the existing Loyalton Biomass plant (as Placer County has done for 16 years), or haul the material 17 miles back into the Tahoe Basin for burning in Kings Beach. The difference of 25 miles bears little on the cost of transportation for a 25 ton load of ready-to-burn fuel.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
June and Biomass Looms
Again this article comes to us from NTCAA a very smart & savvy group of people. This article is a bit longer but also shares some other reports & studies. It is well worth the read, so please do. I always encourage my readers to do their own research as well, pro or con there are always 3 sides to every story. Meera
Kings Beach Biomass Plant Facts
The Placer County proposed biomass-fueled power-generating plant in Kings Beach should not be routinely accepted by North Lake Tahoe residents, and specifically Kings Beach community members, but be carefully reviewed and commented upon. Here are some facts to consider.
Proposed size of plant: One to three Megawatts or 1000-3000 kilowatts generated every hour. (If you look at your power bill the kilowatt hours consumed is stated).
Fuel consumption: At One Megawatt the plant burns 1 Bone Dry Ton (BDT) per hour. (A Bone Dry Ton is an industry standard of measurement that assumes the fuel contains 8500 BTU/lb or a total heat content of 17,000,000 BTU/BDT). This is the same heat content as a full cord (128 cubic feet) of
Lodge Pole Pine firewood. At this rate of combustion a One Megawatt plant burns the equivalent of 24 cords of firewood per day.
A Three Megawatt plant would burn the equivalent of 72 cords of firewood every day. Use of the Waste Heat: The question of utilizing the waste heat was asked of Jim Turner of Sierra Pacific Industries who operates the Biomass Plant (rated at 20 MW) located in Loyalton (just north of Sierraville). Why is the waste heat not utilized to heat the town? He responded that after about one half mile the heat losses are so great that it is not economical. Some claim the waste heat can be used to heat the Kings Beach Elementary
School, a proposed County Administrative Center, and melt the snow from the commercial core sidewalks. Except for the elementary school, these other uses are more than a mile from the generating plant.
Conversion of hazardous fuels removal (thinning) into biomass feedstock: This is by far the most expensive part of the chain of feedstock production. In a recent interview Dave Fournier of the Forest Service explained how open burning was the least expensive method of removing forest debris with costs as low as $700 per acre. But the widespread practice of pile burning in the Tahoe Basin is not a sustainable method for hazardous fuels reduction due to air emissions, public health, visibility, and risk of losing control. According to the Forest Service, prescribed open burns must still be done in areas where the slope exceeds 30% or are otherwise inaccessible to mechanical equipment. Some open burning
for ecological purposes is also necessary to sustain a healthy forest. Open burning will occur in the foreseeable future. The impediment to converting forest material into usable biomass fuel is the cost high cost of retrieving and transporting the material for further processing. According to Fournier the costs can range from
$1700 to $3000 per acre, and even higher, with an average range of material production of 15-20 tons per acre. If the forest material is chipped on site it is mostly green with high-moisture (water) content. A standard chipper trailer hauls a 26 ton load of green chips but produces only about 13.5 Bone Dry Tons. At the Loyalton Plant the market rate paid for green chips is about $22 per ton, whereas for dry chips as much as $40 per ton depending on quality.
The importance of feedstock quality on plant efficiencies and emissions is critical to understand. Each technology and plant design is based on specific fuel specifications. If the feedstock fails “to meet the specification” there are performance and air quality issues. At Loyalton’s Biomass Plant “the best fuel
can give us 89% efficiency, and the worst fuel will drop that efficiency by a third to 59%.” The drop in efficiency also increases emissions of the plant beyond design levels. Generating Plant in Kings Beach or Processing Plant at Cabin Creek: These are different stages of the process of full utilization of biomass as a fuel. The assumption that a biomass plant in Kings Beach is built, a prerequisite for hazardous fuels reduction at Tahoe does not connect that any biomass plant pays the going market rate for the feedstock but it cost several times more to do the work of processing the feedstock. A processing facility to produce quality feedstock for the market’s waste stream is a prerequisite for any sustainable fuels reduction. Cabin Creek already supplies 20% of the feedstock for the Loyalton Biomass facility, which operates at half its rated generating output (20MW) for lack of fuel.
The following article reviews many aspects of biomass fueled power generation. Realizing that the proposed Kings Beach plant will only be powered by forest slash, and is not considered as a coal replacement but an alternative to open burning of forest debris, the pollution and health effects are still pertinent for Lake Tahoe. The article is reprinted in its entirety for completeness.
Net Benefits of Biomass Power Under Scrutiny, by Tom Zeller Jr., for the New York Times, published June 18, 2010
GREENFIELD, Mass. —
Matthew Wolfe, an energy developer with plans to turn tree branches and other
woody debris into electric power, sees himself as a positive force in the effort to wean his state off of planet warming fossil fuels. “Its way better than coal,” Mr. Wolfe said, “if you look at it over its life cycle.” Not everyone agrees, as evidenced by lawn signs in this northwestern Massachusetts town reading “Biomass? No
Thanks.” In fact, power generated by burning wood, plants and other organic material, which makes up 50 percent of all renewable energy produced in the United States (and 1.4% of all electricity generated), according to federal statistics, is facing increased scrutiny and opposition. That, critics say, is because it is not as climate friendly as once thought, and the pollution it causes in the short run may outweigh its long-term benefits.
The opposition to biomass power threatens its viability as a renewable energy source when the country is looking to diversify its energy portfolio, urged on by President Obama in an address to the nation. It also underscores the difficult and complex choices state and local governments face in pursuing clean-energy goals. Biomass proponents say it is a simple and proved renewable technology based on natural cycles. They acknowledge that burning wood and other organic matter releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere just as coal does, but point out that trees and plants also absorb the gas. If done carefully, and without overharvesting, they say, the damage to the climate can be offset.
But opponents say achieving that sort of balance is almost impossible, and carbon-absorbing forests will ultimately be destroyed to feed a voracious biomass industry fueled inappropriately by clean-energy subsidies.
They also argue that, like any incinerating operation, biomass plants generate all sorts of other pollution, including particulate matter. State and federal regulators are now puzzling over these arguments.
Last month, in outlining its plans to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency declined to exempt emissions from “biogenic” sources like biomass power plants. That dismayed the biomass and forest products industries, which typically describe biomass as “carbon neutral.” The agency said more deliberation was needed. Meanwhile, plans for several biomass plants around the country have been dropped because of stiff community opposition.
In March, a $250 million biomass power project planned for Gretna, Fla., was abandoned after residents complained that it threatened air quality. Two planned plants in Indiana have faced similar grass-roots opposition.
In April, an association of family physicians in North Carolina told state regulators that biomass power plant there, like other plants and factories that pollute the air, could “increase the risk of premature death, asthma, chronic bronchitis and heart disease.”
In Massachusetts, fierce opposition to a handful of projects in the western part of the state, including Mr.Wolfe’s, prompted officials to order a moratorium on new permits last December, and to commission a scientific review of the environmental credentials of biomass power.
That study, released last week, concluded that, at least in Massachusetts, power plants using woody material as fuel would probably prove worse for the climate than existing coal plants over the next several decades. Plants that generate both heat and power, displacing not just coal but also oil and gas, could yield dividends
faster, the report said. But in every case, the study found, much depends on what is burned, how it is burned, how forests are managed and how the industry is regulated.
Ian A. Bowles, the secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said that biomass power and sustainable forest management were not mutually exclusive. But he also said that the logical conclusion from the study was that biomass plants that generated electricity alone probably should not be eligible for incentives for renewable energy.
“That would represent a significant change in policy,” Mr. Bowles said. The biomass industry argues that studies like the one in Massachusetts do not make a clear distinction between wood harvested specifically for energy production and the more common, and desirable, practice of burning wood and plant scraps left from
agriculture and logging operations. The Biomass Power Association, a trade group based in Maine, said in a statement last week that it was “not aware of any facilities that use whole trees for energy.”
During a recent visit to an old gravel pit outside of town where he hopes to build his 47-megawatt Pioneer Renewable Energy project, Mr. Wolfe said the plant would be capable of generating heat and power, and would use only woody residues as a feedstock. “It’s really frustrating,” he said. “There’s a tremendous deficit
of trust that is really inhibiting things.”
In the United States, biomass power plants burn a variety of feedstocks, including rice hulls in Louisiana and sugar cane residues, called bagasse, in parts of Florida and Hawaii. A vast majority, though, some 90 percent, use woody residue as a feedstock, according to the Biomass Power Association. About 75 percent of biomass electricity comes from the paper and pulp companies, which collect their residues and burn them to generate power for themselves.
But more than 80 operations in 20 states are grid-connected and generate power for sale to local utilities and distribution to residential and commercial customers, a $1 billion industry, according to the association. The increasing availability of subsidies and tax incentives has put dozens of new projects in the development
pipeline.
The problem with all this biomass, critics argue, is that wood can actually churn out more greenhouse gases than coal. New trees might well cancel that out, but they do not grow overnight. That means the low-carbon attributes of biomass are often realized too slowly to be particularly useful for combating climate change.
Supporters of the technology say those limitations can be overcome with tight regulation of what materials are burned and how they are harvested. “The key question is the rate of use,” said Ben Larson of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group based in Cambridge, Mass., that supports the sensible use
of biomass power. “We need to consider which sources are used, and how the land is taken care of over the long haul.”
But critics maintain that “sustainable” biomass power is an oxymoron and that nowhere near enough residual material exists to feed a large-scale industry. Plant owners, they say, will inevitably be forced to seek out less beneficial fuels, including whole trees harvested from tracts of land that never would have been logged otherwise. Those trees, critics say, would do far more to absorb planet-warming gases if they were simply let alone.
“The fact is, you might get six or seven megawatts of power from residues in Massachusetts,” said Chris Matera, the founder of Massachusetts Forest Watch. “They’re planning on building about 200 megawatts. So it’s a red herring. It’s not about burning waste wood. This is about burning trees.” Whether or not that is true, biomass power is also coming under attack simply for the ordinary air pollution it
produces. Web sites like No Biomass Burn, based in the Pacific Northwest, liken biomass emissions to cigarette smoke. Duff Badgley, the coordinator of the site, says a proposed plant in Mason County, Washington, would “rain toxic pollutants” on residents there. And the American Lung Association has asked Congress to exclude subsidies for biomass from any new energy bill, citing potentially “severe impacts” on health.
Nathaniel Greene, the director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that while such concerns were not unfounded, air pollution could be controlled. “It involves technology that we’re really good at,” Mr. Greene said. For opponents like Mr. Matera, the tradeoffs are not worth it. “We’ve
got huge problems,” Mr. Matera said. “And there’s no easy answer. But biomass doesn’t do it. It’s a false solution that has enormous impacts.”
Mr. Wolfe says that is shortsighted. Wind power and solar power are not ready to scale up technologically and economically, he said, particularly in this corner of Massachusetts. Biomass, by contrast, is proven and available, and while it is far from perfect, he argued, it can play a small part in reducing reliance on fossil
fuels. “Is it carbon-neutral? Is it low-carbon? There’s some variety of opinion,” Mr. Wolfe said. “But that’s missing the forest for the trees. The question I ask is what the alternative is?”
Kings Beach Biomass Plant Facts
The Placer County proposed biomass-fueled power-generating plant in Kings Beach should not be routinely accepted by North Lake Tahoe residents, and specifically Kings Beach community members, but be carefully reviewed and commented upon. Here are some facts to consider.
Proposed size of plant: One to three Megawatts or 1000-3000 kilowatts generated every hour. (If you look at your power bill the kilowatt hours consumed is stated).
Fuel consumption: At One Megawatt the plant burns 1 Bone Dry Ton (BDT) per hour. (A Bone Dry Ton is an industry standard of measurement that assumes the fuel contains 8500 BTU/lb or a total heat content of 17,000,000 BTU/BDT). This is the same heat content as a full cord (128 cubic feet) of
Lodge Pole Pine firewood. At this rate of combustion a One Megawatt plant burns the equivalent of 24 cords of firewood per day.
A Three Megawatt plant would burn the equivalent of 72 cords of firewood every day. Use of the Waste Heat: The question of utilizing the waste heat was asked of Jim Turner of Sierra Pacific Industries who operates the Biomass Plant (rated at 20 MW) located in Loyalton (just north of Sierraville). Why is the waste heat not utilized to heat the town? He responded that after about one half mile the heat losses are so great that it is not economical. Some claim the waste heat can be used to heat the Kings Beach Elementary
School, a proposed County Administrative Center, and melt the snow from the commercial core sidewalks. Except for the elementary school, these other uses are more than a mile from the generating plant.
Conversion of hazardous fuels removal (thinning) into biomass feedstock: This is by far the most expensive part of the chain of feedstock production. In a recent interview Dave Fournier of the Forest Service explained how open burning was the least expensive method of removing forest debris with costs as low as $700 per acre. But the widespread practice of pile burning in the Tahoe Basin is not a sustainable method for hazardous fuels reduction due to air emissions, public health, visibility, and risk of losing control. According to the Forest Service, prescribed open burns must still be done in areas where the slope exceeds 30% or are otherwise inaccessible to mechanical equipment. Some open burning
for ecological purposes is also necessary to sustain a healthy forest. Open burning will occur in the foreseeable future. The impediment to converting forest material into usable biomass fuel is the cost high cost of retrieving and transporting the material for further processing. According to Fournier the costs can range from
$1700 to $3000 per acre, and even higher, with an average range of material production of 15-20 tons per acre. If the forest material is chipped on site it is mostly green with high-moisture (water) content. A standard chipper trailer hauls a 26 ton load of green chips but produces only about 13.5 Bone Dry Tons. At the Loyalton Plant the market rate paid for green chips is about $22 per ton, whereas for dry chips as much as $40 per ton depending on quality.
The importance of feedstock quality on plant efficiencies and emissions is critical to understand. Each technology and plant design is based on specific fuel specifications. If the feedstock fails “to meet the specification” there are performance and air quality issues. At Loyalton’s Biomass Plant “the best fuel
can give us 89% efficiency, and the worst fuel will drop that efficiency by a third to 59%.” The drop in efficiency also increases emissions of the plant beyond design levels. Generating Plant in Kings Beach or Processing Plant at Cabin Creek: These are different stages of the process of full utilization of biomass as a fuel. The assumption that a biomass plant in Kings Beach is built, a prerequisite for hazardous fuels reduction at Tahoe does not connect that any biomass plant pays the going market rate for the feedstock but it cost several times more to do the work of processing the feedstock. A processing facility to produce quality feedstock for the market’s waste stream is a prerequisite for any sustainable fuels reduction. Cabin Creek already supplies 20% of the feedstock for the Loyalton Biomass facility, which operates at half its rated generating output (20MW) for lack of fuel.
The following article reviews many aspects of biomass fueled power generation. Realizing that the proposed Kings Beach plant will only be powered by forest slash, and is not considered as a coal replacement but an alternative to open burning of forest debris, the pollution and health effects are still pertinent for Lake Tahoe. The article is reprinted in its entirety for completeness.
Net Benefits of Biomass Power Under Scrutiny, by Tom Zeller Jr., for the New York Times, published June 18, 2010
GREENFIELD, Mass. —
Matthew Wolfe, an energy developer with plans to turn tree branches and other
woody debris into electric power, sees himself as a positive force in the effort to wean his state off of planet warming fossil fuels. “Its way better than coal,” Mr. Wolfe said, “if you look at it over its life cycle.” Not everyone agrees, as evidenced by lawn signs in this northwestern Massachusetts town reading “Biomass? No
Thanks.” In fact, power generated by burning wood, plants and other organic material, which makes up 50 percent of all renewable energy produced in the United States (and 1.4% of all electricity generated), according to federal statistics, is facing increased scrutiny and opposition. That, critics say, is because it is not as climate friendly as once thought, and the pollution it causes in the short run may outweigh its long-term benefits.
The opposition to biomass power threatens its viability as a renewable energy source when the country is looking to diversify its energy portfolio, urged on by President Obama in an address to the nation. It also underscores the difficult and complex choices state and local governments face in pursuing clean-energy goals. Biomass proponents say it is a simple and proved renewable technology based on natural cycles. They acknowledge that burning wood and other organic matter releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere just as coal does, but point out that trees and plants also absorb the gas. If done carefully, and without overharvesting, they say, the damage to the climate can be offset.
But opponents say achieving that sort of balance is almost impossible, and carbon-absorbing forests will ultimately be destroyed to feed a voracious biomass industry fueled inappropriately by clean-energy subsidies.
They also argue that, like any incinerating operation, biomass plants generate all sorts of other pollution, including particulate matter. State and federal regulators are now puzzling over these arguments.
Last month, in outlining its plans to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency declined to exempt emissions from “biogenic” sources like biomass power plants. That dismayed the biomass and forest products industries, which typically describe biomass as “carbon neutral.” The agency said more deliberation was needed. Meanwhile, plans for several biomass plants around the country have been dropped because of stiff community opposition.
In March, a $250 million biomass power project planned for Gretna, Fla., was abandoned after residents complained that it threatened air quality. Two planned plants in Indiana have faced similar grass-roots opposition.
In April, an association of family physicians in North Carolina told state regulators that biomass power plant there, like other plants and factories that pollute the air, could “increase the risk of premature death, asthma, chronic bronchitis and heart disease.”
In Massachusetts, fierce opposition to a handful of projects in the western part of the state, including Mr.Wolfe’s, prompted officials to order a moratorium on new permits last December, and to commission a scientific review of the environmental credentials of biomass power.
That study, released last week, concluded that, at least in Massachusetts, power plants using woody material as fuel would probably prove worse for the climate than existing coal plants over the next several decades. Plants that generate both heat and power, displacing not just coal but also oil and gas, could yield dividends
faster, the report said. But in every case, the study found, much depends on what is burned, how it is burned, how forests are managed and how the industry is regulated.
Ian A. Bowles, the secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said that biomass power and sustainable forest management were not mutually exclusive. But he also said that the logical conclusion from the study was that biomass plants that generated electricity alone probably should not be eligible for incentives for renewable energy.
“That would represent a significant change in policy,” Mr. Bowles said. The biomass industry argues that studies like the one in Massachusetts do not make a clear distinction between wood harvested specifically for energy production and the more common, and desirable, practice of burning wood and plant scraps left from
agriculture and logging operations. The Biomass Power Association, a trade group based in Maine, said in a statement last week that it was “not aware of any facilities that use whole trees for energy.”
During a recent visit to an old gravel pit outside of town where he hopes to build his 47-megawatt Pioneer Renewable Energy project, Mr. Wolfe said the plant would be capable of generating heat and power, and would use only woody residues as a feedstock. “It’s really frustrating,” he said. “There’s a tremendous deficit
of trust that is really inhibiting things.”
In the United States, biomass power plants burn a variety of feedstocks, including rice hulls in Louisiana and sugar cane residues, called bagasse, in parts of Florida and Hawaii. A vast majority, though, some 90 percent, use woody residue as a feedstock, according to the Biomass Power Association. About 75 percent of biomass electricity comes from the paper and pulp companies, which collect their residues and burn them to generate power for themselves.
But more than 80 operations in 20 states are grid-connected and generate power for sale to local utilities and distribution to residential and commercial customers, a $1 billion industry, according to the association. The increasing availability of subsidies and tax incentives has put dozens of new projects in the development
pipeline.
The problem with all this biomass, critics argue, is that wood can actually churn out more greenhouse gases than coal. New trees might well cancel that out, but they do not grow overnight. That means the low-carbon attributes of biomass are often realized too slowly to be particularly useful for combating climate change.
Supporters of the technology say those limitations can be overcome with tight regulation of what materials are burned and how they are harvested. “The key question is the rate of use,” said Ben Larson of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group based in Cambridge, Mass., that supports the sensible use
of biomass power. “We need to consider which sources are used, and how the land is taken care of over the long haul.”
But critics maintain that “sustainable” biomass power is an oxymoron and that nowhere near enough residual material exists to feed a large-scale industry. Plant owners, they say, will inevitably be forced to seek out less beneficial fuels, including whole trees harvested from tracts of land that never would have been logged otherwise. Those trees, critics say, would do far more to absorb planet-warming gases if they were simply let alone.
“The fact is, you might get six or seven megawatts of power from residues in Massachusetts,” said Chris Matera, the founder of Massachusetts Forest Watch. “They’re planning on building about 200 megawatts. So it’s a red herring. It’s not about burning waste wood. This is about burning trees.” Whether or not that is true, biomass power is also coming under attack simply for the ordinary air pollution it
produces. Web sites like No Biomass Burn, based in the Pacific Northwest, liken biomass emissions to cigarette smoke. Duff Badgley, the coordinator of the site, says a proposed plant in Mason County, Washington, would “rain toxic pollutants” on residents there. And the American Lung Association has asked Congress to exclude subsidies for biomass from any new energy bill, citing potentially “severe impacts” on health.
Nathaniel Greene, the director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that while such concerns were not unfounded, air pollution could be controlled. “It involves technology that we’re really good at,” Mr. Greene said. For opponents like Mr. Matera, the tradeoffs are not worth it. “We’ve
got huge problems,” Mr. Matera said. “And there’s no easy answer. But biomass doesn’t do it. It’s a false solution that has enormous impacts.”
Mr. Wolfe says that is shortsighted. Wind power and solar power are not ready to scale up technologically and economically, he said, particularly in this corner of Massachusetts. Biomass, by contrast, is proven and available, and while it is far from perfect, he argued, it can play a small part in reducing reliance on fossil
fuels. “Is it carbon-neutral? Is it low-carbon? There’s some variety of opinion,” Mr. Wolfe said. “But that’s missing the forest for the trees. The question I ask is what the alternative is?”
Next May 2010 NTCAA & Others
As stated before I am posting newsletters from the past 6 months to catch us all up. This post is taken from the May issue of the NTCAA Newsletter. Remember these are articles written from other information (trusted sources) but watch carefully how Placer County's "statistics" as well as explanations change. I will link in the newspaper articles as well if I can, but remember the newspaper unfortunately sits in the County's pocket. Those of you who know me realize that I am biting my tongue and showing quite a bit of restraint by not adding comments to the articles themselves. If you want to know what I think, just email me and ask, you know I am not shy sharing my opinions. Meera
Thought for the day:
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”…..
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Kings Beach Biomass Plant on Fast Track
Placer County is proposing to build a biomass power-generating facility in Kings Beach. It is also fast tracking the project through changes to its own zoning and planning laws so as to break ground ASAP. However the County’s plan is fundamentally and financially flawed as it could achieve its goals more easily and more cheaply.
The main goals of the County’s Wildfire Protection and Biomass Utilization Program as they apply to North Tahoe are:
1. Reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in our region.
2. Protect local citizens and visitors from the consequences of catastrophic wildfires.
3. Find one or more beneficial uses for excess biomass.
4. Improve air quality in Placer County.
If wildfire protection is pursued (1 and 2), then it will inevitably generate slash, wood chips, and other biomass that needs to be removed from the Basin. What is the best way to achieve this (3) while also improving air quality (4)?
The problem is that the County has wrongly leapt to the conclusion that this means we must build a biomass plant in the Basin. To that end it is channeling hundreds of
thousands of County tax dollars and federal grant money (our tax dollars) to build the plant, and is flaunting normal planning procedures.
At their May 18th meeting, the Placer County Board of Supervisors took a fast track step forward toward approving a 1-3MW Biomass plant in Kings Beach. The BOS approval of a three-party consulting agreement sets up a reimbursement account with the TRPA, who will actually hire the consultant to prepare the environmental documents for the Biomass Plant. Placer County requested the TRPA to waive normal bidding requirements and negotiate a sole source contract with Ascent Environmental Inc. for a total of
$290,840. TRPA will pay the consultant, and then be reimbursed by Placer County from a Department of Energy federal grant. Why the circuitous route that TRPA hires the consultant and Placer County uses federal funds to reimburse TRPA?
Why the waiver?
According to Placer County’s request, the rationale is “to meet our deadlines…our schedule is to break ground on the facility in 2012 and to be operational in 2013.” The TRPA’s waiver states, “TRPA will be working in coordination with Placer County on locating a biomass facility in or around the Lake Tahoe Basin.” So the answer is political expediency that is to meet a self-imposed deadline on building the power plant. Does this not presuppose approval, without any of the environmental documents prepared or federal NEPA requirements met? Is this justified for the Tahoe Basin,one of three federally designated Outstanding Natural Resource Waters (ONRW)? How many people even know about this proposed plant in Kings Beach? Very few County residents and even fewer Kings Beach residents know anything other than the leading Placer County rationale that open burning of slash piles emits more air pollutants than the proposed power plant. Obviously, but a biomass power plant in Kings Beach may buy its fuel feedstock from the existing market, as do other local biomass plants, if seasonal supplies are not available for full-capacity operation. The range of cost for the feedstock is $20-$50 per ton (green to dry material), and is not even close to the cost of removal and conversion into usable fuel. It is this high cost of processing the forest material into fuel feedstock that needs to be heavily subsidized. Ecological burning and burning on slopes greater than
30% would continue even if all other thinning material is subsidized and processed into biomass fuel.
Is a biomass power plant cost effective?
A biomass power generating plant does not create enough money to subsidize the very high cost of removing forest debris and processing it into fuel. There is a shortage of biomass feedstock on the market so any increase of feedstock product will be purchased by existing biomass plants.
The Loyalton Biomass plant, located 41 miles from the Cabin Creek processing facility, (Kings Beach proposed site is 17 miles) is only operating at half its designed output of 20MW because of the lack of fuel. So why build more biomass power plants when fuel shortage is the problem?
Health issues?
Biomass power generating plants are proposed for many communities in America. There
is little empirical data to evaluate the health effects with certainty. However, questions have been raised by medical groups across the country on the safety of the biomass plant generated particulate matter and its known effect on the human cardiopulmonary system. Ninety-eight chemicals, among them lead, mercury,
formaldehyde, chloroform, arsenic, two types of dioxin, and carbon monoxide emerge from the smokestack.
Is a biomass transfer facility feasible? Currently, biomass is chipped on site and then transported to the County facility at Cabin Creek. From there it is hauled to the Loyalton Plant, in a more or less
“green” state. The best option is to set up a biomass grinding and drying facility before transfer, with a stump grinder where biomass can be reduced to sizes that are compact and easy to transport. The facility may need some land where biomass can be dried outdoors before transport. This procedure will almost triple the value of load transported, and could be done at the Cabin Creek site. Trucking the biomass the
41 miles to Loyalton would cost only a few dollars per dry ton.
Placer County’s plan for the Kings Beach Biomass Plant is fundamentally and financially flawed as it could achieve its goals more easily and more cheaply with a basin-located biomass grinding, drying, and transfer facility to remove the slash from the forests and convert it to fuel feedstock and transport it to
existing plants. Having run some tentative financial numbers, NTCAA finds it hard to believe that building a brand new biomass power-generating plant in Kings Beach can possibly be the most attractive option. It is certainly not the best way to use our tax money. Such a biomass transfer facility would require much less upfront investment, than constructing a new power-generating facility in Kings Beach, be cheaper to operate, and provide more income for the County. Not burning the biomass material in the Kings Beach community would also alleviate health concerns.
Thought for the day:
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”…..
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Kings Beach Biomass Plant on Fast Track
Placer County is proposing to build a biomass power-generating facility in Kings Beach. It is also fast tracking the project through changes to its own zoning and planning laws so as to break ground ASAP. However the County’s plan is fundamentally and financially flawed as it could achieve its goals more easily and more cheaply.
The main goals of the County’s Wildfire Protection and Biomass Utilization Program as they apply to North Tahoe are:
1. Reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in our region.
2. Protect local citizens and visitors from the consequences of catastrophic wildfires.
3. Find one or more beneficial uses for excess biomass.
4. Improve air quality in Placer County.
If wildfire protection is pursued (1 and 2), then it will inevitably generate slash, wood chips, and other biomass that needs to be removed from the Basin. What is the best way to achieve this (3) while also improving air quality (4)?
The problem is that the County has wrongly leapt to the conclusion that this means we must build a biomass plant in the Basin. To that end it is channeling hundreds of
thousands of County tax dollars and federal grant money (our tax dollars) to build the plant, and is flaunting normal planning procedures.
At their May 18th meeting, the Placer County Board of Supervisors took a fast track step forward toward approving a 1-3MW Biomass plant in Kings Beach. The BOS approval of a three-party consulting agreement sets up a reimbursement account with the TRPA, who will actually hire the consultant to prepare the environmental documents for the Biomass Plant. Placer County requested the TRPA to waive normal bidding requirements and negotiate a sole source contract with Ascent Environmental Inc. for a total of
$290,840. TRPA will pay the consultant, and then be reimbursed by Placer County from a Department of Energy federal grant. Why the circuitous route that TRPA hires the consultant and Placer County uses federal funds to reimburse TRPA?
Why the waiver?
According to Placer County’s request, the rationale is “to meet our deadlines…our schedule is to break ground on the facility in 2012 and to be operational in 2013.” The TRPA’s waiver states, “TRPA will be working in coordination with Placer County on locating a biomass facility in or around the Lake Tahoe Basin.” So the answer is political expediency that is to meet a self-imposed deadline on building the power plant. Does this not presuppose approval, without any of the environmental documents prepared or federal NEPA requirements met? Is this justified for the Tahoe Basin,one of three federally designated Outstanding Natural Resource Waters (ONRW)? How many people even know about this proposed plant in Kings Beach? Very few County residents and even fewer Kings Beach residents know anything other than the leading Placer County rationale that open burning of slash piles emits more air pollutants than the proposed power plant. Obviously, but a biomass power plant in Kings Beach may buy its fuel feedstock from the existing market, as do other local biomass plants, if seasonal supplies are not available for full-capacity operation. The range of cost for the feedstock is $20-$50 per ton (green to dry material), and is not even close to the cost of removal and conversion into usable fuel. It is this high cost of processing the forest material into fuel feedstock that needs to be heavily subsidized. Ecological burning and burning on slopes greater than
30% would continue even if all other thinning material is subsidized and processed into biomass fuel.
Is a biomass power plant cost effective?
A biomass power generating plant does not create enough money to subsidize the very high cost of removing forest debris and processing it into fuel. There is a shortage of biomass feedstock on the market so any increase of feedstock product will be purchased by existing biomass plants.
The Loyalton Biomass plant, located 41 miles from the Cabin Creek processing facility, (Kings Beach proposed site is 17 miles) is only operating at half its designed output of 20MW because of the lack of fuel. So why build more biomass power plants when fuel shortage is the problem?
Health issues?
Biomass power generating plants are proposed for many communities in America. There
is little empirical data to evaluate the health effects with certainty. However, questions have been raised by medical groups across the country on the safety of the biomass plant generated particulate matter and its known effect on the human cardiopulmonary system. Ninety-eight chemicals, among them lead, mercury,
formaldehyde, chloroform, arsenic, two types of dioxin, and carbon monoxide emerge from the smokestack.
Is a biomass transfer facility feasible? Currently, biomass is chipped on site and then transported to the County facility at Cabin Creek. From there it is hauled to the Loyalton Plant, in a more or less
“green” state. The best option is to set up a biomass grinding and drying facility before transfer, with a stump grinder where biomass can be reduced to sizes that are compact and easy to transport. The facility may need some land where biomass can be dried outdoors before transport. This procedure will almost triple the value of load transported, and could be done at the Cabin Creek site. Trucking the biomass the
41 miles to Loyalton would cost only a few dollars per dry ton.
Placer County’s plan for the Kings Beach Biomass Plant is fundamentally and financially flawed as it could achieve its goals more easily and more cheaply with a basin-located biomass grinding, drying, and transfer facility to remove the slash from the forests and convert it to fuel feedstock and transport it to
existing plants. Having run some tentative financial numbers, NTCAA finds it hard to believe that building a brand new biomass power-generating plant in Kings Beach can possibly be the most attractive option. It is certainly not the best way to use our tax money. Such a biomass transfer facility would require much less upfront investment, than constructing a new power-generating facility in Kings Beach, be cheaper to operate, and provide more income for the County. Not burning the biomass material in the Kings Beach community would also alleviate health concerns.
Catching up on Biomass News
In an attempt to catch everyone up to speed on what has been happening thus far I will be posting articles from various sources about the attempt to locate a biomass plant in the Tahoe Basin. The first few of these are articles from the North Tahoe Citizens Action Alliance website If you want information on other issues near & dear to our hearts you can go and read about those as well. It is a good site and made up of a good group of people primarily an informative site without a lot of posturing or silliness.
This article was in the April 2010 Newsletter:
Biomass Plant in Kings Beach?
Placer County is pursuing the installation of a power plant burning forest residue primarily from thinning operations. The location is next to the current NVEnergy 20 megawatt back-up generating station just north of Speckled Ave. The combustible slash will come from within a 30-mile radius of Kings Beach (much of it outside the Basin to ensure sufficient quantities) to be burned 24/7 to produce 1-3 megawatts of power.
The forest material must be trucked first to the Cabin Creek Disposal Facility (along Hwy 89 near Truckee) for grinding, processing, and storage to ensure adequate fuel feedstock. Two to four large chipper vans will then deliver the material daily via Hwy 267 to the Kings Beach Cogeneration plant for producing electricity, and the waste heat utilized to heat public buildings and possibly sidewalks.
Brett Storey is the project lead for Placer County. In a recent interview he said that the combustion plant could not be located at Cabin Creek because they are already “out of attainment” for air quality emissions. But Kings Beach, in the Tahoe Basin, is in attainment and a plant could be permitted. Placer County is comparing air emissions with the equivalent material being openly burned. They are building
their support coalition and appear intent to push this through in the Basin as a test case. Placer County has received $650,000 to move the facility concept through the pre-development stages. There are also $2.5 million in Federal and State funds "awarded” to assist in construction. NTCAA is committed to following this project and its technical and economic viability. For more information see the Placer County website and click on Biomass.
This article was in the April 2010 Newsletter:
Biomass Plant in Kings Beach?
Placer County is pursuing the installation of a power plant burning forest residue primarily from thinning operations. The location is next to the current NVEnergy 20 megawatt back-up generating station just north of Speckled Ave. The combustible slash will come from within a 30-mile radius of Kings Beach (much of it outside the Basin to ensure sufficient quantities) to be burned 24/7 to produce 1-3 megawatts of power.
The forest material must be trucked first to the Cabin Creek Disposal Facility (along Hwy 89 near Truckee) for grinding, processing, and storage to ensure adequate fuel feedstock. Two to four large chipper vans will then deliver the material daily via Hwy 267 to the Kings Beach Cogeneration plant for producing electricity, and the waste heat utilized to heat public buildings and possibly sidewalks.
Brett Storey is the project lead for Placer County. In a recent interview he said that the combustion plant could not be located at Cabin Creek because they are already “out of attainment” for air quality emissions. But Kings Beach, in the Tahoe Basin, is in attainment and a plant could be permitted. Placer County is comparing air emissions with the equivalent material being openly burned. They are building
their support coalition and appear intent to push this through in the Basin as a test case. Placer County has received $650,000 to move the facility concept through the pre-development stages. There are also $2.5 million in Federal and State funds "awarded” to assist in construction. NTCAA is committed to following this project and its technical and economic viability. For more information see the Placer County website and click on Biomass.
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