The economics of power generation, combined with the need to keep the grid energized under all scenarios, can provide guidance for determining the least costly way to avoid carbon emissions while maintaining grid reliability. The metric that should inform decision-making as to how to best lower carbon emissions is based on the total investment and operating cost per avoided ton of CO2.&nbsp; A recent FutureMetrics white paper compares analytics of two scenarios that provide on-demand dispatchable power: retire coal power plants and replace them with new, natural gas combined-cycle (NGCC) generating stations, or modify existing pulverized coal power plants to use renewable industrial wood pellets as a substitute for coal.&nbsp; When comparing the two scenarios and factoring in the CO2 emissions reduction from each technological solution, the solution that provides significantly higher CO2 reduction at a lower net monetary cost per avoided ton is repurposing existing pulverized coal power plants to run on industrial wood pellets. As governments legislate policy with the goal of reducing carbon emissions, lower-carbon-emitting generation is required. Wind and solar power provide a zero carbon-emitting solution, but also variable, and sometimes zero, power output. If the power grid is to remain reliable constantly, it needs generation sources that can be depended upon at any time to provide, in worst case scenarios, nearly 100 percent of the demand. Because of low natural gas prices and natural gas&rsquo;s lower-carbon emissions versus coal, many utilities are choosing to build new high-efficiency, natural gas combined-cycle plants.&nbsp; This is a relatively easy-to-deploy pathway to lowering carbon emissions while keeping reliable baseload or peaking power on the system.&nbsp; Policymakers and utilities often see natural gas generation as a compromise between coal and the need for reliable on-demand low-carbon power. While natural gas (NG) is a fossil fuel, it offers lower CO2 emissions per MWh than coal. But if CO2 reduction is the primary goal of policy and the utility, the correct decision metric is not simply the capital cost for the plant and operating costs to make power. It should include a recognition of the impact that the project will have on CO2 emissions. Comparing the cost of each scenario with the avoided CO2 emissions realized from using a lower-carbon-emitting fuel yields a decision metric based on both financial and environmental concerns. Calculating the lowest cost per avoided ton of CO2 combines good environmental policy with good business. The alternative to building a new (NGCC) plant is to leverage existing power plants that are designed to efficiently combust pulverized coal (PC).&nbsp; Modern PC power plants can, with easy-to-deploy modifications and additions to the equipment, substitute industrial wood pellets for coal.&nbsp; The carbon reduction from a fully converted pulverized coal power plant using wood pellet fuel versus coal is significantly better than that from a new NGCC plant versus coal, and is the least-costly pathway for achieving the goal of lowering carbon emissions. The conversion scenario results in a 23.1 percent lower cost per ton of CO2 not placed into the atmosphere. Operating costs, due primarily to the higher cost per unit of energy for wood pellet fuel, are higher for the converted plants. That is why government policy with respect to the revenues of the generating entity are essential. Decarbonization policies are necessary to address climate change. The best strategic plans should be broader than only including support for wind and solar generation. If policymakers&rsquo; primary goal is to lower carbon emissions, it makes better economic and environment sense to choose the pathway with the lowest total cost per avoided ton of CO2. That suggests that complimenting any decarbonization policy should be support for converted PC power plants, which will have higher fuel costs. If there is no policy support to compensate the utility for maximizing CO2 reduction via the lowest net cost pathway, NGCC will be favored.&nbsp; As a result, the aggregate quantity of CO2 emitted will be significantly higher, and the total net cost per avoided ton will also be higher. Those outcomes are worse for the environment, and worse economically than the conversion alternative. Converting coal plants to pellets cannot replace all of the on-demand generation fleet. The quantity of industrial wood pellets that could be produced is limited by the sustainability requirements that govern the sourcing of the pellet fuel feedstock. Within sustainability boundaries, there is the potential for many power plants to consider conversion from coal to pellets.&nbsp; But policy mechanisms must compensate generators for higher fuel costs. When comparing NGCC and coal-to-pellet conversions, and factoring in the reduction in CO2 emissions from each technological solution, the solution that provides significantly higher CO2 reduction at a lower net monetary cost to society per ton avoided is by repurposing existing PC power plants to run on industrial wood pellets. Author: William Strauss President, FutureMetrics William.strauss@futuremetrics.com 207-824-6702&nbsp;

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The economics of power generation, combined with the need to keep the grid energized under all scenarios, can provide guidance for determining the least costly way to avoid carbon emissions while maintaining grid reliability.

Maximizing Decarbonization, Maintaining Grid Reliability

Boardman Power Station is feeling the heat. The last operating coal-burning power station in Oregon, the relatively young, 550-MW plant has faced much pressure and scrutiny regarding its ultimate fate, which must be decided and underway by 2020. While several potential options have been ruled out&mdash;including a half billion-dollar pollution control equipment upgrade, and repowering with natural gas and wood pellets&mdash;one option has remained on the table since Portland General Electric began exploring possibilities: replacing Powder River Basin coal with torrefied biomass. After years of research and tests, the project, which has garnered attention from energy stakeholders of all kinds, has reached a new level: a full-scale, 24-hour test burn using 100 percent torrefied biomass. Besides wood, torrefied energy crops such as arundo donax will be fired, as the utility has been growing and harvesting energy crops on test plots around the plant the past several years. An exact date for the test hasn&rsquo;t been nailed down yet, but it will happen before the end of the year, and may occur relatively suddenly. Spokesman Steve Corson explains the time has to be just right&mdash;not only because the 8,000 tons of torrefied material required for the burn has to be on-site and ready for consumption by the plant&rsquo;s Rankine cycle coal boiler, but Boardman remains a working plant that still plays an important role in the utility&rsquo;s power supply. &ldquo;We need to time the test to occur during a window when generation from the plant is optional for us to meet our customers&rsquo; needs&mdash;for example, when we&rsquo;re not experiencing extreme weather that could drive peak loads, and when other generating resources are available to meet demand.&rdquo; In these days leading up to the test burn, plant staff and expert consultants are working to determine the most effective execution. &ldquo;This includes examining the safety implications of a new fuel, coal transport testing, pulverizer grinding performance and ash characteristics,&rdquo; Corson says. &ldquo;And included in this will be test instrumentation, coupled with plant instrumentation to assess the burn performance.&rdquo; Those engaging in the test burn will assess overall plant stability as the plant burns the biomass, according to Corson. &ldquo;We believe the test can be completed without undue risk,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We already confirmed that the plant&rsquo;s existing equipment can handle torrefied biomass, with our cofiring test burn last year. Nevertheless, there&rsquo;s uncertainty involved in any unusual procedure of this sort, so we need to account for that uncertainty and minimize it through careful planning.&rdquo; Though torrefied biomass has characteristics very similar to coal and tests to date has shown compatibility with the plant&rsquo;s mechanics, PGE wouldn&rsquo;t escape having to make changes&mdash;capital investments&mdash;to accommodate the fuel switch. &ldquo;Part of the attraction here is that the conversion could be completed with minimal modifications to the existing plant, to the conveyors, silos, pulverizers, burners and boiler,&rdquo; Corson says. &ldquo;There are also advantages from an emissions standpoint, with little or minimal sulfur dioxide or mercury emissions expected, for instance. That said, we&rsquo;d expect the plant to need additional emissions controls for oxides of nitrogen, so an SCR (selective catalytic reduction) [system] would likely be required, and thus is part of the math in deciding if the conversion will make sense.&rdquo; Even though the test burn will be the most extensive to date, Corson emphasizes that even a full-day test burn won&rsquo;t answer all of PGE&rsquo;s questions. At least, not yet. &ldquo;It will give us some additional information about the plant&rsquo;s emissions profile when fueled by biomass, plant chemistry, and how the plant&rsquo;s equipment handles the fuel,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Presuming all goes well, that will point us toward areas where we need to focus our attention in future test burns, and will begin to give us a more complete picture of what will be required if we decide to proceed with a conversion.&rdquo;&nbsp; By the time that happens&mdash;likely 2020 or sooner&mdash;Oregon Torrefaction, the company PGE has hired to supply the fuel needed for the upcoming test burn, hopes to see a more developed torrefied biomass market in the country. Working with the utility to determine if the potential is real, and whether the long-term operation of Boardman on biomass could be feasible and economic, could help grease the track. Building a Market Oregon Torrefaction has been working on the fuel-gathering project for PGE for about a year and a half, according to Matt Krumenauer, CEO. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re working to produce and procure the torrefied material, and we&rsquo;ve got a number of facilities working with us,&rdquo; he says, explaining that the company isn&rsquo;t manufacturing torrefied material itself, but to churn out the 8,000 tons needed, has brought on board several companies with a variety of technologies, including New Biomass Energy in Mississippi, Airex Energy in Quebec and Reklaim in Boardman. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve also borrowed a mobile torrefaction system from Idaho National Energy Lab&mdash;we&rsquo;ve moved that to Boardman and its producing material for us,&rdquo; Krumenauer says. &ldquo;Then, we&rsquo;re densifying it in a cuber that we are contracting another company to run for us. We&rsquo;ve got a number of different efforts going on, to really see if this is a viable opportunity and whether it will perform technically at the power plant.&rdquo; Krumenauer highlights the variety of torrefaction technologies involved, all of which result in end products with similar characteristics. &ldquo;We have a rotary kiln&mdash;a pretty standard type of torrefaction system, the Reklaim system is a Wyssmont Turbodryer, which is a fairly standard thermal treatment application, and Airex has its own propriety technology, as does New Biomass Energy,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Not only do we have a range of different technologies, but we&rsquo;re also using many different types of woody biomass.&rdquo; &nbsp;In Oregon, the company is sourcing 100 percent of its material from national forest restoration treatments and stewardship contracts, small-diameter biomass, and plans are to test some of PGE&rsquo;s purpose-grown energy crops. On the task of delivering the material PGE needs in the desired timeframe, Krumenauer says things are on track to deliver by the year&rsquo;s end, and the process is going fairly well. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re learning a lot&mdash;this is a fairly large proof-of-concept run, and we&rsquo;re going to be completing a full economic analysis after the burn is completed, and hopefully help PGE determine if this is a viable opportunity.&rdquo; Related to the initiative is a consortium Oregon Torrefaction has formed, the Consortium for Advanced Wood to Energy Solutions, an effort by the U.S. Endowment for Forestry Communities, the U.S. Forest Service and a number of different academic institutions and private sector companies that are working to help advance torrefaction in a precompetitive manner. &ldquo;The point is to help advance the market,&rdquo; Krumenauer says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the mission-driven aspect behind this effort&mdash;to create and advance a market for these low-value biomass residuals, primarily from national forests. Our hope is that if this is successful, and we&rsquo;re able to help PGE and other utilities, it will open up opportunities for companies like Airex and New Biomass Energy. We don&rsquo;t view it at all as competitive, we view it as something that will help break that chicken-and-egg scenario.&rdquo; Meanwhile, the focus after delivering the torrefied material to Boardman will be to analyze the test burn results. &ldquo;Immediately after, we have to evaluate the technical aspects, the economic aspects, and the feedstock sustainability aspects to really understand what the true cost would be, to try to supply a facility the size of Boardman,&rdquo; Krumenauer says. &ldquo;Our next steps will really be analysis-based. After that, I think we will look at helping supply larger, longer-duration test burns, and sharing this information with the broader industry. There are other power plants that could certainly cofire or convert. While the Boardman&rsquo;s potential conversion investigation is taking a great deal of time, excitement is building, Krumenauer adds. &ldquo;I have to give PGE a lot of credit for sticking with this. It&rsquo;s been a long, hard path, but we&rsquo;re getting there. We&rsquo;re going to get through this test burn&mdash;I&rsquo;m certain it will be successful, it&rsquo;s just a lot of work&mdash;and we&rsquo;ll see what comes after that.&rdquo; Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine asimet@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4961

BIOMASS OR BUST: The 550-MW Boardman Power Station is the last coal-burning plant in Oregon, and will likely shut down by 2020 if it renders torrefied biomass as uneconomic or unfeasible fuel replacement.  

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READY FOR THE RANKINE: This torrefied fuel product will be tested in PGEâ€™s upcoming daylong-test burn. It was made from biomass generated on national forest restoration activities under the Malheur National Forest 10-year stewardship contract.  

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ON-SITE SERVICE: Idaho National Energy Laboratory provided a mobile torrefaction unit to help produce the 8,000 tons of torrefied biomass Portland General Electric needs for its upcoming test burn. 

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Continuing its years-long investigation of whether torrefied biomass could extend its life, Boardman Power Station is prepping to undergo a substantive test burn. 

Trial by Fire

I believe I was not alone in being surprised with the results of the 2016 elections. President-elect Trump alongside a Republican majority Senate and House&mdash;a far cry from the outcome predicted by so many&mdash;is what we are now preparing for. There are some clear opportunities for biomass under the new circumstances, but also many questions about how the new government will impact bioenergy.
While the new administration takes shape, here are a few of the key issue areas we at Biomass Power Association are watching closely: Investments in infrastructure and rural America.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the economy, stupid.&rdquo; This pearl of wisdom has stood the test of time, and applies well to 2016. Trump based much of his campaign on the need to address the uncertainty of rural working Americans, and they responded by voting for him. He has promised billions of dollars in investments for infrastructure improvements, and in his acceptance speech announced a program to put unemployed Americans back to work within his first 100 days in office. With biomass facilities located primarily in rural areas, we are making our case that biomass investments should be part of any infrastructure package. Trump has also criticized trade deals as part of his platform. We expect to see a new emphasis on securing American borders and on American-made products, including energy. On his transition website, he has listed energy independence as a top priority under &ldquo;Making America Secure Again,&rdquo; with the goal of making full use of domestic energy resources.&nbsp; New environmental regulatory regime. For much of the Obama administration, the biomass industry has been working toward full recognition of our environmental benefits by the U.S. EPA. We have spent considerable time and energy talking up the carbon benefits of biomass. While this is still important work, we do not anticipate that the Trump administration will place nearly as high an importance, if any, on carbon emissions. This is a mixed bag for biomass. For the time being, we can shift our emphasis from carbon onto other biomass benefits, like rural jobs and support for the forestry supply chain. On the other hand, the Clean Power Plan&rsquo;s chances for success have now been downgraded considerably. That means that any potential investments in biomass as a baseload replacement for coal and natural gas are less likely. New Congressional priorities. With the Republicans now enjoying a majority in both Congressional houses, there are new possibilities for some of its top priorities that had previously been considered DOA. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mentioned comprehensive tax reform in his first post-election interview. Few specifics have been discussed, but the outlines of tax reform traditionally proposed by Republicans often include a lower corporate tax rate and the elimination of tax credits. This could potentially place the Section 45 Production Tax Credit in jeopardy, but could open up other opportunities for biomass. USDA and U.S. Forest Service priorities. Under the Obama administration, the USDA has been a staunch advocate of investing in farms, forestry and rural locations, and we expect that to continue. The U.S. Forest Service has begun a program to emphasize the benefits of building with wood, which the agency is hoping to continue under President Trump. On a related note, the Forest Service has teamed up with the Softwood Lumber Board to curate an exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The exhibit addresses the role of biomass in using the whole tree harvested, and is worth checking out! We will be keeping a close eye on all of these developments and will share them with our members and here at Biomass Magazine. If you are interested in joining the association to ensure that your interests are being heard on Capitol Hill, please contact Carrie Annand at carrie@usabiomass.org.
The Biomass Power Association wishes all involved in biomass a happy and healthy holiday season. We look forward to working with all of you in 2017. Author: Bob Cleaves President, Biomass Power Association bob@biomasspowerassociation.com www.biomasspowerassociation.com

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While the new administration takes shape, the Biomass Power Association is watching the key issue areas that may affect the industry.

Trump Wins, Now What?

On an acre of land bordering the small town of Goodfield, Illinois, a 70-foot wide by 100-foot long industrial building has slowly, but steadily, taken shape. Designed to collect locally available, undervalued biomass, the biomass conversion facility (BCF) will convert these materials into useful products such as wood pellets, briquettes and logs, or even animal bedding, erosion control socks and mulch. Its unique purpose coincides with the fairly uncommon building approach of assembling 60 recycled steel intermodal shipping containers like giant LEGO blocks some 60 feet into the air. &ldquo;We have well over a million of these containers in the U.S. that are underutilized&mdash;you buy them for scrap,&rdquo; says Paul Wever, Chip Energy Inc. CEO. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s actually a very rapid construction process that takes place. It&rsquo;s taken me about four years, but that&rsquo;s because I&rsquo;m building the first one in the world, and I&rsquo;m financing it myself&mdash;we&rsquo;re expecting that these can be put together on-site within less than a year.&rdquo; Descriptors like &ldquo;first in the world&rdquo; can give a project an edge in the industry it hopes to serve, but can also leave supporters and financers on-edge to contribute to its development. It can be &ldquo;a double-edged sword,&rdquo; Wever acknowledges. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m building something that&rsquo;s unique to the industry, so I have to prove myself.&rdquo; Wever&rsquo;s day job is a heavy metal fabricator with his company Paul Wever Construction Equipment Co. Inc. &ldquo;Chip Energy is just a hobby right now,&rdquo; he lightheartedly admits. The BCF is slated for completion next June, and will be capable of bringing in 100 tons (about 10 semi loads) of raw material each day, then turning around and producing 100 tons of fuel pellets or other value-added products. Wever&rsquo;s ultimate hope is that this effort provides a basic foundation to start a sustainable bioeconomy. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s vitally important that we build an infrastructure that can use the most sophisticated logistical system that exists today, and that was invented in the 1950s and has been improved immensely&mdash;it is our intermodal logistical system,&rdquo; Wever says. As he researched his design concept, &ldquo;it became obvious that the cube of an intermodal shipping container and the commodity-type issues that we have with the logistics of biomass were a marriage made in heaven,&rdquo; he says. Vision to Reality Chip Energy&rsquo;s story dates back to 2006 when Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast. &ldquo;I had several customers down there who had issues, so we started looking into what we were going to do to help them,&rdquo; he says. The abundance of salvageable wood debris that accumulated in the aftermath of the hurricane got Wever looking into ways to utilize wood waste, as well as the advantages of designing and building with recycled shipping containers. Chip Energy broke ground in June of 2013 on the BCF, or the &ldquo;prototype working model&rdquo; for what Wever envisions could be thousands of strategically placed BCFs across the nation. Each BCF within this proposed distributed network would source biomass from about a 30-mile radius. &ldquo;We do feel that it&rsquo;s realistic that anywhere from a three- to five-county region would end up with a facility that would be turning this material into something of higher-value, put it on a rail siding and ship it anywhere in the continental U.S. at an economical price, and a greenhouse gas reduction rate that is sustainable,&rdquo; Wever says. Within a 30-mile radius of Chip Energy is a multitude of manufacturing processes, and woody biomass feedstock has been piling up on the project site since 2006. Early collection has been instrumental to the project&rsquo;s progress, as the tipping fee associated with gathering the material has helped finance the $2 million facility&rsquo;s construction. Currently, an 8 million-pound pile of woody biomass material lies next to the facility from a number of contracted suppliers, including Case New Holland, Vermeer and John Deere. All need an outlet to recycle their woody biomass waste streams, which can amount to upwards of 100 tons of useable material every month. According to Wever, in his home state of Illinois, 5 million pounds of biomass are landfilled every day. &ldquo;Instead of throwing that material into a dumpster and Waste Management hauling it to the landfill, Chip Energy said, &lsquo;For 7 cents per pound, we&rsquo;ll put a container at your facility, you fill it up and we&rsquo;ll pick it up, and we can guarantee you that material will be recycled&rsquo;,&rdquo; Wever explains. &ldquo;What I&rsquo;ve found out is that all of the places that I do business with, they&rsquo;re willing to pay me the same price that they were paying Waste Management to bring that material to my facility and recycle it.&rdquo; On the other hand, Wever adds, when it comes to going into the forest or a farmer&rsquo;s field, those potential biomass suppliers require payment for the right to take the material. Wever likens his efforts to the transformation biodiesel production had on waste vegetable grease. &ldquo;It [waste vegetable grease] went from people having to pay 5 cents per pound for people to haul it away to people basically being willing to pay that customer 5 cents per pound to put it in their container,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;To me, that&rsquo;s the best example of what I&rsquo;m trying to do. Once we get into a situation to where the manufacturing infrastructure exists, the recycling infrastructure exists, there will become a demand for the recyclable materials and then we will basically say we&rsquo;ll pay you to bring that material to us.&rdquo; Infrastructure As Wever is using this facility as a prototype working model, his priority is to encourage others to develop similar BCFs. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not looking at getting rich by making pellets or briquettes from this particular facility, I&rsquo;m looking at making sure my customers see what they&rsquo;ll get if we deliver them a facility,&rdquo; he says. Wever emphasizes that his facility will operate using a different approach than the typical pellet mill, focusing on energy efficiency, rather than speed. &ldquo;We looked at this from a different point of view&mdash;we want the lowest amount of energy put into the product to get the highest value material based on the customer&rsquo;s specifications,&rdquo; Wever says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re maintaining two, 10-hour shifts at 5 tons per hour&mdash;we have a four-hour maintenance shift, too.&rdquo; Wever adds that they&rsquo;ll plan on incorporating a 50-horsepower, low-speed, high-torque grinder. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not fast, it&rsquo;s not noisy, it&rsquo;s not dusty, but it&rsquo;s super-efficient&mdash;it grinds the material to the size that we want and it meets our 5-ton-per-hour minimum requirement,&rdquo; he explains. The facility will have the capability of sizing, densifying, protecting and delivering the material customer&rsquo;s request. Production of these various end products has been vertically aligned, with the operations separated by function into three floors. According to the company, material cascades as it progresses through each process. The third floor is where the equipment for size reduction and blending is kept, the second floor houses equipment for pelletizing and briquetting, and the ground level will have packaging equipment and warehouse space. There are six bulk areas inside the building, amounting to nearly 70,000 cubic-feet of total bulk volume for the storage of mulch and densified material ready for bulk sale, with up to 700 tons of wood pellet capacity in controlled, dry storage. There are also 26 silos, which form two walls of the building. These are used to segregate different raw materials: wood chips, sawdust, energy crops, leaves, brush, paper, etc. The silos are connected by a tube chain conveyor in a configuration that allows for 80 percent of the belt to convey material at any given time. Wever estimates the facility reserves room for about one week of production at near maximum throughput. Right now, Wever says Chip Energy plans to produce a three-eighths-inch pellet and a 1-inch commercial pellet. The briquetter will have two die sizes, manufacturing around a 1.5-inch and 2-inch briquette. Markets Wever hopes the company will be able to focus on selling these fuels for cofiring at coal plants. &ldquo;Our main goal is to make a predictable emissions briquette,&rdquo; Wever says. Besides serving energy customers with a densified biomass product, Chip Energy plans on producing products for those involved in the feed and cellulosic ethanol industries. Wever says companies like ADM and Monsanto have approached him about collecting corn stover for conversion into a cellulosic ethanol fuel feedstock or feed supplements. &ldquo;That market is actually exponentially larger than any other market right now because it already exists&mdash;$30 billion worldwide market,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not going to find that kind of a number in biomass combustion with coal, but we hope to get there, and I hope to put the infrastructure in place for that to happen.&rdquo; Wever believes he can provide a solution to the problems associated with collecting, storing and preparing stover for cellulosic ethanol production. He envisions integrating the intermodal shipping system &ldquo;at the field&rsquo;s edge.&rdquo; Cellulosic ethanol producers can spend anywhere from $5 to $10 million on-site to unbale the stover material, separate out unwanted materials, appropriately size it to technology specs and then commence with conversion processes, Wever says. &ldquo;Thirty to 60 percent of the final cost of that product that comes out of that plant was the delivery of the raw feedstock,&rdquo; he notes. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s holding back our bioeconomy. Someone has to come in with a 30 to 60 percent improvement in those costs.&rdquo; Wever believes he can offer at least a 30 percent improvement by implementing the intermodal distributed feedstock depot system. His company has approached DuPont about the possibility of siting a facility within 30 to 60 miles of Nevada, Iowa. &ldquo;We would be delivering the product not in a bale form, but in a form specified by their chemists, so that when they take it out of the intermodal shipping container, it can be poured directly into their reactor and that&rsquo;s not what they can do today,&rdquo; Wever says. Next June, Wever isn&rsquo;t sure which product he&rsquo;ll be making, but he&rsquo;s optimistic he&rsquo;ll be making something. &ldquo;It depends on the market,&rdquo; he acknowledges. &ldquo;I have just as many people asking me to take corn stover and convert it to a feed product as I do people wanting me to take a woody biomass and convert it into a briquette for fuel.&rdquo; Wever hopes to take his hobby and turn it into something that can change the world. &ldquo;We just have to think about this differently to where we build smaller, super-efficient facilities that can rationalize taking these low-hanging fruit materials, convert them into products that we combust or co-combust with coal, and then save the Earth and ourselves.&rdquo; Author: Katie Fletcher Associate Editor, Biomass Magazine 701-738-4920 kfletcher@bbiinternational.com

Vertical Integration: Upon completion of the biomass conversion facility, an overhead crane will be able to access all the storage and production spaces, using a clamshell bucket to scoop product into a load-out conveyor, which fills a semi-truck at 

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Chip Energy's unique biomass recycling venture will turn waste wood into wood pellets, briquettes and more. 

An Unconventional Conversion Facility

In months, Vancouver&rsquo;s largest suburb, Surrey, British Columbia, will be collecting 65,000 metric tons of organic waste a year from 105,000 single-family households and 35,000 multifamily high-rise units with collection trucks running on biogas generated from that very same waste&mdash;sort of. According to Rob Costanzo, manager of engineering operations for the city of Surrey, the estimated 120,000 gigajoules of biogas to be produced at the Surrey Biofuel Facility currently under construction adjacent to the Surrey Transfer Station will be sold to the local gas utility, FortisBC, and injected into the grid. Then, the fleet of up to 50 compressed natural gas (CNG) collection trucks will fill up on CNG at stations throughout the city at the same price. Costanzo says the city had the option to build a renewable natural gas delivery station on a 4-acre parcel at the biogas plant, &ldquo;but that didn&rsquo;t make much sense to us,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The facility is located in the Northeast corner of the city, and it&rsquo;s a large city geographically&mdash;320 square kilometers (124 square miles) in size&mdash;so to fuel all of Surrey&rsquo;s CNG fleet there did not make logistical sense.&rdquo;&nbsp; The project, spurred by a regional mandate to divert 70 percent of waste from landfills, began in 2013 with a bid request. Eleven bids were received and narrowed to the top three, after which the city chose the experienced Netherlands-based Orgaworld, part of the Shanks Group, in a public-private partnership (P3) to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the facility under a 25-year contract. The cost of the plant is estimated at nearly CA$68 million, but through the P3 arrangement, Canada&rsquo;s federal government has agreed to pay up to 25 percent ($17 million). The Surrey Biofuel Facility will be sized to take in up to 115,000 tons of organic waste per year&mdash;including both yard waste and kitchen scraps. Costanzo says the city of Surrey is contracted to provide a minimum of 57,000 tons a year, and if, for whatever reason, it cannot meet that obligation, it&rsquo;s a &ldquo;put or pay&rdquo; arrangement. Conversely, Orgaworld is obligated to produce a minimum of 100,000 gigajoules of biogas in a &ldquo;produce or pay&rdquo; agreement, Costanzo says. However, the city expects to supply on average 65,000 tons, and the facility anticipates producing 120,000 gigajoules of biogas. The facility is sized to take in organics from surrounding municipalities as well, to make up the difference between what Surrey can provide and the plant&rsquo;s production capacity. The city plans to consume upwards of 65,000 gigajoules of biogas per year for its collection trucks and another 10,000 gigajoules per year for maintenance vehicles. Sales from the remainder will be split between Surrey and Orgaworld. &ldquo;We had a really robust education program when we converted from a two-bin system to a three-bin system,&rdquo; says Bruce Hayne, a Surrey City Councilor. &ldquo;Quickly, we got to 70 percent participation. When we make it easy for them, people want to do the right thing.&rdquo; Hayne says the city hasn&rsquo;t had to fine nonparticipating residents in the green-bin program&mdash;yet. &ldquo;Each bin has bar codes and there&rsquo;s cameras on the trucks,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;so if we wanted to, it would be quite easy to track compliance.&rdquo; The city&rsquo;s risk may seem low compared to Orgaworld&rsquo;s&mdash;essentially providing land, feedstock and tipping fees, the net cost of which Costanzo says is $65 a ton&mdash;considering Surrey owns the plant while Orgaworld designs, builds, finances, maintains and operates it. After 25 years, the contract may be renewed or not. The choice is the city&rsquo;s. Surrey&rsquo;s tipping fees are offset by what it charges residents for the three-bin pickup service, which is $283 a year for single-family households and $35 for apartment units. Orgaworld does not get revenue from gas sales, but Costanzo says sales from the finished compost from digestate&mdash;40,000 tons annually&mdash;goes entirely to Orgaworld. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t know where the market would sit when we made the contract,&rdquo; Costanzo says. &ldquo;The average cost then was $15 to $18 a ton, but fast forward to now, most municipalities are doing this, so we put a zero-dollar value on it. So Orgaworld is 100 percent responsible to produce and market that, and the sales go to them.&rdquo; The city may use around 2 tons a year of the compost for parks, medians and boulevards. Through the facility, the city may also be eligible to cash in on carbon offsets.&nbsp; Orgaworld Project Manager Ryan Lauzon says the biogas plant uses dry anaerobic digestion (AD) in a batch process with 10 dry tunnel-like digester vessels. &ldquo;The primary reason we use dry AD is it allows more flexibility for contaminants,&rdquo; Lauzon says. &ldquo;With the mixture of leaf, yard and food waste, we don&rsquo;t have to worry about particle size.&rdquo; For wet AD using this mixture, the feedstock would have to be pulped, using energy and water resources, and then the water must be dealt with. &ldquo;Here, we use no water or energy to pulp,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We take the waste in, put it through a rough 4-inch grind and fill a tunnel.&rdquo; Each batch digests for 21 to 28 days, and every few days a new batch is started in one of the 10 vessels. Orgaworld has a wet digester, or fermenter, on-site and stores the liquid fermentate from the dry AD for recirculation on top of the digesters to keep breakdown active during the process. After day four, gas begins to be withdrawn from the vessel for cleaning and grid injection. Lauzon says Greenlane Biogas supplied the gas cleanup system on-site, which is a water-wash setup. FortisBC conducts gas quality checks routinely, and if any is rejected, it goes back into cleanup or is flared. The odor control technology used is state-of-the-art, Costanzo and Lauzon say. Everything is enclosed including compost vessels, unlike many sites where compost is windrowed and the pungent smell burdens those nearby. The building is kept under negative pressure, and the compost vessels use air from inside the facility for aerobic composting. Then, air from composting vessels goes through ammonia scrubbers after which the ammonia is stripped and the air is cooled and humidified before entering the biofilters, which consist of hardwood, root-wood torn branches. Finally, the air is forced up the 230-foot stack. The end result is 1 ppm odor at the property line. &ldquo;The odor mitigation is a big deal,&rdquo; Costanzo says. The Surrey Biofuel Facility broke ground May 2015 and is on track to be fully operational late April 2017. Today, Surrey residents&rsquo; organics are taken to a neighboring Richmond composting site. Tomorrow, they will power the city&rsquo;s collection fleet. &nbsp; Author: Ron Kotrba Senior Editor, Biomass Magazine 218-745-8347 rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

CLEAN ENERGY: The Surrey Biofuel Facility outside of Vancouver, British Columbiaâ€”designed, financed, operated and maintained by Orgaworld but owned by the cityâ€”is a new biogas plant that will use source-separated organics as feedstock. 

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The Canadian city of Surrey, British Columbia, prepares to open a new biogas plant fed by its residents' kitchen scraps and yard waste, the fuel from which will power its collection fleet of CNG vehicles.  

28 Days Later: Waste to Fuel

North Carolina has the potential to gain $2.7 billion in new capital investment, nearly 24,300 construction and maintenance jobs, and a multitude of related industry-service jobs. How is that possible? By taking advantage of one of our most overlooked, yet very abundant, energy sources: biogas.&nbsp; Those statistics reported by the American Biogas Council represent an enormous opportunity for North Carolina's citizens, businesses and local governments to harness methane from our agriculture, landfills, wastewater and food waste. If fully realized, this biogas energy could power nearly 500,000 homes and create greater value for our state.&nbsp; We have already begun to see the economic benefits of diversifying North Carolina&rsquo;s energy mix as our utilities increase their use of solar, and most recently, wind energy. These renewable energy projects and businesses have provided exciting new economic opportunities for communities all across our state. As an engineer who loves to come up with better ways to do things, North Carolina&rsquo;s biogas potential motivates me as I design and refine anaerobic digester (AD) technology to use animal waste from farms, or trash in our landfills, to make power, which in turn converts an economic burden into a valuable resource. As we look for where we can continue to innovate and keep our economy robust, bioenergy projects offer an incredible prospect.&nbsp; As of 2015, the American Biogas Council ranked North Carolina No. 3 for methane production potential (MPP) from biogas sources and identified 75 operational biogas projects.&nbsp; Of the 75, 10 were classified as agriculture projects.&nbsp; By comparison, another big ag state, Wisconsin, has 135 operational biogas projects, 35 of which are farm-based. While its MPP is much lower at 27, Wisconsin has made harnessing biogas a priority for its state&rsquo;s energy mix in large part because of the state&rsquo;s renewable portfolio standard&nbsp; law. Like Wisconsin, the venture into biogas projects will both help rural communities in the Tar Heel State thrive while aligning perfectly with the North Carolina Renewable Energy &amp; Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard law. Considering the fact that agriculture brings $84 billion to North Carolina's economy, and many communities rely on ag to stay afloat, we must find new and reliable ways to sustain ag through new&nbsp; markets, like bioenergy. As an engineer who helps design AD technology to capture methane on farms to create electricity from animal waste, I have seen firsthand that the benefits go well beyond economics.&nbsp; For operations like Loyd Ray Farms in Yadkinville, North Carolina, a facility that houses nearly 9,000 pigs, harnessing biogas from waste has multiple benefits for the farm and the surrounding community.&nbsp; Beyond the most obvious benefit of generating electricity from animal waste, installing AD technology to capture methane helps power nearly half of its operation. As such, it reduces utility bills, and reduces ammonia for better air quality for livestock.&nbsp; For nearby communities, the completely enclosed system also results in improved air and water quality. With 15 agricultural biogas projects online in N.C., we have only just begun to take advantage of the renewable supply of waste and make it into something more valuable.&nbsp; Experts estimate we have the potential to bring 900 biogas projects online.&nbsp; Of those, over 700 would benefit agriculture and the surrounding communities in Duplin,&nbsp; Sampson, Bladen, Lenoir and Johnston counties, just to name a few. As we work toward creating a solid roadmap to bring more farms online, it is abundantly clear we are making great strides in making waste-to-value technology a reality for a multitude of animal operations across our state, improving water and air quality, creating on-farm efficiencies, and helping our rural communities flourish. Author: Gus Simmons Director of Bioenergy, Cavanaugh Gus.simmons@cavanaughsolutions.com 877-557-8923

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North Carolina has the potential to gain $2.7 billion in new capital investment, nearly 24,300 construction and maintenance jobs, and a multitude of related industry-service jobs, by taking advantage of biogas.

Capturing Power Above the Dirt

On May 9, the sun rose in Stockholm, Sweden, at 4:28 a.m., and wouldn&rsquo;t set for well over 16 hours. Temperatures that day flirted with 80 degrees Fahrenheit, unseasonably warm weather. The guests on hand to witness the inauguration of the city&rsquo;s new biomass-powered combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plant could be forgiven for having difficulty imagining a day when the city&rsquo;s residents would need heat, and lots of it. Reality, however, is that those warm spring and summer days in Stockholm eventually yield to fall and winter, and on the winter solstice, residents in the city will be just halfway through their afternoon when the sun sets at 2:48 p.m. The historical average daytime high on that day is 32 degrees F. It is then that Fortum V&auml;rme, jointly owned by the city of Stockholm and Fortum, a Finnish energy company, will be called upon to provide heat via a district energy system to nearly 200,000 homes in Stockholm. In 2012, work began on the new facility, which is located at the site of the V&auml;rtaverket CHP plant, a coal-burning facility that had served the city since the late 1960s, when it was linked into the city&rsquo;s growing district energy grid. Cost estimates for the construction of the facility approach &euro;500 million ($543 million). During the inauguration, Pekka Lundmark, Fortum CEO, addressed the biomass supply chain that will be relied on to deliver the 12,000 tons of feedstock the facility will require each day during its peak heating season. &ldquo;Biomass is a renewable, largely local and carbon-neutral energy source,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Its use increases the share of domestic energy resources particularly in northern Europe, and it is an important building block of a sustainable energy system and the bioeconomy.&rdquo; The facility is positioned in the Hjorthagen neighborhood northeast of the city center, and, as is virtually all of the city, is situated near a busy waterway, teaming with cargo vessels, cruise ships and local passenger ferries. While this enviable proximity to the water would allow the facility to source biomass from all corners of the globe, the plant expects its imported biomass to be sourced largely from the nearby Baltics and Russia. A 200-meter pier was built to be able to simultaneously berth two biomass-carrying vessels at once, and early estimates suggest that about 60 percent of the biomass burned at the facility will utilize the new infrastructure. A crane with a discharge rate of 2,000 to 3,000 tons per hour has also been installed. The capacity at the pier should be more than enough to keep the plant well-stocked with fuel; remaining biomass will be received by rail at an indoor unloading facility to control fugitive dust. Plant officials expect to receive four or five shipments of wood chips via train weekly, with each delivering roughly 4,500 tons of chips. Stolkholm&rsquo;s transition from coal-derived heat and power to biomass fuel typifies a countrywide commitment to decarbonizing Sweden&rsquo;s economy. The country already boasts one of Europe&rsquo;s lowest per-capita greenhouse gas emission levels, and Fortum sees the new facility in Stockholm as a continuation of its decarbonization efforts. &ldquo;After a long process, one of the world&rsquo;s biggest biomass-fired combined-heat-and-power plants has now been inaugurated,&rdquo; said Anders Egelrud, Fortum V&auml;rme managing director. &ldquo;This is an important step towards a sustainable energy system in Stockholm and in Europe.&rdquo; Change of Season On Oct. 10 in Aarhus, Denmark, the country&rsquo;s second-largest city, DONG Energy celebrated a similar inauguration at the Studstrup Power Station, as the facility&rsquo;s transition from coal to wood pellets was complete. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m delighted that we can now open the new, green Studstrup Power Station, which will be able to supply green district heating to Aarhus and green electricity to the Danish grid,&rdquo; said Thomas Dalsgaard, DONG Energy executive vice president. &ldquo;That means a significant contribution to the green revolution, and we&rsquo;re well on the way to establishing an energy system that is green, independent and economically sustainable.&rdquo; The event marked the end of a two-year conversion process, and a new energy era for both DONG Energy and the city of Aarhus. Kristian Wurtz, alderman for the Department of Technology and Environment in Aarhus, sees the conversion not only as Denmark&rsquo;s largest clean energy initiative, but perhaps more importantly, a vital component of the city&rsquo;s climate ambitions. &ldquo;Using wood pellets as fuel at Studstrup Power Station will mean a lot in terms of us achieving our climate targets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It gives us the incentive to go further with the green transformation, something we intend to pursue to a greater degree together with residents and businesses.&rdquo; Once operating at full capacity, Studstrup will be capable of meeting the heating needs of over half of the city. Another facility, being built at nearby Lisbjerg, will contribute another 20 percent.&nbsp; &ldquo;The conversion of Studstrup and the new facility at Lisbjerg means that we&rsquo;ve taken a massive and important step towards fulfilling our ambition of becoming a CO2-neutral city by 2030,&rdquo; Wurtz said. For DONG, the conversion at Studstrup is just the first in a series of conversions intended to simultaneously increase the profits from district heating assets and reduce the carbon intensity of delivered energy. According to company data, in 2006, one kilowatt-hour (KWh) of energy generated 638 grams of CO2. By 2014, the company had driven that carbon intensity down to 374 grams, and is well on the way to its goal of 260 g CO2 per KWh by 2020. Two more facilities, CHP plants at Avedore and Skaerbaek, are also tabbed for conversion to biomass inputs, and construction is underway. The company expects both facilities to be fully completed by the 2017-&acute;18 heating season, dramatically increasing the percentage of biomass-derived heat in DONG&rsquo;s portfolio. At the European Bioenergy Future conference in Brussels, Thomas Dalsgaard, executive vice president at DONG Energy, shared with attendees that DONG&rsquo;s aggressive biomass conversion plans will eventually result in 1,400 MW of biomass-based power and 2,200 MW of biomass-derived heat. He told the audience that in 2020, the company intends to be producing over 60 percent of its delivered heat from biomass, an incredible growth plan considering that in 2009, just 14 percent of the company&rsquo;s delivered heat came from biomass. Collectively, these conversions across Scandinavia have firmly cemented biomass-derived heat and power as a viable pathway to the emissions reductions that so many local and national policymakers are seeking. Biomass conversions offer utilities and municipalities a plug-and-play option to bring existing district heating grids, electrical distribution networks, and shipping and receiving assets to bear on their climate goals, preserving those investments and recasting them as models of reinvention as Europe continues its aggressive push towards decarbonization. Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine tportz@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4969

RECAST FOR REDUCTION: Jointly owned by the Fortum and the City of Stockholm, Fortum Varme marks the end of the fossil fuel era for heat and power in the city. The facility will consume nearly 12,000 tons of wood chips per day during Stockholmâ€™s pro

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OCTOBER INAUGAURATION: DONG Energy celebrated the conversion of the Studstrup power plant from coal to wood pellets on Oct. 10. The conversion is an important piece of DONGâ€™s efforts to raise the percentage of its delivered heat from biomass from l

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Leveraging sea routes that connect to vast quantities of regional biomass, combined-heat-and-power stations across Scandinavia are retooling to capitalize on the carbon-neutral fuel.

Scandinavian Swap-Out

If you&rsquo;ve been reading the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any number of other sources, you know there&rsquo;s recently been a lot of controversy in the media and the nonprofit world about biomass. Unfortunately, a lot of the pieces discussing the environmental impacts of biomass energy have emitted more heat than light&mdash;if only we could capture that form of thermal energy! To counter the effects of these incomplete narratives, many in the industry feel that we just need Congress to put a simple statement of biomass&rsquo;s carbon neutrality into legislation. This is understandable, especially given that the October meeting of the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s Scientific Advisory Board continued the uncertainty of the details of how EPA should measure biomass&rsquo;s carbon benefits in an agency discussion that has been going on since 2011 with no clear end in sight. There&rsquo;s also a sense from many industry people I have talked to that maybe biomass advocates are simply being outspent and overwhelmed in terms of marketing dollars, and we just need a powerful, well-funded PR campaign blitz of our own to counteract that. Neither of these ideas are wrong or off-base, but neither should they be the centerpiece of the industry&rsquo;s response to alarmist pieces about clearcutting and burning America&rsquo;s forests. That&rsquo;s because we have another tool that is even better: well-researched, factual information. This hasn&rsquo;t always been the case in the biomass heating and cooling industry. In my experience working for a national trade association, it is common for us to get requests for data about issues such as life-cycle analyses for wood chip or pellet heating versus various fossil fuels, or about the size and scope of the biomass heating market or industry in the U.S. or North America. Often we can point people to that information, but there have also been way too many instances where the facts on the ground are scarce and not well-sourced. (Biomass Magazine has been one an exception to this trend, with its perceptive reporting and tools such as its annual pellet plant map.) The strong, solidly founded data that I&rsquo;ve noticed coming out recently is emanating from various sources and has, for the most part, been in the works for a while now. One example of this is the U.S. Energy Information Administration&rsquo;s data from its EIA-63C survey, also known as the Densified Biomass Fuel Report, which surveyed as many of currently operating pellet plants in the USA as possible about their capacity, staffing, and production. EIA expects to release the first month of data from this survey (January 2016) by Thanksgiving, and will release month-by-month survey results after that. One interesting early piece of information that came out about the data collected so far: For the portion of the pellets that are going to the domestic market (which is primarily heating focused, not electricity), by far, the main feedstocks were sawdust and wood manufacturing residuals, with any type of roundwood (including thinnings and small-diameter pulpwood) coming a distant third. Results like this, once the survey data comes out, will be invaluable to really demonstrating the actual size and impacts of the U.S. pellet market, and its economic and sustainability benefits. Also, a couple of great studies have recently come out of the Northeast. They take a hard look at vexed questions such as carbon accounting and economic value. The New Hampshire Wood Energy Council recently analyzed wood fuel use in 2015 in the state&rsquo;s hospitals, schools, municipal buildings, and commercial sector and estimated that 69,091 tons of CO2 were eliminated by switching to wood fuels, generating $35.9 million in the local economy. Another great study is the Northern Forest Center and Spatial Informatics Group-National Assets Laboratory life-cycle assessment of greenhouse gas reductions gained by using wood pellets in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York instead of fossil fuels. This included a survey of nine pellet mills, a careful accounting of the energy sources those mills themselves used and inclusion of other factors such as modeling the growth of trees and harvesting effects. The study, by Thomas Buchholz, PhD. and John Gunn, PhD., is being prepared for peer review submission, and the full detailed methodology is available to the public on the Northern Forest Center&rsquo;s website. Amidst what seems like a deluge of half-truths and hyperbole about biomass and its effects, it&rsquo;s important for the industry not to shy away from rigorously showing the real-world benefits that this form of renewable energy can bring. Author: Ben Bell-Walker Biomass Thermal Energy Council, Technical Affairs 202-596-3974 Ben.bell-walker@biomassthermal.org

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Amidst what seems like a deluge of half-truths and hyperbole about biomass and its effects, it's important for the industry not to shy away from rigorously showing the real-world benefits that this form of renewable energy can bring.

The Difficulty of Getting Good  Biomass Heating Data 

I&rsquo;ve always enjoyed reading the Sierra Club&rsquo;s annual list of the top 20 greenest schools in the U.S.&nbsp; As I was thumbing through it this year, I noticed that many of the top 20 universities heat some or many of their buildings with pellets or wood chips.&nbsp; After comparing notes with colleagues, we found that eight of the top 20 schools use biomass for heating. The Sierra Club uses a wide variety of attributes to assess the greenness of a university. Only 264 out of 1,000 points assess energy use. Of that, only about 50 have to do with generating renewable energy on-site. Looking back at the list for 2014, very few of the top-ranked universities used biomass for heating. The Sierra Club readily admits that the scoring is a reflection of the broader priorities of the organization. For example, they award a significant percentage of points in the areas of campus energy use, transportation, and fossil fuel divestment, because the Sierra Club believes that progress in these sectors is essential for addressing the climate crisis. While it defends its ranking as fair, transparent, and accurate, it makes no claim that it, or its scoring scheme, is the ultimate arbiter of campus sustainability. Colleges and universities are excellent microcosms for observing the wide array of values, economics, and planning that go into energy and sustainability decisions. Moreover, they are the places that train the next generation of energy leaders.&nbsp; The Sierra Club gives high priority to the curriculum and extracirricular activities on campus, which in turn help to shape how the campus generates, acquires, and manages energy.&nbsp; My organization, the Alliance for Green Heat, is one of the beneficiaries of these curricula, as 10 of our research fellows over the past 7 years went to a school on the Sierra Club list. The universities that use biomass for heating have long, fascinating stories about how those heating systems came to be. Most of us are familiar with many of them. Middlebury College in Vermont, ranked No. 12 on the list, may be the most high-profile system. The famous climate activist Professor Bill McKibben, who taught at Middlebury and then started 350.org, was instrumental in championing the high-tech system that heats most of the campus buildings. The No. 1 greenest college in the U.S., as scored by Sierra Club, is the College of the Atlantic, which uses biomass boilers to provide space heating and hot water for many of the dorms. The No. 2 school on the list is the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, which has a state-of-the-art combined heat-and-power (CHP) system that produces 65 percent of campus heating needs and 20 percent of its electrical needs. The CHP system uses biomass to drive a steam turbine and produce electricity, while natural gas is used for steam heating along with additional electricity. This building alone is responsible for reducing ESF's carbon footprint by an estimated 22 percent. Colby ranked No. 4 on the Sierra Club list and was the only college to get more than 200 points for energy use. The $12 million heating plant is Gold LEED certified and uses 22,000 tons of wood chips to offset 1 million gallons of oil each year. Cyclonic dust collectors and a $480,000 electrostatic precipitator minimize pollutants entering the atmosphere. Green Mountain College ranked No. 10 on the list. The idea for a biomass heat system started with students. In 2005, a freshman honors student wrote a proposal for a biomass facility so the college could stop using No. 6 heating oil, which is one of the most carbon-intensive commercial fuels. The $5.8 million project, a CHP biomass plant, now reduces oil usage by 200,000 gallons per year and heats over 85 percent of the college. The other top 20 greenest universities that use biomass heat include Colgate, Harvard, and Colorado State.&nbsp; For high school students, these 20 universities are all excellent places to immerse themselves in renewable energy technology and policy. At least eight of the top 20 schools give future energy leaders of America the chance to get hands-on experience with modern biomass heating systems. Author: John Ackerly President, Alliance for Green Heat jackerly@forgreenheat.org 301-204-9562

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For high school students, these 20 universities are all excellent places to immerse themselves in renewable energy technology and policy. 

The Greenest Universities

Morbark appoints CEO Morbark has appointed David Herr as CEO. In addition to being an active member of the current Morbark board, he has more than 30 years of relevant experience in operations, supply chain management and executive management with major companies, including Navistar, GE Aircraft Engines and BAE Systems. He has diverse business experience in&nbsp; heavy-duty truck manufacturing, commercial avionics, commercial ship repair, munitions production, and information and intelligence analysis. In his most recent role as executive vice president at BAE Systems, Herr was responsible for one of the largest government service sectors in the U.S., with more than 19,000 employees. He also currently serves as a board member for MHI Holdings, a ship repair contractor for the U.S. Navy. Barko adds product manager Steve Talaga has been appointed product manager for forestry equipment manufacturer Barko Hydraulics LLC, part of the Pettibone Heavy Equipment Group. In his new position, Talaga is responsible for product line development, market analysis, and general support and interaction with Barko dealers and customers. Talaga previously worked for sister company Pettibone/Traverse Lift LLC for 4.5 years, first as a service technician and then as a design engineer.&nbsp;&nbsp; Solegear appoints executive Solegear Bioplastic Technologies Inc. has appointed Don Holmstrom to serve as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Holmstrom has more than 20 years of executive management experience and has raised nearly $100 million in capital for businesses he has operated. He has also completed more than 180 merger and acquisition transactions, representing more than $750 million in transaction value. Solegear also recently announced that the reelection of Salil Munjal, Paul Antoniadis, Jim Zadra and Michael Thomson to its board of directors.&nbsp; Eastern Instruments introduces flow meter Eastern Instruments has introduced the CentriFlow BWS, an economical and accurate gravimetric in-line mass flow meter that serves as an alternative to impact flow meters and belt scales for the dynamic measurement of solids, while in process. The BWS can be used to measure granular solids such as grains, pellets, beans, wood chips, pet food and free-flowing granular powders, such as sand.

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Business Briefs

Biomass Magazine was not even one year old when Barack Obama was sworn in as president. The vast majority of the title&rsquo;s issues have unfolded under his administration, and this issue is unique because its planning, reporting and production straddled the election. Articles were decided upon and planned when the outcome of the presidential race was unknown, and they are being finalized, edited and laid out after the country elected to put President-elect Donald Trump in the White House. It is virtually impossible to read the stories in this issue, dedicated to biomass cofiring, conversions and colocations, without viewing them through the lens of a Trump administration. For instance, our power section is anchored by a story from Managing Editor Anna Simet about a planned test burn at Oregon&rsquo;s Boardman Power Station. The facility is the last coal power station operating in the state and our team has been tracking interest and efforts to convert the facility over to biomass feedstock for years. Planners at Boardman are hopeful that before the year is out, they&rsquo;ll be able to complete a 24-hour test burn on torrefied biomass at the plant. There are lots of questions about the feasibility of transitioning the plant to biomass, and this test burn is intended to answer as many of those as possible. The test burn will have little to say about a big, new question, however. Under a Trump administration, what will the appetite be for low-carbon, baseload power be? The Clean Power Plan, already bogged down in challenges to the Supreme Court, seems a likely target for an administration promising eased regulations. That said, was the promise of the Clean Power Plan really the catalyst for the efforts at Boardman? I think the CPP would have been welcomed by the team driving the initiative at Boardman, but I don&rsquo;t think anyone was banking on it. I think the best argument our industry has going for it in the context of a Trump administration is its ability to produce jobs, and for the next four years, we&rsquo;d be wise to build our advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill on that premise. Katie Fletcher&rsquo;s page-14 department, &ldquo;An Unconventional Biomass Conversion Facility,&rdquo; about Chip Energy is a great place to start. Paul Wever, CEO, has been rolling the biomass boulder up a hill for years, and his entrepreneurial zeal would impress and tickle Trump. The story of our industry remains a good one, but the manner by which we tell it likely will require some retooling. Author: Tim Portz Vice President of Content &amp; Executive Editor tportz@bbiinternational.com

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The best argument our industry has going for it in the context of a Trump administration is its ability to produce jobs, and for the next four years, we'd be wise to build our advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill on that premise.

December 2016

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Maximizing Decarbonization, Maintaining Grid Reliability

Trump Wins, Now What?

Capturing Power Above the Dirt

The Difficulty of Getting Good Biomass Heating Data

The Greenest Universities

Out With the Old, In With the New

Featured

Scandinavian Swap-Out

Departments

Trial by Fire

An Unconventional Conversion Facility

28 Days Later: Waste to Fuel

December 2016.css-7jxktu{position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;right:0px;height:3px;border-radius:3px;background-color:var(--chakra-colors-brandBlack);}

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Maximizing Decarbonization, Maintaining Grid Reliability

Trump Wins, Now What?

Capturing Power Above the Dirt

The Difficulty of Getting Good Biomass Heating Data

The Greenest Universities

Out With the Old, In With the New

Featured

Scandinavian Swap-Out

Departments

Trial by Fire

An Unconventional Conversion Facility

28 Days Later: Waste to Fuel

December 2016