New Contract to Accelerate Use of Biomass in China

- October 13, 2014, Bioenergy News

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The contract is with China International Water and Electric, a subsidiary of renewable energy company China Three Gorges (CTG).

'The master EPC structure will utilise a US-based EPC contractor to be the onsite engineering, procurement and construction team using local suppliers and craftsmen generating much needed local revenues for Itawamba County and the surrounding region,' states BlueFire CEO Arnold Klann.

The contract is to provide cost savings by leveraging CTG's relationships and experience to complete the Fulton project.

'Our support of this important commercial project is consistent with China's goals to advance the use of non-food biomass to produce renewable fuels, power and chemicals in cooperation with the US, all the while helping the environment,' says Lin Chuxue, executive VP of CTG. 'We see this relationship with BlueFire as an important step in bringing renewable cellulosic fuels and chemicals to China's burgeoning marketplace.'

34.5 Megawatt Biomass Project Planned for Japan

- September 16, 2014, New Generation Power

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Together, Chicago-based New Generation Power International (NGPI) and Nippon Energy Solution, Inc. (NES) will launch a new wood-based biomass energy generation venture that will construct three separate facilities located in the Japanese regions of Miyazaki and Kagoshima.

Expected to break ground around April 2015, the project will be capable of generating 248 GWh of electricity annually, the equivalent of powering 44,000 households and cost an estimated $169.67 million USD.

With a strong presence throughout Japan and a robust relationship with the local economies of Miyazaki and Kagoshima, NES will be responsible for the project’s development, operation and fuel supply. Synergy Power Solutions and Artha Energy Resources will advise the transaction.

Valero’s Indiana Ethanol Plant Damaged After Morning Fire

- October 13, 2014, The Paper of Montgomery County

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Crews were called to an early morning fire at the Valero ethanol plant in Montgomery County Monday.

After 1 a.m., a call came in about a fire at the Valero plant, just off of U.S. 231 near Linden. Firefighters from six departments responded to the plant just after 1:30 a.m.

Linden firefighters say the fire started in the dryer area which is on the west end of the facility.

Earl Heide from the Linden Fire Department said it took five hours to put out all of the hot spots. He said there is major damage to the west section of the plant.

Authorities said no one was injured in the incident.

State investigators are currently trying to determine the cause of the fire.

Biomass Energy: Another Kind of Climate Change Denial

 (Graphic: Indiana Joel)

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We’re all familiar with climate change deniers, cheerfully and/or willfully ignorant folk who refuse to accept that human-caused carbon emissions are responsible for the climate crisis — or that there even is a climate crisis. Those of us who value science and common sense typically have as much patience for these twenty-three percent of Americans as we do for anyone who believes that maggots arise spontaneously from rotting meat, witches cause disease, or the Earth is the center of the universe.  

Recently, a subtler breed of climate change denier has emerged, spreading their propaganda and even infiltrating aspects of the environmental movement: biomass boosters. These advocates for the biomass energy industry often avoid detection by professing concern with carbon emissions. Yet, while cursing fossil fuels out of one side of their mouths, out of the other they bless the burning of one of the world’s greatest buffers against runaway climate chaos — our forests — for energy.

If the climate movement wants to win over the American people and influence policy, it needs to have credibility, which only comes through consistency, and that means distancing itself from the climate change deniers in our midst.

Forests = Carbon

Forests store and sequester mind-boggling amounts of carbon and are one of our last best hopes in fighting climate change. Cutting forests and burning them for energy in polluting biomass incinerators is perhaps the worst thing we can do when it comes to the climate threat.

Biomass incinerators emit higher levels of carbon dioxide per unit of energy than most coal-fired plants, the dirtiest fossil fuel, with some studies demonstrating up to a centuries-long time frame for the reabsorption of this carbon by future forests, and others showing a permanent increase in atmospheric CO2. Some of the more optimistic (and flawed) studies show it will still take decades for the carbon to be reabsorbed by forests cut for biomass energy. Yet, this assumes a forest cut for biomass will be protected and not logged again (a highly unlikely scenario), and will maintain the same rate of growth despite soil compaction, nutrient depletion, and erosion from past logging and impacts from climate change, including drought.

Even if that best case scenario were true, it’s irrelevant. Climate scientists insist the only way to reverse runaway climate change is to drastically cut our emissions now, not at some undetermined point in the future after emitting a massive pulse of carbon out the smokestacks of biomass incinerators.

Only when you bring up this point to biomass boosters do they reveal their true colors, proving that, despite pretensions, they really aren’t taking climate change that seriously at all.

Magic Tree Carbon

When pressed on the reality of curbing emissions today rather than in the year 2114, biomass advocates typically admit that carbon emissions from biomass incineration don’t count because they don’t come from the bad kind of fossil fuel carbon, but the good kind of “biogenic” carbon. In other words, you can cut and burn all the trees you want for energy, because the carbon they emit is harmless, basically a kind of magic tree carbon.

Of course, an eighth grade grasp of Earth science proves that the atmosphere doesn’t give a fig whether the carbon comes from trees, fossil fuels, or unicorn poop, because carbon is carbon is carbon.  

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been spending the last few years deciding how to measure carbon emissions from biomass energy (even though the only honest way to account for it is to tabulate what comes out of the smokestack), with vague plans to come out with its accounting framework for “biogenic” carbon by the end of 2014. The agency’s willingness to even entertain industry’s notion of magic tree carbon exposes the EPA for what it truly is: a political, rather than scientific body. The Obama administration has come out in support of biomass energy, chopping down the low-hanging fruit of “green” energy to make it seem like it’s actually doing something about the climate crisis.

One final point to bring up if you’re ever in a conversation with a biomass booster and really want to watch them squirm. Remind them that the supposedly “biogenic” carbon stored in any given tree actually includes some carbon sequestered from hundreds of years of burning fossil fuels, and when that tree is burned for energy, that carbon too is released back into the atmosphere. If they have a response to this, please contact me and let me know what it is, because I’ve yet to hear one.

Of course, chances are, no matter how much you question biomass boosters on carbon emissions, you won’t get any good answers out of them. Maybe that’s because most of them secretly believe — though they’ll never admit it, perhaps not even to themselves — that climate change simply isn’t that big of a deal.   

 

Bioenergy Capacity Continues to Increase

- by Erin Voegele, September 26, 2014, Biomass Magazine

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration has released the September issue of its Electric Power Monthly report, indicating total in-service bioenergy capacity equaled 13,431.4 MW as of the close of July, up from 13,368.4 MW at the close of June. Overall, 313 MW of new bioenergy capacity was added in July, with 250 MW of bioenergy capacity reductions.

According to the EIA, wood and waste wood biomass capacity increased from 8,215.3 MW to 8,329.8 MW. Overall landfill gas capacity decreased slightly, from 2,046.4 MW to 2,044.2 MW. Municipal solid waste (MSW) capacity decreased slightly from 2,230.7 MW to 2,244.0 MW. Capacity from other sources of waste biomass also decreased, from 876.0 MW to 833.4 MW.

Over the next 12 months, EIA data shows 229.3 MW of planned bioenergy capacity additions. This includes 73 MW of wood and waste wood biomass capacity, 33.5 MW of landfill gas capacity, 88 MW of MSW capacity, and 34.8 MW of capacity from other waste biomass sources.

Oregon Site Selected for Biofuel Plant

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Red Rock Biofuels, a subsidiary of IR1 Group of Fort Collins, Colo., will use forest biomass — debris from logging or thinning operations — to produce fuel. It is one of three firms selected for the project, which is intended to produce a combined total of 100 million gallons annually at an average cost of less than $3.50 a gallon and producing 50 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuel. Firms in Nevada and Louisiana also were selected for the project. Details of the contracts were not immediately available.

The plants will produce what is called “drop-in” biofuels, meaning they are chemically similar to existing petroleum-based fuel and can be used in ships and planes without extensive retrofitting.

Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Set to Drive Biomass Demand

- by David Appleyard, September 3, 2014, Cogeneration and Onsite Power Production

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According to Global Bioenergy Supply and Demand projections, a working paper for REmap 2030, global biomass demand could double to 108 EJ by 2030 if all its potential beyond the business as usual is implemented. Nearly a third of this total would be consumed to produce power and district heat generation with a total of 47% going between heating applications in the manufacturing industry and building sectors. Biomass use in CHP generation will be key to raise its share in the manufacturing industry and power sectors, IRENA says.

The trend towards modern and industrial uses of biomass is growing rapidly, the report notes, adding that biomass-based steam generation is particularly interesting for the chemical and petrochemical sectors, food and textile sectors, where most production processes operate with steam. Low and medium temperature process steam used in the production processes of these sectors can be provided by boilers or CHP plants. Combusting biogas in CHP plants is another option already pursued in northern European countries, especially in the food sector, where food waste and process residues can be digested anaerobically to produce biogas, IRENA adds. A recent IRENA analysis (2014b) estimated that three quarters of the renewable energy potential in the industry sector is related to biomass-based process heat from CHP plants and boilers. Hence, biomass is the most important technology to increase industrial renewable energy use, they conclude.

Louisiana Biorefineries Getting $161 Million Taxpayer Handout

- Ted Griggs, October 4, 2014, The Advocate

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Cool Planet Energy Systems is getting a $91 million federal loan guarantee to produce renewable biofuel in central Louisiana from trees, forestry waste and natural gas at a previously announced plant at the Port of Alexandria.

Emerald Biofuels will build a previously announced animal fats-to-diesel refinery in Plaquemine through a $70 million contract from the U.S. departments of the Navy, Energy and Agriculture.

U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Roger Vilsack said the Energy Department will help Emerald Biofuels with construction, USDA will help buy down the cost of feedstock, and the Defense Department will buy the plant’s production for five years.

Vilsack was in Baton Rouge on Friday and discussed the Emerald Biofuels contract after holding a news conference to announce the Cool Planet loan guarantee.

The Emerald Biofuels facility will be able to produce 82 million gallons of fuel each year.

Bulgarians Blockade Road to Protest Proposed Biomass Incinerator

- September 22, 2014, Novinite.com

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Residents of the Ustovo district of Smolyan blocked traffic along the Smolyan – Madan road for some 10 minutes on Monday, according to reports of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency and Capital Daily.

The protesters demand a clarification by the municipality and the respective competent authorities on the environmental impact of the project and the legality of the permits issued so far.

Nikolay Melemov, Mayor of Smolyan, announced Monday that the permit for the designing of the site had been issued by the Smolyan Municipality in 2011 and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the plant had been approved after that.

He vowed to review the paperwork surrounding the project and to appeal the EIA in the case of detecting irregularities.

Are Biomass Incinerators Gobbling Up Firewood?

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

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

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

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