A $250,000 grant awarded to Southern Oregon University recently could be the first step toward creation of a new source of clean energy for the Ashland area.

The grant, from the United States Department of Agriculture, will help pay for a feasibility study of the possibility of construction of a multimillion-dollar biomass plant on the school’s campus.

“We can only put so many solar panels on the roofs, so we really have to think outside the box when it comes to green energy,” said Drew Gilliland, director of facilities management and planning at SOU. “For Ashland … if not biomass, then what? Wind is a challenge – we don’t get enough of it. This would be a good fit for the city.”

The timing for a study is right for SOU: Its heating system – two boilers built in the 1970s – is outdated and in need of replacement. In fact, the boilers barely meet energy and safety regulations as they stand, according to Gilliland.

The school last year conducted a preliminary study that determined biomass would be the best fit. With the grant, SOU officials will be able to direct staffers, students and outside consulting firms to perform an in-depth study. It’s expected to reveal an appropriate project scope – from the size of the plant to its effects on transportation.

One of the main goals of the study will be to figure out a fuel for the plant. At one point, biomass plants primarily used dead trees or wood chips to generate electricity. However, plant or animal matter now can be used. A biomass plant to convert food waste into energy, for example, is being proposed in Northeast Portland.

If the study were to show that the plant is feasible, construction plans probably would not come together for quite some time, Gilliland said. However, because SOU’s energy system isn’t cutting it, a project could move ahead quickly. And school officials are confident that they can secure funding.

“It’s still a feasibility study, but it’s to the level that all the information could directly go to engineers to design (the plant),” Gilliland said. “I’m really optimistic at this point that it would happen. We could get a variety of funding sources for this project, and no one entity should be responsible for it because it helps so many areas.”

Primary funding for the project would come from the state, according to Gilliland; SOU officials believe the Legislature was already going to allocate money for a large portion of a boiler replacement effort.

The school could make a profit from the plant. If it were built, SOU officials anticipate an excess of energy, which would be sold to the city of Ashland or potentially a dam or a power company. The study will help determine the most cost-effective option.

Additionally, because SOU is the largest energy consumer in the city, its plant could greatly reduce the city’s annual energy costs, according to Adam Hanks, project manager for Ashland.

“What they do with energy is important to us,” Hanks said. “It clearly has a potential benefit as a local power source to keep us out of the tier two of power.”

If energy usage in the city exceeds a certain threshold, the rate charged by the power company increases significantly. The plant would help the city meet its overall goal to remain in tier one, Hanks said.

Of course, because SOU buys its power from the city, a dramatic decrease in usage – as much as 1.2 megawatts per year – could impact the city in ways that may need to be mitigated.

“We’re connected into the project one way or another,” Hanks said. “It definitely has a lot of community and regional benefits.”

The study will begin as soon as this fall, according to Gilliland, and finish by the end of the school year.

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A Gresham-based biomass processing company is using federal grants to rise above its competitors.

uses a process called torrefaction to turn woody debris into pellets that can be burned for cleaner electricity. While torrefaction technology has become more common in the past couple of years, commercialization has challenged many companies.

But HM3 Energy developed a proprietary process that has garnered attention from the federal government as well as local utilities. Its “TorrB” process converts forest debris into solid biofuel pellets that can burn in existing coal-fired power plants without any equipment modifications.

HM3 Energy’s efforts were bolstered by a $241,000 grant from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, and two U.S. Department of Agriculture grants totaling $550,000.

“When it comes to our technology, we feel very confident,” said Hiroshi Morihara, president and CEO. “Winning these competitive grants shows that our technology is sound.”

Construction is under way in Troutdale on a demonstration plant scheduled to be completed in March 2012. HM3 also is designing and permitting a commercial plant expected to come online in Prineville in 2013.

Portland General Electric, TransAlta, PacifiCorp and Duke Energy have expressed interest in using the solid biofuel that will come out of HM3’s commercial plant, Morihara said. While there are no contracts in place yet, Morihara said the utilities would each use approximately 8,000 tons to burn in their coal-fired plants.

HM3 has raised half of the money needed – approximately $5 million – for the commercial facility, through a federal program that provides visas to foreigners who invest in American companies. The Immigrant Investor Program, also known as EB-5, is administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and stipulates that each investment must create at least 10 full-time jobs.

“Oregon’s rural areas are depressed, and we can invigorate that rural economy by using Oregon’s strengths,” Morihara said. “People who used to work for sawmills that have now closed down might be available to work for us.”

The commercial plant will employ approximately 20 operators, but also will need people to gather, shred and transport the forest debris. A total of 125 direct and indirect jobs would be supported by each plant, according to Morihara.

Morihara has an aggressive business plan, which he and his partners have refined through the company’s participation in the Cleantech Open; HM3 is a regional semifinalist in the competition. Once the first commercial plant is operating, HM3 plans to build 22 more plants in timber towns across Oregon.

“The most important thing is that during manufacturing, we’ll be very careful so that we don’t emit any toxic gases and we don’t use water, so there’s no water pollution. And the product (is) very clean burning – it’s a great replacement fuel for coal.”

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Schneider Electric and Clark County thought the high volume of logging and forest activity in southwest Washington would make Vancouver, Wash., the ideal place to build a new biomass facility. Turns out, they may be wrong.

Since announcing in July that they were forming a partnership to build the plant, the county and the electricity technology company have run into several challenges. The most immediate was opposition from local neighborhoods and city planning officials armed with a list of zoning and environmental concerns.

But now there’s another snag in the plans: a hike in the cost of the locally sourced – and once relatively cheap – woody fuel supply.

If it moves forward, the 5-megawatt plant will be fueled by forest logging slash from privately owned properties within a 50 mile radius. In a feasibility study conducted this past spring, Vancouver consulting firm LD Jellison concluded that biomass would be cheaper to operate than the county’s existing natural gas-powered boilers.

Dave Sjoding, a renewable resources specialist at Washington State University who served as a third party expert in the study, said the facility would use logging residue that is usually burned in slash piles.

“It’s just wasted up in the woods,” he said.

But the Washington State Department of Ecology was recently called upon to clarify the statutes related to wood fuel and waste for an environmental analysis of another project, in the Puget Sound region. The resulting paper stated that wood fuel is not solid waste, which means, among other things, that the products are taxable.

“It’s an interesting turn of events,” Sjoding said. “It changes the rule book under which forest biomass functions – it’s not a waste stream headed to a landfill or being burned in the woods. Now the state of Washington decided it’s an actual product and said hey, let’s tax it.”

Peter Lyon, solid waste and financial assistance supervisor in the Department of Ecology’s southwest regional office, clarified that no changes were made to the code. It was just a clearing up of terminology as it is applied to environmental impact statements. Still, Washington’s biomass industry will be impacted.

“Six months ago (the forest debris) was not a taxable product, but now it is,” said David Palmer, Schneider Electric’s project manager. “It doesn’t help the project’s economics, but I think we can work around it.”

The company is still conducting due diligence for the plant and has not contracted for any feedstock yet, so the final economic impact is still up in the air. But finding fuel suppliers willing to commit to longterm contracts might be more difficult.

“(Schneider) is figuring out how to find a supplier for the next 20 years, so we need to figure out how much they are going to charge for the fuel and whether the projected pro forma works with that,” said Marlia Jenkins, program development manager in the Clark County budget office. Jenkins said the project could create up to 25 forest jobs in the region.

The project, expected to cost approximately $25 million, would modify an existing building located at the intersection of West 13th and Ingalls streets.

Schneider would build, lease, and operate the plant, which would provide central heating, cooling and hot water for five county buildings: the courthouse, jail, 911 center, Public Service Center, and juvenile courthouse.

Headquartered in France, Schneider Electric has focused mainly on institutional buildings in the U.S. because even on a site that the company considers most suitable, there is still a great deal of opposition.

“Overseas in Europe, (biomass) has been a big part of our energy projects, but here it’s not as widely adopted,” he said. “These projects are only a good fit in certain places, and this place is basically ideal in Clark County. It’s almost one of those things where, if we were to imagine the perfect site, it wouldn’t get much better than what we have now.”

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Oregon is becoming an attractive location for biomass plants thanks to a recent extension of tax credits.

Oregon extended its biomass tax credit until 2018, which has made planning for commercial facilities easier.

“It gives our industry and partners the confidence we need that Oregon will support biomass and biochemical production,” said Carrie Atiyeh, public affairs director for ZeaChem Inc., which is building a biorefinery in Boardman. “It’s much more effective than having credits that are only extended by one or two years.”

Construction is 70 percent complete on ZeaChem’s demonstration-scale plant in Boardman. The plant will produce biofuel and biobased chemicals aimed to replace petroleum-based products. Tree farm firm Greenwood Resources is under a long-term contract to provide poplar trees that will be the main feedstock.

The plant is being built in an existing industrial facility at the Port of Morrow, and 75 construction workers are on the job. ZeaChem has an engineering, procurement, and overseeing contract with Kansas City-based Burns & McDonnel. Subcontractors on the project are coming from eastern Oregon, as well as the Tri-Cities area in Washington and a few firms from Portland, Atiyeh said.

ZeaChem is planning a commercial facility across the street from the demo plant that will come online in about three years. The demo plant will have a 250,000-gallon-per-year capacity; the commercial plant will produce up to 25 million gallons per year – scaling up production by 100 times.

The larger plant will bring 275 construction jobs and 65 full-time operations jobs to the Boardman area. ZeaChem has not yet announced any contracts for that project, although Atiyeh said it recently signed contracts that will account for 100 percent of the commercial feedstock.

ZeaChem has completed second-round financing that has raised $40 million, including investments from Valero, one of the largest petroleum refiners in the U.S. The demo facility is supported by a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.  ZeaChem is also pre-certified to collect a . Despite the program’s recent scale back, Atiyeh said ZeaChem will almost certainly receive that money as well.

Two electricity-generating biomass facilities are also under consideration. In Klamath Falls, a plant that will produce up to 35 megawatts of electrical power is proposed. Its application for site certification is open for public comment until Aug. 15. Downtown Vancouver, Wash., might also host a biomass facility. Schneider Electric is currently researching the market for the proposed plant’s green electricity and looking into zoning options in Clark County.

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If you are what you eat, then automobiles in the U.S. should be sprouting corn leaves.

The past three years have seen spikes in food prices due to , starting and aggravating because of devastating food insecurity. All the while, farmers in the Midwest plant corn destined for the fuel tanks of America’s cars. According to new study that was reported yesterday in , 30 percent of the 2009 U.S. corn crop was dedicated to ethanol production.  Thankfully, something more productive and NOT a food can be turned into ethanol fuel.

The study found that if you simply use different plants, you can dramatically increase bioenergy feedstock production, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase slightly the amount of corn available for other uses besides animal feed. The plants in mind? and . According to the study, if 30 percent of the lowest-producing Midwestern corn cropland were converted to Miscanthus growth, you would get an 82 percent increase in bioenergy feedstocks.

I wonder if the people at the are worried at all?

Photo by via Flickr

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There’s never a dull moment in the energy sector around here – here are some of the projects that caught my eye this week.

Clark County will move ahead with planning a proposed downtown Vancouver biomass plant after y. But Vancouver City Council is skeptical of the idea, and it will have to make the zoning change to let the plant move in.

Nissan will resume taking orders for their all-electric Leaf on May 1, . Only 500 of the cars have been delivered in the U.S. so far, though thousands of EV enthusiasts are still on waiting lists. Check out my related story about the proposed road usage fee for electric cars in Oregon.

Newport will be the site of a wave energy research program, . OSU and University of Washington researchers will use the site near the Hatfield Marine Science Center to test some wave energy technology and its impact on the local flora and fauna.

A recent study found that solar panels increase the resale value of homes in California at , as compared to comparable homes without solar arrays. That’s not too surprising, but another interesting trend came out of the study: the value benefit of solar was higher where solar was installed on an existing home than it was for houses that came with the panels.

Finally, an update on the Business Energy Tax Credit: recent amendments to the bills aimed at extending BETC would formally split the credit into its three parts: manufacturing, energy conservation and energy generation, which Rep. Tobias Read wants you to call “Manny,” “Connie” and “Genny” to replace the “Betsy” nickname. The amended bills would also change how “Connie” and “Genny” calculate the tax credit: instead of getting a credit based on project cost, businesses will earn based on how much energy they save or produce.

The post Energy Roundup: BETC, biomass, electric cars and wave energy appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

There’s never a dull moment in the energy sector around here – here are some of the projects that caught my eye this week.

Clark County will move ahead with planning a proposed downtown Vancouver biomass plant after y. But Vancouver City Council is skeptical of the idea, and it will have to make the zoning change to let the plant move in.

Nissan will resume taking orders for their all-electric Leaf on May 1, . Only 500 of the cars have been delivered in the U.S. so far, though thousands of EV enthusiasts are still on waiting lists. Check out my related story about the proposed road usage fee for electric cars in Oregon.

Newport will be the site of a wave energy research program, . OSU and University of Washington researchers will use the site near the Hatfield Marine Science Center to test some wave energy technology and its impact on the local flora and fauna.

A recent study found that solar panels increase the resale value of homes in California at , as compared to comparable homes without solar arrays. That’s not too surprising, but another interesting trend came out of the study: the value benefit of solar was higher where solar was installed on an existing home than it was for houses that came with the panels.

Finally, an update on the Business Energy Tax Credit: recent amendments to the bills aimed at extending BETC would formally split the credit into its three parts: manufacturing, energy conservation and energy generation, which Rep. Tobias Read wants you to call “Manny,” “Connie” and “Genny” to replace the “Betsy” nickname. The amended bills would also change how “Connie” and “Genny” calculate the tax credit: instead of getting a credit based on project cost, businesses will earn based on how much energy they save or produce.

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The federal government needs more time to study how emissions from biomass facilities should be regulated, the Environmental Protection Agency announced today.

The EPA will defer new greenhouse gas permitting requirements for biomass facilities for three years. The federal agency plans to seek an independent scientific analysis on whether facilities burning wood and agricultural waste for energy should be considered carbon neutral, or if those activities have potential climate change impacts.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber on Tuesday announced his first intended actions as governor, one of which is to put biomass boilers in schools. The governor also plans to meet with the EPA next month on potential rules for biomass emissions. Kitzhaber and Oregon legislators have a plan that would use woody biomass from forest thinning operations in eastern Oregon for biomass energy projects around the state. That plan, the , will be presented by Sen. Ron Wyden at the legislature this year.

By July 2011, the EPA plans to complete rulemaking that will defer permitting requirements for carbon dioxide emissions from biomass and other biogenic sources for three years. Before the end of the three years, the agency will issue a second rulemaking that determines how these emissions should be treated under greenhouse gas permitting requirements.

On Jan. 2, greenhouse gases officially become subject to regulation by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. New and upgraded industrial facilities like power plants and refineries will be forced to install technologies to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

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Techniques used for fire suppression and timber harvest in Eastern Oregon’s federally-managed forests have left trees at risk of drought, disease and intense wildfires, according to the Oregon Forest Resource Institute.

Gov.-elect John Kitzhaber, however, believes the at-risk forests can help the state cut its unemployment rate and beef up its renewable energy portfolio. Kitzhaber’s transition team next year will lobby the state and federal governments to accept new policies to clean up forests in Eastern Oregon and sell the wood to biomass companies. But some critics say forest management and energy production shouldn’t be bedfellows.

Efforts to combat fires have led 9.5 million acres of Oregon forest to become overgrown and more fire-prone, according to Russ Hoeflich, director of the Nature Conservancy in Oregon. He said that many trees are competing for water and becoming susceptible to disease and insect infestation because wildfires have not been allowed to thin forests naturally.

“These sites are very dark forests with dense trees that are only 4 inches in diameter,” Hoeflich said. “Wildlife can’t penetrate these thickets. When it snows, the trees are so dense that the snow hangs in them and never reaches the ground.”

Under a bill that Sen. Ron Wyden plans to propose to Congress next year, the National Forest Service would be required to identify areas east of the Cascade Range to be thinned, and crews would be hired to do the work, one small area at a time. The Nature Conservancy estimates the state could treat 500,000 acres of forest per year, for the next 25 years. Presently, only 120,000 acres are being treated each year, Hoeflich said. Selling the wood waste as biomass would offset the cost of increased forest maintenance, according to the text of Wyden’s bill, named the Oregon Eastside Forests Restoration, Old Growth Protection and Jobs Act.

Many stakeholders agree that something should be done to restore the health of Eastern Oregon forests, but combining that effort with the biomass industry could be tricky, according to forester Scott Ferguson of Trout Mountain Forestry. While he agrees that forests need fuel breaks, or thinned areas, every site is different and needs to be analyzed for best management practices, he said. Constructing biomass plants dependent on waste from forest thinning could also lead to excessive thinning, Ferguson said.

“There needs to be balance between the negative effects of disturbing an area during thinning and the positive effects of more natural fire cycles,” Ferguson said. “The worry with biomass is you get plants dependent on these wood fuels and we’ll start overdoing it. It has to be scaled right. You can’t have big plants that require a lot of biomass to keep them going.”

Another obstacle, according to Matt Donegan, co-founder of Forest Capital Partners, and the lead of Kitzhaber’s Forest Health & Biomass Energy Transition Team, is the debate over the carbon neutrality of biomass. Burning wood for electricity was long considered carbon neutral, as long as the land surrounding the biomass facility had sufficient tree plantings to absorb carbon dioxide released during burning. But a study released in June by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences found that decades, not years, are needed before carbon can be absorbed, calling into question whether long-term pollution should be excused for short-term energy.

Convincing the state to consider biomass carbon neutral will be a legislative priority in 2011, Donegan said, so that biomass projects can contribute to the state’s renewable energy portfolio. Others, like Lisa Arkin, president of the Oregon Toxics Alliance, say the evidence is clear that burning wood for energy is no better than burning coal.

“People are starry-eyed over biomass and aren’t looking at the entire lifecycle cost,” Arkin said. “Carbon is carbon, and burning woody debris generates carbon dioxide. People want to ignore that and say in the end, it all evens out. But right now is where we have a tipping point in climate change. We can’t add extra carbon to the atmosphere today thinking in 100 years it will be a wash.”

Oregon’s university system will be tapped in 2011 to provide the latest information on biomass’ carbon impacts, Hoeflich said, so that the most accurate information can be presented to the Legislature.

The Nature Conservancy several years ago thinned 4,000 acres of overgrown forest it owned in Oregon, and a post-thinning study found that the forest regained its volume in only three years, Hoeflich said. Under the legislation proposed by Wyden, all forest treatments would be tracked by a scientific panel throughout the project and afterward to make sure thinning activity would not affect the health of wildlife, rivers or the forest.

“Whether biomass is carbon neutral or not, we need to recognize what happens if we don’t treat the forests and bring back resiliency,” Hoeflich said. “The conversations we have next year will bring the best science to the table.”

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Though it has been getting more attention lately as a potential ally in the quest for energy independence, biomass facilities have come under fire in recent months.

In Gainesville, Fla., citizens are to stop a at the site of the Gainesville Regional Utilities coal plant. The facility would burn about one million tons of woody biomass per year, using forest residue from nearby forests as well as wood processing residue and wood from municipal waste streams.

Dr. Tom Bussing, a former mayor of Gainesville, said the project should be denied a site certification because of potential negative health impacts from emissions and to prevent deforestation of the nearby forests. Though the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has already issued an air permit for the facility, the group pushing to stop the biomass facility plans to appeal that permit.

I haven’t heard of any biomass projects here in Oregon facing similar legal issues, at least not yet. The debate comes down to whether you believe that biomass burning is carbon neutral. One philosophy is that because forest clippings (fallen tree branches, stumps etc.) will eventually decompose and release carbon dioxide into the air naturally, the carbon dioxide released during burning is similar to the natural cycle. Others believe that biomass emissions are still too dirty, and that increased development of biomass facilities could lead to deforestation.

Where do you stand on this issue?

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