BioDebate: A point/counterpoint on the biomass issue By Anne Stanton A decision on a proposed $30 million biomass gasification plant in Traverse City will come to a head on April 20 when the Traverse City Light and Power (TCL&P) board votes on whether to proceed. It’s part of the utility’s plan to achieve a 30% renewable energy portfolio by 2020. The plan includes a combination of solar, wind power, landfill gas, and a 10-megawatt biomass plant. The utility has talked of building three such plants. The first would be built in a business park off Parsons Road; it would burn wood and perhaps other fuel crops to generate electricity and waste heat, which would be piped to nearby businesses. Environmentalists and newspaper editorials have repeatedly urged the utility to slow down its decision while all alternatives are fully examined. Yet in a third public meeting held last week, very little was said about alternatives, including the emerging idea of using a combination of wind power supplemented by flexible natural gas to provide 24/7 base power. TCL&P presented results of an informal poll from the first two public hearings based on dots (votes), which reflected wind energy as the top choice (63 in favor), outnumbering biomass at 19. The utility brought together experts from around the state at last week’s meeting to explain why biomass was ideal for Northern Michigan. A DNR official explained that the new growth of trees was twice the amount cut down each year on state land. A group of citizens who oppose biomass is convinced that the utility has its mind fully made up and is going on the offensive. It formed a new environmental group to stop biomass not only here, but throughout Michigan, called Michigan Citizens for Energy, the Economy, and the Environment. This week, the Express posed the most frequently asked questions about biomass. Answering them are Ed Rice, TCL&P’s executive director, and M’Lynn Hartwell, co-founder and senior researcher with the Jobs and Energy Group, a Traverse City based think-tank providing research and information about new clean technology and green tech jobs in Michigan.
1. Is there a place in the state or country that we could visit that has a biomass gasification plant like the 10-megawatt facility proposed for Traverse City?
Ed Rice: There are several biomass gasification power plants in North America and Europe. None are in Michigan, though we have all the necessary conditions for a successful project including abundant feedstock. There are several ~10 MW biomass gasification plants in Canada and several other larger ones in Finland and Sweden. Scandinavian countries have stringent environmental regulations. Additional details can be found in the 2007 NETL Gasification World Database published by the US Department of Energy. (http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/gasification/database/database.html)
M’Lynn Hartwell: TCL&P plans to hire HTI, Inc., a downstate firm, to build this plant, yet there is no evidence it has ever built a facility of this magnitude. It could end up like the collapsing septage plant—a giant money hole. HTI has designed a small plant for a turkey CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) where they gasify 1.5 million dead turkeys and 70,000 pounds of turkey litter to generate heat for its buildings and to also generate 12,000 kilowatts of electricity. It’s time for TCL&P to talk turkey, and show us even one plant, built by HTI, like the one proposed for Traverse City and has successfully operated. Otherwise, it’s like signing a blank check!
2. This country wants to reduce carbon dioxide spewed by coal-fired power plants to slow down climate change. Another deeply troubling development is the acidification of the ocean, threatening to make the water uninhabitable for mussels, clams, and krill. Scientists conclude in a study published in Nature Geoscience (2/10) that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are to blame. Please address the biomass alternative and its impact on these two problems.
Rice: The wood biomass gasification plant that TCL&P is considering produces significantly less carbon dioxide than generating electricity from coal. Acid rain is caused by SO2 (sulfur dioxide) and NOx (nitrogen oxide). The Clean Air Act requires the installation of air pollution control equipment such as scrubbers to reduce SO2 and SCRs (selective catalytic reduction) to reduce NOx. Wood biomass gasification plants produce a tiny fraction of SO2 and about half the amount of NOx as coal plants. Bottom line: a wood biomass gasification plant would be a much more environmentally sensitive alternative to generating electricity than coal generation.
Hartwell: Carbon emissions from coal and biomass are roughly equal, not less as TCL&P claims.* So the question becomes: do newly planted trees absorb carbon from biomass burning with no effect to the atmosphere? Not when you consider time, and we don’t have time. It takes 30 years for the planet to absorb 50% from the carbon burst of burning a tree today, hundreds of years for the next 30%, and thousands of years for the remaining 20%.** Ignoring the element of time is an insult to the public’s common sense.
3. What’s the cost of biomass versus wind, solar, natural gas, and hydro-electric power? To simplify, what is the cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) compared to what we are paying now for coal power?
Rice: The Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), developed by R.W. Beck for TCL&P, provides an average present value (PV) cost of base-load resource options as follows: wood biomass (10.6 cents/kWh), natural gas combined cycle (15.0 cents/kWh), coal (10.6 cents/kWh) and coal with carbon sequestration (12.6 cents/kWh). The IRP provides a PV cost of peaking resource options as follows: wind (13.6 cents/kWh), solar (46.7 cents/kWh) and natural gas combustion turbine (13.8 cents/kWh). TCL&P is currently paying about 5.0 cents/kWh for the power received from coal contracts signed in the early 1980s.
Hartwell: I use the 2009 Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy national study, the industry bible. Natural gas (combined cycle) is one of the cheapest sources at 6.9 to 9.6 cents/kWh; it’s clean, emits half the carbon as coal, and could bridge us to wind and solar, which gets cheaper all the time. Biomass costs 6.5 to 11. cents/kWh; coal was 7.8 to 14.4 cents cents/kWh; solar, 8.7 to 19.6 cents cents/kWh. Wind was the clear winner at 5.7 to 11.3 cents/kWh, plus it’s plentiful and pollution-free. The study, “Energy Self-Reliant States,” says with better infrastructure, Michigan could produce 259% of its energy without consuming any coal or biomass.
4. Some people feel that stripping the forest of everything that normally rots and replenishes the soil is a bad idea. Others think hauling away waste wood makes for a healthier forest. What do you think?
Rice: TCL&P does not promote the idea of stripping the forest of everything that rots (all organic matter). It is not a wise and sustainable use of our natural resources. “Hauling away waste wood” or using woody biomass as a forest product (fuel) can be a wise use of our forest resource if done sustainably as part of a professional forest management plan. TCL&P plans to use only wood from forests that are approved and certified sustainable by the Michigan Public Service Commission as explained in Public Act 295.
Hartwell: Our forests are the lungs of the earth. We should be planting trees, not cutting them down. Trees take carbon out of the atmosphere and release the oxygen we need to live. Organic matter from trees breaks down in soil as nitrogen, phosphorus, and humus, which plants need. Decaying plant matter keeps soil loose, porous and permeable and increases water -holding capacity. Haul away organic matter to burn as biomass and our soil becomes depleted “sand” that can grow nothing. No forest ecologist believes that “hauling away waste wood makes for a healthier forest,” as TCL&P claims. Biomass harvesting disrupts wildlife and destroys animal habitat.
5. Do you believe the lack of state coordination of the number and location of biomass plants could damage our state and privately owned forests (privately owned woods make up 49% of Michigan’s 20 million acres of forests; state land is 21% or 4 million acres)?
Rice: State forest lands are managed for long term sustainability regardless of any particular industry or forest use. Many private forest owners utilize professional management services that ensure similar long-term sustainable forest management. If TCL&P pursues construction of a wood biomass gasification plant it will be accompanied by strong sustainable forestry management plans and practices to ensure that forestry ecology is strengthened while simultaneously ensuring a steady supply of fuel at prices that result in competitive electric rates for our customers.
Hartwell: Europe thought they could do biomass sustainably, too, and now their forests are just about gone. Belgium, Holland and Sweden buy wood from Canada and Brazil. Texas is going to ship $27 million worth of wood chips to Germany next year for renewable energy. As for Michigan, one independent forest ecologist states we are “rushing willy-nilly to support these proposals.” We have no limit on the number of biomass plants. Active proposals in northern Michigan total 162-megawatts of biomass fueled energy. This equates to a clear-cut of 10,000 acres each year for each megawatt—that’s equal to new growth from 1.62 million acres.
6. Are air pollution, odor, traffic, and noise from the plant problematic? Why or why not?
Rice: The wood biomass gasification plant considered by TCL&P will fit into the landscape where it is built, which is planned for an industrial park. It will have minimum smell and noise in the direct proximity of the plant. It will receive truckloads of wood chips and wood waste for fuel. It will have modest air emissions legally permitted under the state’s air quality law. The amount of truck traffic to the plant is equivalent to the truck traffic that serves one of our grocery stores or one of our other industrial plants.
Hartwell: Biomass plants, like factories, are noisy. Wood-chips mildew, rot, smolder and smell. In addition to the mechanical sounds of unloading wood to burn, a 10-megawatt power plant will have around a dozen semi-truck deliveries each day driving near residential streets with more semi-trucks hauling ash out. Are we about to screw up the environment in the same way we screwed up the economy? Economic interests are trumping intelligent thinking, because there is a strange loophole in the Kyoto Protocol rules that currently allows a tree to be burned without having to account for the carbon released when a tree is used as fuel.
7. How do you feel about the proposed location for the biomass plant?
Rice: The location of the plant was selected to take advantage of combined heat and power (CHP) that doubles the efficiency of the plant by generating hot water to heat nearby businesses and institutions. CHP has the additional advantage of displacing traditional fossil fuels as an energy source in those buildings. The proposed plant location is an industrial park, at the site of a former iron foundry, and is consistent with industrial use. There is an opportunity to locate the plant out of town, but we would lose significant efficiency of CHP and incur distribution line losses.
Hartwell: Next to our airport is nearly as bad as the old coal plant downtown on West Bay. As a pilot, I would not want biomass power-plant emissions obscuring my visibility of the runway. To make things worse, this is near a residential area, next to our TART recreational trail. People are walking, riding their bikes, pushing their strollers, and skating on their roller-blades in pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. Finding funding and support for the pipe dream TCL&P refers to as district heat (piping waste heat ordinarily sent into the atmosphere as hot steam) is extremely expensive and logistically improbable in Traverse City.
8. A lot of people believe that a conservation program could save as much energy as a 10 megawatt biomass plant could provide? Agreed? How would that work?
Rice: TCL&P has been a leader in energy efficiency, providing energy audits for businesses and residents for more than 10 years to recommend efficiency measures and recently increased our efforts in conjunction with Act 295. Our load forecast includes an aggressive energy efficiency program that reduces our capacity needs by 10MW. If we are able to expand our energy efficiency effort to be the most aggressive in the nation, we would be able to reduce our capacity needs by another 10MW. However, even after these efforts, our projections show that we will need at least an additional 20MW of capacity.
Hartwell: TCL&P has a lot of business customers, therefore, business participation in any conservation and efficiency program would be vital to achieve success. I would suggest that we invest more resources in making our community more efficient, rather than adding local generating capacity and pollution. What if TCL&P invested $10 million in a zero-interest infrastructure improvement program, where half of the savings would be kept by the rate payer, and half of the savings were paid back to TCL&P to reinvest over and over again? We need to find the community and political will to make smart investments beyond energy generation.
9. Ed, how much has Traverse City Light and Power spent in total on the public relations effort to influence and inform public opinion on biomass? M’Lynn, how much are you and/or the regional environmental groups spending to oppose this.
Rice: Our efforts have not been a public relations effort directed to influence and inform public opinion – our efforts have been to prepare information on an incredibly complex problem and to reach out to the community to seek their input. To date, we have spent approximately $45,000 on that effort. It doesn’t cost much to have people come out and say “no” or “not in my back yard.”
Hartwell: Not one single penny has been received by me to support my work on this issue. My website http://JobsAndEnergy.com, is paid from my personal funds. I do this because of my love for this place I call home. Environmentalists have brought in forest biologist Dr. Rachel Smolker, who accepted no speaking fees and paid for her own travel. NMEAC spent $35 for the library room and video projector plus room and board for she and her young son during their visit. Environmentalists who work for Sierra Club and MLUI just get their regular salaries. Activist Jeff Gibbs volunteers and bought Dr. Smolker breakfast.
10. Do you feel the public is hearing the truth about biomass?
Rice: We have been disappointed in much of the information that critics are using to misinform and distort the utility’s local renewable energy plan. These are the real facts that the community needs to know. We have two independent studies and discussions with state forestry officials that identify significant wood resources available to fuel a 10MW biomass plant without any harm to the forest. The ash generated from the process is not toxic. The forests will not be denuded. Generating clean renewable energy with local fuels has tremendous advantages over burning coal, from cost to emissions to generating local jobs and expanding our economy.
Hartwell: The “independent” consultants hired by TCL&P work for firms, which are paid tens of millions of dollars to develop and promote the biomass industry. Even the biomass association president admits biomass is only viable with tax breaks and government subsidies. TCL&P literature says “hauling away waste wood makes for a healthier forest” with no citations (and no truth!). TCL&P’s lists five different fuel sources in its brochure, yet doesn’t mention standing timber. That’s “flat-out dishonest,” according to forest ecologist Marvin Roberson. Ash is toxic, and includes arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and mercury. (Source: Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, Volume 25, Issue 5)
* “Replacing fossil fuels with bioenergy does not by itself reduce carbon emissions because the carbon dioxide released by tailpipes and smokestacks is roughly the same per unit of energy regardless of the source. If unproductive land supports fast-growing grasses for bioenergy, or if forestry improvements increase tree growth rates, the additional carbon absorbed offsets emissions when burned for energy. However, harvesting existing forests for electricity adds net carbon to the air. That remains true even if limited harvest rates leave the carbon stocks of regrowing forests unchanged, because those stocks would otherwise increase and contribute to the terrestrial carbon sink.” Science, October 23, 2009.
** Source: U.S. EPA , Vol. 74, No. 78 / Friday, April 24, 2009, http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-9339.pdf
Send a Press Release
