Let the chips fly

June 8, 2008

As in all things, the devil is in the details.
That’s the case with a wood-fired power plant proposed for an old potato field in Kalkaska County -- a rural area that has seen a big depletion of gas and oil production.
The plan, developed by a Traverse City company called Rapid River Renewable Energy, comes at a time when everyone is talking about the shortage of fuel.
Environmentalists, such as Bob Russell, one of the area’s most outspoken critics, says he has a good opinion about the 36-megawatt power plant that will burn wood chips to generate electricity. The produced electricity could provide up to 30,000 homes with electricity.
“It’s an opportunity to site local production energy, which we need to think about,” Russell said. “And using wood waste products is a good option. We shouldn’t cut forests for it, but if the forests are sustainably harvested for the limbs and brush that can be burned, it’s a good option. We just need to define the parameters to make sure it is waste wood.”
Jim Cooper also believes biomass plants are great. He is an employee of Traverse City Light and Power and was part of an entourage that toured Europe a few years ago to study alternative energy.
Cooper said he saw quite a few biomass plants in Europe, the smallest supplying 1,800 homes with energy, the largest at 100 megawatts, supplying 80,000 homes.
“They put hot water into the ground and supplied hot water to everyone’s house. No one had a furnace anymore, same with a hot water heater. It would be great to do the same thing at NMC and the Traverse City high school, or over at Building 50 at the Grand Traverse Commons. The only problem with that site is you’d have to tear up the streets to put in the tunnels. There’s a big price tag on it, it would be expensive, but it’s doable.”
Biomass plants emit carbon dioxide, but some argue it’s “carbon neutral” since decaying trees also emit carbon dioxide over time, and also because trees grab carbon dioxide from the air to grow.

CRITICS & CONCERNS
Now for the devilish details.
Overall, the majority of those speaking at public hearings have supported the plan, in part, because the plant will hire 30 people. The company also claims it will generate another 300 jobs or so, including truckers, construction workers, and wood suppliers. But there are concerns.
Martin Ellis, who lives a mile north of the proposed site, said that he’s worried about water depletion. The company plans to draw up to 500 gallons per minute from a deep aquifer of 200 feet.
Ben Brower, the company’s project manager, said the company did a study of wells nine square miles around the site and said most existing water wells are between 40 and 80 feet deep, a few are over 100 feet, and two wells were more than 200 feet and more than a mile from the plant.
Ellis, however, remains skeptical: “How can you take 500 gallons a minute out of the ground and not have it affect the groundwater?” he asked.
Ellis’ bigger concern is how the plant is going to find enough wood chips and scrap wood -- 1,200 tons a day -- to burn. Because of high gasoline costs -- there’s that again -- it only makes economic sense to transport wood in a 50 to 75-mile radius. Ellis fears the plant might resort to burning tires or municipal waste, which would pollute the air. He has also heard that wood suppliers to a sister Cadillac plant are so desperate for wood they are clear-cutting forests, chipping the wood, and then delivering it to the plant.
The Cadillac plant, Cadillac Renewable Energy, has a myriad of suppliers, and is tightly regulated by the state Department of Natural Resources to burn wood only. The wood can only come in the form of wood chips or wood scraps picked up from the woods, but the plant doesn’t know whether suppliers are clear cutting forests to make the scrap wood or wood chips, said an employee, who declined to be identified.
Mike Moran, another neighbor, also wonders about the supply of wood.
“Within a 75-mile radius of the proposed plant, there are four or five other wood-fired plants. One in McBain, one in Grayling, one in Cadillac, and one in Hillman near Alpena. They’ll all be competing for wood chips.
“The plants in McBain and Grayling make sense, because they have factories making wood products---fence posts, log cabin logs, particle board—and generate scrap wood. But this plant has nothing near it to generate wood.”
Brower countered that he has researched the wood supply and has talked to many woodcutters. “We feel there is plenty of wood. The Georgia Pacific plant (which made chip board) shut down in Gaylord, and it used multiple more times wood than we need. So all this wood that was being shipped there, isn’t being shipped anymore. We have tops being left out in the forests to rot. This is a good area. Now they’ll have a place to bring those tops.”
Moran, who once worked for Shell Oil, takes exception to the term carbon neutrality. “A dead tree decays back into the soil and not all the carbon even goes back into the atmosphere and years and years to do that. If you burn that tree, you will put it into the atmosphere as gas, as carbon dioxide, and it takes just an instant of time.”
He said the employment projections of the plant are questionable, especially the number of “related” jobs of 300.
Moran is also concerned that this is a clearly industrial use that‘s unsuited for an area dominated by fallow farm fields and sparsely dotted with homes. The company is not asking for re-zoning, but wants to add text to the existing agricultural and residential uses to allow the plant.
“This changes not only the possibility that the plant could go here, but any plant could go into an ag-res area in the whole county because they’re wanting to rewrite the entire ordinance,” Moran said.
“I have a lot of trouble with that because it’s inappropriate to put this sort of facility into a residential zone. First, there’s the idea that this is definitely a really, heavy industrial use with a 270-foot smokestack, heavy equipment, and a huge water withdrawal. Add to this their expressed desire to co-locate other industries there to benefit from the excess steam that the plant would generate. That makes great economic and environmental sense, but it opens the door to the creation of an intense industrial area in agricultural and residential zoning. If you read the Kalkaska zoning ordinance, they want to preserve as much residential and agricultural areas as they can.”
Moran feels it shouldn’t be approved for industrial use unless it is consistent with the master plan. The planning commission will decide that issue in concert with the Kalkaska County board of commissioners.

DESIRABLE SITE
Brower said that the plant will be sited on a 270-acre plot and take up about 40 acres. It also has an option to purchase 120 acres across the road, but the company hasn’t decided on specific plans for that parcel or if it’s even going to buy the property. Brower said he wants to take advantage of the heated water vapors, and is talking to other companies -- such as greenhouses or a wood-drying kiln -- to locate on the acreage.
Brower said the location on US-131 near Plum Valley Road is zoned commercial right along the highway edge. The site is very desirable for many reasons: it’s on a major highway, it’s close to railroad tracks, there’s a power line on which to load the electricity. There are also nearby oil reservoirs, which are no longer producing any oil. But there’s a potential to produce additional oil using pressurized carbon dioxide that would otherwise go up a stack and into the air, he said.
The company is considering alternative sites if the county does not grant zoning approval, Brower said.
The plant may have the ability to sequester the carbon dioxide into a pipeline and pump it into the reef. The pressure would ultimately force the oil to the surface.
“If it works, we’ll certainly attempt to use it, and if it doesn’t, we won’t. We cannot at this time make any commitments,” he said.
Moran said the problem with carbon sequestering is the technology currently doesn’t exist. “The latest estimate says it may take 15 years to perfect this technology and that’s with coal-fired plants. He’s telling us this to get us to settle down.
“I would also submit from my engineering background, in order to capture and compress the gas, it will bleed so much energy from what’s being generated, it would make it economically unviable.”
In response to pollutions about air quality, Brower also said the air quality is regulated by the DEQ and the company will be required to capture particulates before they go into the smokestack.