Tag Archives: green
Berlin Biomass Plant Gets First Wood Delivery
Published Date: Tuesday, 27 August 2013 By Barbara Tetreault BERLIN — The Burgess BioPower plant hit a new milestone last week with the first delivery of wood as the facility advances through its testing and commissioning stage. Cate Street Capital vice president Alexandra Ritchie said the 75-megawatt biomass plant is scheduled to come on-line by the end of the year. Part of the wood processing structure for the Burgess BioPower biomass plant is this steel A-frame conveyor that sits about 60 feet high. Burgess BioPower has a 20-year purchase power agreement with Public Service of New Hampshire. Last Wednesday there were 398 people employed on site, down from the over 500 employed during the peak of construction. Ritchie said the construction phase is winding down as Cate Street hopes to get the plant operating by late November. She said the construction phase originally was projected to take 25.5 months but will probably end up taking closer to 27 months. On hand to witness the wood delivery were the state’s top energy officials participating in a tour arranged by state Senator Jeff Woodburn. Meredith Hatfield, director of the state Office of Energy Planning, Karen Cramton, deputy director of OEP, and Molly Connors, Gov. Maggie Hassan’s energy adviser along with Rob Riley and Jessica O’Hare of the Northern Forest Center spent about an hour walking the site and climbing to the top of the overhead conveyor for the plant’s wood handling system. Ritchie said the project has already had a significant impact on the local economy. She said the unions involved have worked hard to hire local people for the project. Site manager Carl Belanger estimated as many as half those hired were from the North Country. In addition, Ritchie said local hotels and food establishments have benefited from workers brought into the area to work on the project. Once the plant is operating, it will employ 30 to 40 people. Ritchie said Delta Power Services, which will operate and maintain the biomass plant under a six-year contract with Cate Street Capital, has already hired the majority of those full-time employees. Training for new employees is being done at White Mountains Community College. Beyond those hired directly, she said the project should stimulate hundreds of jobs in the wood products industry through the purchase of 750,000 tons of biomass annually. Ritchie said Cate Street Capital has a 20-year agreement to sell the power generated the plant to Public Service of N.H. which should provide security to logging contractors. Ritchie told the group the biomass plant is Cate Street Capital’s flagship project. “It is a project we are very proud of because of what it means to the area,” she said. Belanger explained the wood processing system for the plant. Truck dumpsters tilt the logging trucks and dump the biomass onto a reclaim conveyor, which transports the wood into the wood processing structure where it is screened and ground. The ground biomass is then fed into an A-frame conveyor that moves back and forth, depositing the wood in a pile under the conveyor. Under conveyors feed the biomass into a transfer conveyor that goes into the main boiler feed conveyor. The tour also went into the turbine building where the 265,000-pound turbine is housed. Ritchie called the turbine the most critical part of the facility and reported that Cate Street Capital actually ordered the turbine before it had final approval for the project because of the lead time involved. The turbine was built in Japan by Fiji and its delivery to Berlin last December was a major undertaking. Belanger also pointed out the bag house — called that because it contains 4,000 filter bags that screen out dust and particulates. A catalyst removes nitric oxide gas. A cooling tower cools the water from the turbine to allow its reuse. The plant will pull water from the city’s system to replace that lost in vaporization. Paving is under way at the site, and Ritchie said Cate Street Capital will also put in a community parking lot near Community Field as part of the public benefit of the project. The highpoint of the tour was to watch the first wood delivery. A load of wood chips harvested at a site in Canaan, Vt., was delivered by Hicks Logging of Jefferson. As the truck dumpster tilted the logging truck, biomass workers could be seen taking pictures of the wood chips emptying out. Continue reading
New Sustainability Hoops To Jump Through For UK Biomass
Posted on 23 August 2013 by Vicky Ellis http://www.energyliv…h=250&zc=1&q=90 Biomass firms will face new hoops to jump through under government plans to make sure the fuel is sustainable. From April 2015, biomass-fuelled generators which don’t hit targets – such as how much carbon can be emitted and whether enough trees have been planted to replace those used as fuel – could lose financial support. The UK industry is worth more than £1billion in new investment and supports over 3,000 jobs, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Another new requirement will mean generators with 1MW worth of capacity and more must provide an independent sustainability audit with their annual sustainability report. The UK biomass sector has fielded criticism from some for being too opaque with questions asked about the source of wood chips and pellets and where wood will have to come from if the industry grows. Environmentalists fear deforestation in endangered forest areas around the world could be the disastrous result of a badly managed biomass supply chain. The Government is clearly hoping to silence such criticism for good. It says the “tough new criteria” for sustainable forest management will mean it won’t have to change the rules until April 2027. Ministers believe this will encourage the industry to continue to take root in UK. Announcing the change yesterday, Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: “The new criteria will provide the necessary investor certainty and, crucially, ensure that the biomass is delivered in a transparent and sustainable way.” Large and small energy generators are split into two categories in the new biomass regime. For larger generators of 1MW and above, which covers around 98% of biomass power in the UK, by 2020 for every megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity they produce they must only emit 200 kilos of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) a year. Government says this is a 72% saving compared to the EU fossil fuel electricity average. This drops further to a 180 kilos of CO2eq for each MWh from 2025. As for the other 2% of generators – those with a capacity between 50kW and 1MW – they will have to report against the criteria but not to comply with it. The smallest biomass generators – those under 50kW, known as microgeneration -are not included in the scope. Continue reading
Wood Biomass An Untapped Resource, Climate Group Says
University of Northern British Columbia president George Iwama in front of the Nexterra biomass gasification system installed at UNBC, which is designed to replace 85 per cent of the natural gas consumed on campus. Waste wood from logging and forest fire mitigation could replace 30 to 50 per cent of the fossil fuel used in B.C. and significantly reduce carbon emissions for heating buildings and water, a new study says. Biomass that is routinely collected and burned in the name of forest management around B.C.’s small and remote towns could generate clean energy at a lower cost than fossil fuels, according to a new white paper from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. Dozens of First Nations communities are not on B.C.’s natural gas or electric grids, but may be surrounded by forests that could supply them with affordable energy, said study co-author Dale Littlejohn. PICS has created a new online assessment tool that will allow communities to quickly determine whether their local environment can produce enough biomass sustainably to fuel such a system. Even forests that are not being logged or thinned for fire prevention can be managed for the purpose of harvesting biomass for energy. Trees killed by pine beetle are also a potential fuel source. “We have a huge amount of waste biomass in B.C.” said Littlejohn. “There is huge potential at a building scale and a district energy scale.” District energy systems supply heat to entire communities — from clusters of commercial buildings to schools, prisons and hospitals — usually through underground pipes. At least half a dozen biomass generators are already in operation at the University of B.C., the University of Northern B.C. and in small towns such as Enderby and Quesnel. The biomass system at UNBC in Prince George is designed to replace 85 per cent of the natural gas consumed on campus. The technology is already well established in Europe, where most of B.C.’s pelletized waste wood is shipped as fuel, Littlejohn said. The PICS screening tool — called the Fire Interface Rural Screening Tool for Heating, or FIRST Heat — uses detailed information about the composition of the forest and estimates the amount of biomass that could be harvested through forest fire risk management without compromising the long-term viability of the ecosystem and the soil, which is usually replenished by wood waste and naturally occurring forest fires. The resulting data, along with information about the capital costs of generators and district heating systems, are used to calculate potential energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions compared with using conventional fossil fuels to heat space and water. The paper predicts local energy systems will create jobs in the forestry, transportation and service sectors and keep money spent on energy from flowing out of the local economy. “This is a great way to leverage a resource that is all around us and this biomass is going to burned one way or another,” said Littlejohn. “At least [biomass generators] reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and keep that money in the community.” Cases studies conducted by PICS found that Sicamous could reduce annual energy costs by up to $2.3 million and GHG emissions by up to 10,895 tonnes using biomass harvested from 70,963 hectares of mature local forest. On the other hand, the case for profitably managing young forests around Burns Lake was marginal due to lower biomass estimates. rshore@vancouversun.com Blog: vancouversun.com/greenman Podcast: vancouversunpodcasts.com/category/green-man Read more: http://www.vancouver…l#ixzz2dMCpI8se Continue reading
