Tag: fuel

Biomass Power’s Footprint (Part 2)

  • The future site of Russell Biomass Power Plant is already used as storage space for chips that are sold to another biomass operation.(Photo courtesy of Shawn Allee)

Biomass power is the new-fangled alternative energy source that uses a pretty old technology: basically, you just burn plants, usually wood, for electrical power.

Many states are looking into biomass power because they have plenty of wood and sometimes wind or solar farms meet resistance from neighbors.

For a while, Massachussetts looked like it would give biomass power a big boost.
Shawn Allee found the state could change its mind:

Transcript

Biomass power is the new-fangled alternative energy source that uses a pretty old technology: basically, you just burn plants, usually wood, for electrical power.

Many states are looking into biomass power because they have plenty of wood and sometimes wind or solar farms meet resistance from neighbors.

For a while, Massachussetts looked like it would give biomass power a big boost.
Shawn Allee found the state could change its mind.

A guy named John Bos gives me a tour of an old lumber mill.

It’s in Western Massachussetts, in a town called Russell.
The mill’s almost in ruins.

“So you can see this … it looks like movie set out of a bad , bad-guy movie.”

“Definitely. Watch your footing there .. ”

This factory used to turn wood into lumber, charcoal and paper.

Bos’ brother and other investors want to give the place a new life … but wood will still play a key role.

“We are walking into the site of what will be Russell Biomass.”

The Russell biomass plant would be a power station that burns wood to generate electricity.

It’d burn through half a million tons of wood each year.

And if you think that’s a lot of trees going up in smoke, Bos says the plant will use mostly waste wood.

“Our wood will come from discarded pallets, stump removal from development. Road side trimming. Every year there’s road-side trimming to keep utility lines clear. There’s a lot of waste wood out there.”

This is controversial talk in Western Massachussetts.

Critics of biomass power don’t trust the idea that local supplies of “waste wood” will hold out since investors are planning five biomass power plants.

Chris Matera is one critic.
Matera shows me what he fears could happen if projects like Russell Biomass come through.

He takes me to forest that surrounds a long, thin reservoir.

The forest filters rainwater and keeps the reservoir clean and clear.
The reservoir happens to supply water to the Boston metro area.
Anyway, Matera shows me there’s logging here.

“We’re looking at big stumps and rutted out muddy areas on a steep slope that actually dr ain into the watershed eventually. It’s not gonna help the water quality. This is a place you’re not even allowed to cross-country ski to protect the watershed. A lot of places you’re not even allowed to hike.”

These trees were NOT cut for biomass power, but Matera fears new biomass plants will use up cheap waste wood …
Then, they’d resort to logging like this to keep producing electricity.
And the water quality in reservoirs, streams and rivers would suffer.

There’s been plenty of heat between biomass proponents and their critics.

One sticking point is whether Massachussetts should subsidize biomass power in the same way it does other renewable power sources, like wind and solar.

The state hired an outside consulting group called Manomet to help it decide.

“We’ve been asked by the state of Massachusetts to answer some basic fundamental questions about woody biomass energy.”

John Hagan is Manomet’s president.
Hagan’s supposed to answer whether there’s enough waste wood or any kind of wood to supply biomass plants planned for Massachussetts.

He says his group’s not entirely finished, but …

“I think if four, fifty megawatt plants went in, they’d almost certainly have to pull wood from beyond the boundaries of the State of Massachusetts.”

Hagan says this doesn’t necessarily mean forests in the state will suffer … his group’s not finished with its report, after all.

But he thinks it’s good Massaschussetts is questioning whether biomass deserves extra financial help.

Hagan says states are subsidizing biomass without thinking through all the effects … not just on local jobs … but also forests, and local air and water pollution.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Is Wood Biomass Just Blowing Smoke? (Part 1)

  • President of Manomet consulting group John Hagan says the bottom line is that biomass can be carbon neutral ... if subsidies and policies are precise.(Photo courtesy of Shawn Allee)

State governments often mandate power companies to buy alternative energy.
They figure it’s worth having everyone buck up and pay extra since these don’t contribute carbon dioxide emissions that change the climate.But what energy sources should make the cut?
Shawn Allee found one is getting lots of scrutiny.

Transcript

State governments often mandate power companies to buy alternative energy.
They figure it’s worth having everyone buck up and pay extra since these don’t contribute carbon dioxide emissions that change the climate.

But what energy sources should make the cut?

Shawn Allee found one is getting lots of scrutiny.

Bob Cleaves heads up the Biomass Power Association.

He spends a lot of time pitching the idea that electricity made by burning wood is worth government help.
After all, he can’t sell the idea of biomass on price.

Electricity generated from wood had to compete with coal and natural gas and it became very difficult to operate these plants on a profitable basis.

Cleaves says other alternative energy sources are expensive, too, but biomass has extra benefits …
He says try running solar panels at night – biomass power plants run 24-7.

But Cleaves admits he’s got explaining to do when it comes to carbon emissions.

You know, from burning wood.

when you burn something you release CO2 …

For years, Cleaves could follow-up with a simple argument.

He’d just run through the carbon cycle idea you might recall from high school.

You know, you burn trees.
That releases CO2.
Then, as trees re-grow, they absorb that same carbon again …

These are carbons that are recycled into the environment in a closed-loop fashion.

This argument often won out.
Many states give biomass from wood subsidies, since they considered it carbon neutral.

The US House came close to doing the same thing last year.

But lately, biomass’ rep got into trouble.

Well, the carbon issue came up in the fall as a result of an article published in Science magazine.

The title of the article was “Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error.”
It challenged the idea that biomass power from wood or anything else is always carbon neutral.

Critics now use the article’s arguments against biomass subsidies.

“This policy is intended to reduce carbon emissions and it’s doing the exact opposite.”

This is Jana Chicoine, an anti-biomass activist from Massachussetts.

She says, sure, trees you cut for power now will grow back and then re-absorb carbon.

But not soon.

“It will create a pulse of carbon emissions that will spike for decades. Policy makers are telling us we are in a carbon crisis and that we have to reduce carbon emissions now.”

So, Chicoine says it makes no sense to subsidize biomass technology.

It’s going to harm public policy on clean energy. Those funds should be going to the truly valuable contributors to the energy problem like wind and solar, conservation and efficiency.

Well, Chicoine and other biomass critics won a temporary victory in Massachusetts.

The state was leaning toward subsidizing biomass power, but it held off a final decision.

It’s waiting for advice from an environmental consulting group called Manomet.

President John Hagan says people expect a simple answer: would a biomass industry in Massachusetts be carbon neutral or not?

“The last thing you want to hear a scientist say is, it’s complicated, but I’m afraid it is in this case.”

The latest research suggests some biomass power operations can be carbon neutral while others won’t be.

The best operations would use tree trimmings or waste wood like sawdust. That keeps more trees in the ground … absorbing carbon.

Biomass power plants prefer to use waste wood anyway, since it’s cheap.
But Hagan says maybe more biomass plants will all chase the same scrap wood.

Prices will rise … and suddenly standing trees start looking cheaper.

It’s like a puzzle, when you push on one piece, eighteen other things move.

Hagan says the bottom line is that biomass can be carbon neutral … if subsidies and policies are precise.
He says policies should work like scalpels.

But often, they’re simple … and work more like big axes.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Energy Legislation Breeding Bipartisanship?

  • Representatives from both sides of the aisle are beginning to find some common ground on energy policy. (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)

Members of Congress from fossil fuel states want to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. Lester Graham reports
– it’s one of the few bi-partisan efforts in Washington, but it’s not the only one:

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Biodiesel Gets Lost in the Shuffle

  • Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that isn't getting much love from Congress. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Biofuels made from corn and soybeans have been bi-partisan political favorites in Washington for years, but Shawn Allee reports, one biofuel’s in political trouble right now:

Transcript

Biofuels made from corn and soybeans have been bi-partisan political favorites in Washington for years, but Shawn Allee reports, one biofuel’s in political trouble right now.

Biodiesel’s made from soybean oil.
It usually gets a one-dollar per gallon federal tax credit, but that expired in December.
Since then, biodiesel makers have been laying off workers.
Alan Yoder manages Iowa Renewable Energy.
Yoder says he’s puzzled Congress has not renewed the biodiesel tax credit especially since other alternative energy sources still get help:

“A lot of alternative fuel projects they’re talking about are really still in the research stage. Biodiesel is on main street. It’s working and there’s production, there’s people using it, people employed. This is big stuff.”

A biodiesel trade group claims the industry’s laid off 22,000 workers.

Congressional aides say there’s support for renewing the biodiesel tax credit, but it got lost in the shuffle during debates on health care and new stimulus spending.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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No Tax Credit for Biomass

  • Biomass power is produced from organic waste such as wood chips or grass. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

When Congress approved production
tax credits for renewable energy,
not every industry got the same
treatment. Lester Graham reports
biomass power is not getting the
subsidies that other alternative
energy sources get:

Transcript

When Congress approved production
tax credits for renewable energy,
not every industry got the same
treatment. Lester Graham reports
biomass power is not getting the
subsidies that other alternative
energy sources get:

Biomass power – produced from organic waste such as wood chips, grass or stuff that would otherwise just be thrown away – got half the tax credit that wind and solar did. And, instead of the tax credit lasting ten years like the other renewable energy sectors, biomass power got five years.

Bob Cleaves is the president of the Biomass Power Association. He says that tax credit for biomass is now gone.

“And our industry, frankly, is in crisis at the moment because Congress has let expire existing production tax credits we were only given five years for and if those are not brought back to life, then I’m afraid we’re not going to be growing the baseline, we’re going to be losing the baseline.”

Cleaves says without the tax credit, some states will be at a disadvantage in meeting the federal government’s requirments for more electricity to come from renewable energy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Biofuels in Europe: Part 3

  • Jühnde’s biomass power plant runs 24/7 and gets fed manure and grains every day. (Photo by Sadie Babits)

People fed up with hearing
about an energy crisis talk
about going off the grid.
In the US, the solution is
to install solar panels on
your roof or put up a wind
turbine. But a village in
Germany has taken a different
approach. In the final part
of our three-part series on
biofuels in Europe, Sadie
Babits explains:

Transcript

People fed up with hearing
about an energy crisis talk
about going off the grid.
In the US, the solution is
to install solar panels on
your roof or put up a wind
turbine. But a village in
Germany has taken a different
approach. In the final part
of our three-part series on
biofuels in Europe, Sadie
Babits explains:

The village of Juhnde sits between rolling farmland and woods. The first buildings went up more than a thousand years ago. It looks like a lot of German villages – narrow streets, terra cotta roofs, and a towering church steeple. But talk to anyone here and they’ll tell you Juhnde is no ordinary town. It’s the first community in Germany to be powered and heated by cow manure and grain.

“This is the biogas power station on this side.“

That’s Gerd Paffenholz. He’s lived here in Juhnde for 20 years. He volunteers to show visitors, like me, the village’s bio-energy plant.

“This is the wood heating system and what you don’t see is the network that deliver the hot water in the ground.”

Paffenholz stands on top of an underground storage tank. The liquid manure in here gets pumped over to a massive green tank. That’s the anerobic digester. There, micro-organisms have a hay day eating manure and grains supplied by farmers in Juhnde. The bacteria create biogas, which then gets combusted into heat and electricity. It’s pretty silent outside the power station but open the door…

(engine sound)

That’s the sound of 700 kilowatts of power being generated. The electricity gets sent to the public network. It provides this village of 750 people with renewable power. There’s an added bonus – energy that’s normally lost while making biogas gets captured and is used to heat water. That hot water gets delivered through a series of underground pipes to heat most of the homes in Juhnde.

The village’s bioenergy plant went live five years ago. The price tag? Nearly 8 million dollars. The money came through a government grant and from residents who each ponied up thousands of dollars to join the plant cooperative. The village has also cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half already meeting targets set by the European Union for 2050.

“It shows you what some wise investments and collective thinking can make happen.”

That’s Jim McMillan. He researches biofuels at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. He says Juhnde has created an attractive model that could work in the Northern US and Canada where people are more remote and winters are long and hard.

“It’s a good model but Europe, I mean, they’re built out much more than we are and they are doing a lot more in building. They’re density of building, the size of their square foot of their homes are much more right size and so these solutions are easier to implement there than they are here I mean we have a lot more big homes that require a lot more heat.”

Our attitudes are different too. It took several years to get Juhnde’s residents to buy into the idea of going off the grid but now most everyone is on board. Here in the U.S. we’re a lot more individualistic. But McMillan still sees a lot of promise in what Juhnde accomplished.

“So one village is a good example but we need to apply it across the board.”


Other villages in Germany are building bio energy plants. In the U.S. a few towns are attempting parts of Juhnde’s efforts. Reynolds, Indiana replaced the town’s vehicle fleet with cars and trucks that run on bio fuel. It’s now working with a company to turn algae into power. And in Grand Marais, Minnesota, they want to build a central heating system for the town that burns wood chips from the local saw mill.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Biofuels in Europe: Part 2

  • Erhard Thäle and his wife grow organic crops like corn, peas and rye in these fields. They’ve lost money the last three years. Thäle know wants to sell his crops for energy. (Photo by Sadie Babits)

Farmers are finding they can
make more money selling crops
for energy than for food. A third
of all corn grown in the US gets
turned into ethanol. It’s tough
to balance the need for energy
and food when millions around
the world die from starvation each
year. Still, farmers are reconsidering
their roles – including in Germany.
In the second part of our three-part
series on biofuels in Europe, Sadie
Babits meets with one German
farmer who wants to make the switch
and become an energy farmer:

Transcript

Farmers are finding they can
make more money selling crops
for energy than for food. A third
of all corn grown in the US gets
turned into ethanol. It’s tough
to balance the need for energy
and food when millions around
the world die from starvation each
year. Still, farmers are reconsidering
their roles – including in Germany.
In the second part of our three-part
series on biofuels in Europe, Sadie
Babits meets with one German
farmer who wants to make the switch
and become an energy farmer:

Erhard Thale jokes a lot about being an organic farmer. It’s about all he can do.

“He has like his corn harvest from two years ago is still lying down on his farm so it’s not sold on the market.”

It’s hard to imagine. We’re outside Ludwigsfelde not too far from Berlin. Thale’s land looks green and healthy – not bad for late fall. But looks can be deceiving. Thale says he’s lost money for the past three years. He blames his land and a volatile world market.

“Then My wife comes and asks, ‘where do we go from here? Piggybank is empty. Money gone.’”

Thale says he can make more money selling his organic corn and rye for energy instead of food. He’s not joking around. There’s a growing movement in Germany to get farmers like Thale to set some of their land aside to grow grains just for energy. There are now areas throughout the country developing so called “bio-energy regions.” The idea is that a community like Ludwigsfelde would produce its energy locally.

Farmers like Thale would sell their grains and manure to a regional bio-energy power plant. Those materials would get turned into green energy. The 20,000 residents who live here wouldn’t have to rely on fossil fuels and they’d cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. Sounds promising. But Thale says he’d build his own plant if he had three million dollars. Then he could keep all the profits from selling energy.

“He needs an uncle in the U.S. with two million euros.” (laughter)

Other farmers, though, are cashing in, finding money in, well, poop.

(sound of milking machine)

A cow chews her cud as an automatic machine does the milking. This milking parlor is part of an agricultural training center here in west central Germany. This is the greenest farm I’ve been on. There’s a bio-energy power plant. Wind turbines and solar arrays.

Klaus Wagner runs the center. He says this cow’s manure is more valuable than the milk.

“That can’t be.”

Wagner sees a growing rivalry between dairy farmers who want to sell milk and those who want to sell manure for biogas.

“I guess that the milk and energy production on the other side belongs together. And those farmers who built 3-4 years ago biogas plant they earn real money now. The biogas plant substitutes the milking production.”

It really comes down to a question of sustainability. How much land here in Germany and, for that matter, the U.S. should be set aside for making energy? It’s not an easy answer. In the long run, if farmers grow grains for energy instead of food, that will impact the food supply and eventually what we pay at the grocery store.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Biofuels in Europe: Part 1

  • The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's cellulosic ethanol plant. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

The US government is spending
millions of dollars to build bio-energy
plants. They’ll turn everything from
wood chips to algae into energy. But
these facilities are years behind what
they are already doing in Europe –
especially in Germany. In the first
part of our three-part series on biofuels
in Europe, Sadie Babits takes us to one
German plant that makes green energy
on a massive scale:

Transcript

The US government is spending
millions of dollars to build bio-energy
plants. They’ll turn everything from
wood chips to algae into energy. But
these facilities are years behind what
they are already doing in Europe –
especially in Germany. In the first
part of our three-part series on biofuels
in Europe, Sadie Babits takes us to one
German plant that makes green energy
on a massive scale:

We’re in Eastern Germany where crews work on what looks like brew vats.

(construction sound)

These monster tanks remind me of vats for brewing beer, except these vats will brew energy from fermenting rye, manure and bacteria.

“Basically, we’re standing here in front of the biogas and bio fertilizer production area. The big fermenter is for the biogas production.”

Oliver Lutke is our tour guide. He’s really a chemical engineer for Verbio. The company is one of Germany’s largest commercial producers of biofuels. Lutke’s been involved in turning this ethanol facility into a plant that makes ethanol and biogas. That’s methane.

“We convert everything into energy by using biological processes. This combination biogas and bioethanol production plant isn’t existing in the world.”

That’s what Verbio claims anyway. The company buys grain from some four-thousand farmers in the region. The grain gets turned into biogas and ethanol. Verbio then turns the minerals from making these biofuels into fertilizer.
That goes back to the farmers for their crops.

“We’re closing the loop to the farmer converting all the carbon to energy and the minerals going back to the farmers as fertilizer which is growing the plants used to extract the energy.”

Lutke says the company has the technology to make this industrial sized plant profitable. That baffles skeptics because it costs a lot to make green energy. You have to buy the grain. And the actual process of turning that grain into fuel can be really inefficient. By the time you’ve made one gallon of biofuel, that gallon of oil is cheaper.

Jan Liebetrau isn’t convinced Verbio has the answer. He researches bioenergy and its potential in Germany.

“If you put lots of energy into the system and you get bioethanol you’re putting more energy in than you get out.”

So making bio ethanol costs energy, which defeats the whole purpose of producing it in the first place. Lutke doesn’t see it that way. He says Verbio has the technology to make biofuels without losing energy. And because the company’s process is more efficient, Lutke says they’ve cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.

“We emit 200,000 tons and the plants we are using will eat off 180,000 tons and that’s a closed cycle.”

It’s not perfect, but there’s less greenhouse gas being released than, say, from an oil refinery. Lutke is convinced bio energy will play a big role in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Germany, and Europe for that matter, have become leaders on this. Germany wants to be the first industrialized nation to be powered entirely by renewable energy – a goal Germany could reach by 2050, well ahead of the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Squeezing More Oil Out of Soybeans

  • Recently, scientists completed a big-picture map of soy's basic genetic make-up. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

Bio-diesel is supposed to make
big-rigs and trucks run cleaner.
But to make enough biodiesel on
the cheap, we’ll need to get more
oil out of soybeans. Shawn Allee says we could be one step
closer to fixing that:

Transcript

Bio-diesel is supposed to make
big-rigs and trucks run cleaner.
But to make enough biodiesel on
the cheap, we’ll need to get more
oil out of soybeans. Shawn Allee says we could be one step
closer to fixing that:

Tom Clemente is a kind of true-believer in biodiesel. He studies plant biology at the University of Nebraska. Clemente says the problem is, we use pricey soy-bean oil to make biodiesel.

“The downside is there’s just not enough of the oil to really make a dent on petroleum.”

Clemente figures scientists can manipulate genes inside soy beans to boost oil content, but no one knew exactly where the genes are. Recently, though, scientists completed a big-picture map of soy’s basic genetic make-up. Clemente hopes that’ll speed up development of oily soy beans – just for biodiesel.

“Really getting a bio-based sustainable fuel from some sort of cropping system, the production’s going to have be really up there.”

Clemente hopes we get enough biodiesel to clean up the nation’s dirtiest vehicles, such as construction equipment and city buses.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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New White House Energy Plan

The White House is pushing
a new clean energy plan as
a way to deal with reducing
greenhouse gases. Mark Brush
reports this new plan might
help future climate legislation:

Transcript

The White House is pushing
a new clean energy plan as
a way to deal with reducing
greenhouse gases. Mark Brush
reports this new plan might
help future climate legislation:

The White House says this new energy plan is all about green jobs. There’s more money for so-called clean coal, and for biofuels, like ethanol.

The government had limited using corn for ethanol. The thinking was using food to make fuel was probably not such a great idea.

But the industry has not been able to move away from corn ethanol as quickly as hoped. So now the Administration is saying, corn ethanol can be okay – if the refineries are more efficient.

Lisa Jackson is the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

“So this really unlocks the door for advanced biofuel producers, including advanced corn ethanol producers, to make investments and create jobs.”

Allowing more corn to be used for ethanol and investing in new technologies to clean up coal could win the White House some support if and when a climate change bill comes up for a vote.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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