Starting a new Bio Mass Power Plant project..

Lance T · February 10, 2012, 11:56:30 AM

Just got up here to Cushing, Tx. This plant is huge. Ive worked on a few smaller scale bio mass but this one is massive. It has the worlds largest Metso boiler designed for wood burning. Ill be working on the start up and commissioning of the Mitsubishi 115 MW Steam Turbine. This one is going to be powered primarily by "purchase" wood where as the other that i worked on the owner used the slabs from all his sawmills, the town wood dump (on his property) and this huge bailer that is pulled thru clear cuts and bails up the scrap timber.

Anyways, its a pretty neat method of getting clean power. Its very expensive to get off the ground compared to natural gas but there are so many government subsidies it all works out in the end. Its a cool way of handling junk wood, not so much when you see a beautiful pine, oak or cypress being mulched up by the hogger tho lol.

SwampDonkey · February 10, 2012, 12:12:07 PM

With a brute that big, your going to need a mighty pile of wood. How far away from the plant are they expecting to get wood from?

Lance T · February 10, 2012, 01:36:22 PM

The main supplier of logs and slabs is going to be an hr away in Lufkin Tx. Its still a month or so away from actually putting a fire in the boiler. There was a huge load of pallets brought in the other day. Pretty neat to see them knawed up. But we dont have the magnets online yet to grab all the metal.

beenthere · February 10, 2012, 03:07:37 PM

We should take bets on the outcome. ;)

SPIKER · February 11, 2012, 04:51:55 PM

I spent a 6 or so months out in texas and dont know where they will get enough wood from long term. while there is wood & trees there just not all that much from what I remember to keep something like that going 24-7

mark

SwampDonkey · February 11, 2012, 05:04:06 PM

Just to give you an idea. They have a 45 MW plant in Fort Fairfield, Maine. It is fed primarily from low grade wood off New Brunswick public land (crown land) and there was a guy here chipping on private, but his share wasn't 5 % of the mix. From what I saw he sent everything and never sorted the higher grade wood. But to be fair here, he was mostly in young plantation and old overgrown pasture. He raised a lot of eye brows chipping 20-25 year old red pine plantations. He must be a real smoothy to convince someone to cut down their plantation trees. I saw many of the sites and they are left to their own devices. One mill owner was very vocal to condemn the guy.

Ron Wenrich · February 12, 2012, 06:10:36 AM

I sited one many years ago. It was a 21 meg plant and the trash steam was used in food processing. That's the only way we could make it go. If I recall, we needed 1,000 tons/yr of woodwaste per meg. Does that still sound right?

To keep costs low, they took in a mixture of sawdust and chips. That lowered the price of the biomass and expanded the supply. I figure they need about 850 loads a year or a little over 2.3 a day. They do no chipping or mulching on site. All biomass was primarily hardwood.

If those figures are still correct, then you're going to be looking at 12.5 trailerloads per day to fuel 115 meg. That's a lot of material.

I looked at some of the biomass in my area. But, a lot of it has disappeared. Mills have gone out of business, loggers have turned to other jobs, gas is cheap and easy to install, pellet mills have started to suck up sawdust at a much better price, and chips and pallets can be turned into mulch. Pallets never seemed to be a good resource.

Finding consistent producers is a major concern. When oil prices go up, the cost of chip production and transportation go up as well.

SwampDonkey · February 12, 2012, 07:00:06 AM

Boralex is a major independent power producer whose core business is the development and operation of power stations that generate renewable energy. Employing over 300 people, the Corporation operates 46 power stations with a total installed capacity of 700 megawatts ("MW") in Canada, in the North-eastern United States and in France. In addition, the Corporation has, alone or with its European and Canadian partners, power projects under development that will add almost 300 MW of power.

The plant at Fort Fairfield, ME was commissioned in 1987.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boralex

http://www.boralex.com/en/segments/thermal.aspx

http://www.epa.gov/region1/npdes/permits/2011/finalme0023329permit.pdf

Rocky_Ranger · February 12, 2012, 10:06:50 AM

"Certified" biomass energy, whatever that means, also gets a subsidy from the Government if they keep at least 90% green (or something to that effect - Renewable Energy Certificates). We have a plant here (24 megawatt) and it is making money and electricity. Usually about 10,000 acres of thinning material per year; can't remember but seems to be about 15 - 20 trailer loads/day. As long as they have material to burn they are making money. Helps us clean up logging debris too.

thecfarm · February 12, 2012, 01:32:20 PM

We have one about 15 minutes from me. Suppose to be similar to the one in Ashland. I don't know a thing about it.

SwampDonkey · February 12, 2012, 02:22:22 PM

Ashland has a Boralex plant. The largest thermoplant they have is down in Chateaugay, NY, 133 MW'er. Bigger than that Texas plant. Most of their wind farms are in France, most of their hydro is in NY.

VT_Forestry · February 13, 2012, 07:42:05 AM

I saw a wood to energy handout that states 1 megawatt per year equates to 5,300-7,000 dry tons of wood per year. They assume 50% moisture content when green, so anywhere from 10,600-14,000 green tons of wood per year per megawatt

A 115MW plant is chewing through 1.2-1.6 million tons of green material every year, meaning they need to run 134-176 tractor trailer loads (around 25 tons each here in the south) per day. That's a lotta wood

Magicman · February 13, 2012, 08:37:38 AM

I wonder why do we always think that Government Subsidies makes things cheaper to build and make it a bargain for our overall economy? I was at a presentation a couple of weeks ago when we were told about plans to build a couple of those bio mass plants here in Mississippi for only 500 million dollars. I guess that it will be a good thing for someone, maybe even me because I am a tree farmer.

doctorb · February 13, 2012, 09:44:13 AM

Is it possible someone could build such a plant without a firm understanding of how much fuel they need and a sustainable plan to get that fuel? Are they burning trash in addition to wood?

Buck · February 13, 2012, 10:51:36 AM

In our area there is much waste left behind in slash piles. I would hope this process could eliminate some of that. I bet young plantation will be targeted because it wont be cost effective to process logging type waste. I guess we'll see. :-\

VT_Forestry · February 13, 2012, 11:08:35 AM

Quote from: Buck on February 13, 2012, 10:51:36 AM
In our area there is much waste left behind in slash piles. I would hope this process could eliminate some of that. I bet young plantation will be targeted because it wont be cost effective to process logging type waste. I guess we'll see. :-\

My understanding is that logging slash and residues will make up a portion of the feedstock for a biomass plant. The remainder will potentially come from roundwood, which is a direct competition for pulp and paper mills. Of course the biomass plants can pay a little more due to the subsidies that MM mentioned earlier. Great for the landowner, but it should be interesting to see how this market works out...

beenthere · February 13, 2012, 11:46:06 AM

Hard to imagine that logging left-overs are going to be picked up manually, so need to think of machines to do it.
Deere has shown some advanced machines that take it in and bundle it like a round hay bale. But the logging conditions need to be fairly decent to operate such huge machines.

_____________________
Such a bio-plant was planned for Madison to replace a coal-fired electric generator. Coal just wasn't good enough - complaints of dirty coal being stored and on cold days there was "smoke" in the air (actually steam). Also complaints of numerous coal cars on the tracks moving coal into Madison from out west.

The bio plant was going to replace the coal plant. It was known that 7-8 times the volume of bio mass over coal would be necessary to run, which meant the train car traffic would be upped considerably. Truck traffic into downtown Madison would be a nightmare for sure, so it was planned based on rail movement.
To stock the supply of bio mass, large silos were planned (apparently building silos for the coal wasn't an option.
In addition, there was no bio mass supply within a couple hundred miles of Madison, but the apparent thought was "we will build it, the supply will come". Those advocating how great this will be to clean our forests and use our "waste" claim they are not going to impact on any solid wood material now used for sawlogs or pulp. Shows how naive they really are about bio mass supply.

Fortunately (IMO) our new Gov. Walker scuttled that bio plant along with high speed rail when he came into office. Saved the taxpayers a bundle of money, both state and Federal. It is sad, again in my opinion, that these plants can't fly without substantial Gov't support (not so bad if it was just start-up suckling support) and not weaning date in mind.
___________

The winners with these start-up operations are the engineering and construction firms that design, build, and operate them along with some short-term hiring of construction labor.
The losers are the public in the form of higher taxes, higher costs, and eventual replacement of something that works (like maybe nuclear power).

I'd like to think that bio mass is an answer, but cannot begin to understand how it is even remotely feasible. Those people looking for work (??) are not going to head for the woods and pick up brush.

SwampDonkey · February 13, 2012, 12:00:09 PM

Quote from: beenthere on February 13, 2012, 11:46:06 AM
Those people looking for work (??) are not going to head for the woods and pick up brush.

I had a guy working for me that thought that way only on small scale like for a house. I told him he was crazy to think someone would even have the time or the ambition to carry it out. He was full of pipe dreams and not a lot of common sense. Now if you have an operation where you have a lot of waste around and stay small scale it could work, if nothing else to use up the waste even if it was a supplemental operation. Most likely wouldn't be around the clock off the grid. ;)

doctorb · February 13, 2012, 12:10:51 PM

I just googled "wisconsin biomass power plant" and learned quite a bit. Two of their planned biomass plant projects have been nixed. Instead, both have been converted to natural gas. The reason given for the change to gas over biomass was cost. The specific breakdown of the costs were not provided, but what does it cost to haul all that wood, chips, corn stalks, etc. into town? The volume of material necessary to provide the energy, even if it's junk wood that will go to no other public use, is huge.

Magicman · February 13, 2012, 04:17:10 PM

Sorry, but I am too practical minded not to be skeptical. Sure, many construction jobs are being generated and that is good, but the actual working and payoff is my concern. Kinda like if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. :-\

Ron Wenrich · February 14, 2012, 05:14:36 AM

Quote from: doctorb on February 13, 2012, 09:44:13 AM
Is it possible someone could build such a plant without a firm understanding of how much fuel they need and a sustainable plan to get that fuel? Are they burning trash in addition to wood?

The plant I helped to site needed a resource analysis for the bank. I had to go through and find the number of mills and how much they produced and what was available. I also went and looked at the amount of material growing in an area with a 50 mile radius. How much of that would be available. I did not go to the extent of finding trash, logging debris, or urban debris. These forms are not a reliable source. Trash has its own problems with emissions. Too much plastic.

The problem with government subsidies is that eventually they go away. Then you have to operate the plant on its own economics. You need large contracts from producers, and you want a variety of contractors.

The economics also means you have to have a contract with the a power company. With deregulation, I believe it has helped you wheel the power. Something I didn't have back in the '80s. You had to sell to the local grid. In our case, we were competing against nuclear plants, culm plants, coal fired plants, hydro and oil plants. Those gas plants have brought down the cost of electric production and makes things more difficult for other types of fuel. We only survived because we had a secondary steam user.

The last time I checked with the local utility about biomass, they told me they had too much production capacity already. A lot of PA electricity gets wheeled out of the state.

Ianab · February 14, 2012, 06:20:53 AM

As an add-on to a large sawmill it can certainly work.
http://www.eeca.govt.nz/sites/all/files/waipa-cogen-case-study-july-2007.pdf

As a stand alone needing to buy all it's bio-mass on the open market?

You would want some firm contracts signed up to be growing some fast harvest hybrid poplars / pines / eucalypts etc on a large area of ground to ensure a fuel supply for the life of the plant.

Price of oil goes up, price of firewood goes up, suddenly those "rubbish" trees are worth more sawn up into cords for firewood. Not something I would be investing in?

Ian

Lance T · February 18, 2012, 11:12:38 AM

There is already a huge stockpile down the road from here starting to accumulate. It's about 2 acres already filled in with wood. They open this up to the public to discard branches, pallets and things like that where as before they had to pay the city dump to dispose of it. And speaking of cleaning the woods, I haven't seen the machine but the man who owns the bio mass in Lufkin Tx and all the sawmills around had a "balier" built that is pulled behind a dozer and it bales the unusable timber and tailings left in the landings and clear cuts into 1 ton squares. The boiler on this one is designed for maximum output being feed the equilivant of 15 trailer loads of pulp wood. I'm not sold on the "green" energy propaganda out here but this mill is being built and owner by Southern Power, one of the largest power generation suppliers. If there investing all this money there has to be a good payout at the end.

Magicman · February 18, 2012, 11:55:31 AM

Quote from: Lance T on February 18, 2012, 11:12:38 AM
If there investing all this money there has to be a good payout at the end.

Maybe not, because the money they are investing are our tax dollars. :-\

SwampDonkey · February 18, 2012, 12:42:08 PM

Our government pays Irving 7.5 cents a killowatt and Irving only has to pay 4 cents from NB Power. NB Power is a government corporation. Guess whose paying Irving's light bill then. >:(

The bums also don't pay distribution cost on natural gas. How can you loose if your in their shoes?

I should write Jim Irving for a Dividend cheque, but they are not a public traded company. :X