Bio Energy plans new wood plant (and NIMBYs object)

[jpak]

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080207/FRONTPAGE/802070407/0/NEWS05

After a six-year battle over Bio Energy's operations of its Hopkinton power plant, the company wants to tear the plant down and begin anew. In a proposal announced yesterday, Bio Energy said it hopes to build a new $60 million power plant on the same site.

The plant, which would burn clean wood chips, would be the second-largest biomass plant in the state, and the largest to burn only wood, company officials said.

The plan is still preliminary, and Bio Energy owner William Dell'Orfano said the first step will be to get the community on board. "If the town wants to work together, we'll go forward," he said. "We believe it's the highest and best use of the site and will probably generate the most revenue."

The plan has already drawn fire from two citizens groups that opposed Bio Energy in the past. "Towering smokestacks and boilers and billowing plumes of emissions are not consistent with the nature and character of our community and implicate serious issues associated with landowners' rights, health, safety and welfare," the board of REACH wrote in a letter to Hopkinton selectmen.

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[OwnedByFerrets]

1. I dont know the facts, but isnt this a step backwards....

how can tree growth keep pace with usage? An entire forest could be burned down in a very short period of time, couldnt it?

[sam sarrha]

4. this is exactly how the clear cutters got around restrictions to destroy th Amazon.. exactly the sam...

process..

[jpak]

5. Not a step backward - several large NH paper mills have closed recently

and they used far more wood each year than this plant.

The forests will be fine.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. NIMBYs? Like anti-nuclear NIMBYs?

Oh, wait, those aren't NIMBYs, they're courageous revolutionaries for a gentle technology.

I regret the error.

--p!

[sam sarrha]

3. wood chips... from trees, free from clear cut public land.. that tie up carbon. released when burned

and they prevent erosion, agricultural Hemp can replace fiber mined off public land.

i am sure the plant will be built on our taxes, supported by material stolen from public land. when i was in WA they auctioned trees off public land, the state had to pay for the environmental impact, survey and build the roads into the cut sites.. at a cost of $1 billion dollars to to the state annually.. the lumber corporations got a free ride,

Weyerhauser told Quilcene WA they would hire 650 people, lie after lie, they hired 6 people, brought in their own crews. thew clear cut steep mountain sides in violation of the contract, the erosion filled the river thru town to the banks, washing away half the little town, the bridge washed out, you had to drive 8 miles around to cross the street downtown, half the town was isolated. there have been repeated floods.. it will only get worse.

[BearSquirrel2]

6. We need to stop thinking monolithically ...

Everyone keeps looking for THE holy grail that will replace oil. The truth is that our energy market is already diversified with natural gas, coal, hydro-electric and nuclear. What we need to do is add alternatives to the mix where and when they are appropriate.

There is no ONE grail, there are graillettes ..

a) Solar, where solar makes sense. Desert landscapes with lots of sun. Don't cut down a single tree for solar. City Skyscrapers with lots of expose surfaces make great places for solar panels. So do residential rooftops where there are no significant serious tree cover. The roofs of buildings with large footprints (like schools and factories) would make excellent solar power plants.

Solar panels take a long time to pay off. But subsidization can lead to higher production runs which reduce the costs of manufacturing. It also sparks private investment in solar research which could pave the way for cheaper, higher yield panels.

b) Wind. These will also take quite a bit of time to pay off. Then again, so did the Hoover dam. Again the more you produce, the more people learn and the lower the manufacturing and deployment costs get.

c) Biodiesel. It think it's becoming clear now that corn makes lousy biodiesel base. Instead the technologies to convert woody pulps are more effective as they are already natural waste products and plants like HEMP are easy to grow and will produce a better yield with multiple seasons in a single year. It doesn't require clearing as you could grow HEMP up in the great plains where grasses currently grow. Effectively, there just organic solar collectors.

Sugar Cain is also a great biodiesel raw material. But it's cost inefficient in the US, so we're out of that game. Oh well.

d) Chemical coal. Extract the energy from coal without the carbon. Then burn the extract.

e) Chemical scrubbers on coal plants. Come on, just install the scrubbers and get it over with. We have to utilize our existing infrastructure and allow "alternatives" to facilitate growth.

f) Tidal - good things can come from tidal power generation.

g) Reprocessed nuclear - that nuclear waste is still kinda good. Don't waste it. Reprocess it into more nuclear fuel. You'll end up with less waste to store.


If there is one single "fuel grail" it would be nuclear fusion. But that's kinda bogged down as no one can sustain a reaction. You're quite literally trying to build a miniature sun. We can only hope.

It's naive to believe we're going to "replace" fossil fuels anytime soon. But we can facilitate growth with alternative fuels that actually yield energy. Wind, Solar, Bio-Diesel all have their places.