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Plant Will Burn Trees to Generate Electricity

Posted on: Monday, 7 November 2005, 15:00 CST

By Howard Fischer, CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

CORRECTION RAN OCTOBER 20, 2005 A2

A story Tuesday on A1 stating that the Arizona Corporation Commission voted to require that 15 percent of electricity sold in the state come from renewable sources failed to state that no final vote has been taken on those rules.

U.S. guarantees loan for project near Snowflake

PHOENIX - Federal officials have agreed to guarantee a $16 million loan so a company can build a power plant in Northeastern Arizona to generate electricity by burning wood.

The funds will go toward construction of a 20-megawatt power plant near Snowflake that will be fueled, at least in part, with timber damaged in the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski fire.

Robert Worsley, owner of Snowflake White Mountain Power, acknowledged Monday that only about 400,000 tons of salvage from that blaze are available - enough for just four years. The balance will come from removal of live trees 16 inches or less in diameter as part of federal contracts to reduce timber around forest communities, and from fiber waste from an adjacent paper mill, he said.

The electricity generated by burning wood to create steam to drive the turbines will cost about 7.5 cents a kilowatt hour. That cost is higher than for nuclear, coal or the increasingly expensive natural gas that now fuels most power plants.

Worsley's company already has a deal with Arizona Public Service and the Salt River Project, the state's two largest electric utilities, to buy the power the plant should be producing steadily by 2008. Those companies, in turn, will pass on the higher cost to consumers to meet goals for increasing the amount of energy they obtain from renewable sources.

Environmentalists heard from

Three environmentalists questioned about the plant said they are comfortable with the use of smaller trees for producing biomass- fueled power. But they said they are opposed to the clearing of large trees or the practice of salvage logging, including that of trees burned in the 2002 fire.

The Rodeo-Chediski blaze, the state's largest fire on record, consumed 462,159 acres of national forest and White Mountain Apache land, and destroyed about 465 homes.

Todd Schulke, forest program director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said his organization supports cutting trees near communities to reduce fire danger and recycling the wood.

But Schulke's group has opposed the post-fire salvage operations, saying they would lead to erosion and help "invasive" plants get established.

The demand for biomass and other alternative energy sources is being pushed by a mandate approved by state utility regulators in August. By 2025, 15 percent of all electricity sold in Arizona must come from renewable sources. The Arizona Corporation Commission order, which governs investor-owned utilities like APS and Tucson Electric Power, permits the companies to charge residential customers an extra $2 a month to cover the higher costs.

Salt River Project, which is not subject to ACC regulation, has its own goal of 2 percent renewable energy by 2010, with higher costs added automatically to customers' bills.

EPA approval required

The only remaining impediment for the plant is approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The plant will be outfitted with pollution control equipment such as electrostatic precipitators, and no visible smoke will result from the burning process, Worsley said. The emissions that do occur will be far less significant than the smoke from a forest fire or a prescribed burn, he said.

"We're basically putting the fire that normally happens in the forest into a controlled environment," Worsley said.

Worsley is so confident of approval that he already has 75 employees cutting wood and stacking it in preparation for plant construction. The generator itself, he said, will employ between six and 10 people.

Thomas Dorr, undersecretary for rural development of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is guaranteeing the loan, said there is some risk that the plant - and the technology - may not work or may not prove economically feasible. But he said steps like this are necessary to see whether using wood does make sense.

He compared it to the government's underwriting of ethanol production even though the process of making ethanol initially consumed more energy than it created. Now, Dorr said, it takes only two-thirds of a British thermal unit - a measure of heat - to produce a Btu of ethanol.

Worsley said the technology of chopping wood into small pieces and using it to heat water isn't new.

"We are not pioneering something here," Worsley said. "This is simply a boiler. Instead of using coal to create the heat you're using wood chips."

No plans for larger trees

Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter said her main concern is that the new plant focus mainly on small trees.

"Everyone talks about small-diameter trees, but the price you inevitably pay for this is you get big trees cut, too," she said.

Scott Higginson, executive vice president of NZ Legacy, parent company of Snowflake White Mountain Power, said there are no plans to seek permission to cut larger trees for electric generation. Higginson said he assumes there will be future forest-thinning projects - and future fires - which should provide enough fuel for the plant.

Anyway, Higginson said, those larger trees are commercially marketable for lumber production - and his company already has won a bid to cut some.

* Star reporter Tony Davis contributed to this story.

Source: Arizona Daily Star

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