The 4th Annual Commonwealth of Virginia Energy Symposium (COVES) will be held Oct. 7-8, 2009, at VMI in Lexington, VA. Check-in/Registration will be in Marshall Hall. Join energy professionals from the public and private sectors to exchange energy information and technologies and to build new and enhance existing partnerships.

VBEG & PPV will be hosting the Biomass Track at COVES, kicking off the festivities the evening before - Oct. 6 - with an informational session on forestry in Moody Hall: 7–8pm, Woody Biomass for Energy: Status of Emerging Issues
Dr. Janaki R.R. Alavalapati, Dept. Head, Forest Resources & Env’l Conservation, Virginia Tech

The biomass-centric programs are listed below:
Wed., Oct. 7
Session B 12:15 – 2:15 Technology: Maximizing the Impact of Available Resources

Moderator – John English, English Boilers; Presenters - Chris Lindsey, Antares, and Bradley Schneider, Biomass Gasificiation

Session C 4:00 – 5:15 pm Are Government Facilities in the Lead?

Moderator – Scott Klopfer, Virginia Tech; Presenters - Richard Bratcher, Longwood University, and Tom Inge, Ward Burton Foundation

Thurs., Oct. 8
Session D 10:30 – 11:45 am Financing Biomass Energy Today

Moderator – Dillon Franks, President, VBEG; Presenters - Brandon Ogilvie, Intrinergy, Inc., and Michael Schewel, McGuireWoods

For more details on these and other presentations at COVES, go to http://www.vmi.edu/show.aspx?tid=27297&id=40203&ekmensel=8f9c37c3_643_715_btnlink. You can register at that website.

VBEG member Curt Gleeson, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

“Virginians need electricity. We need a lot of it. In recent years the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s demand, for example, has increased more than twice the national average. Conservation and en ergy efficiency efforts continue to slow this trend, but are unlikely to be the entire solution.

“This is not just a problem, it is also an opportunity. We can use this need for electricity as a way to create jobs and investment in Virginia, and revitalize our rural communities.

“The solution is a series of regional, community-sized, biomass-powered facilities spread across the state. These plants would productively use both the electricity and heat they create through a technology called Combined Heat and Power (CHP).” … (Read the entire column on the RTD at the link above.)

To discuss this solution, the Community Power Initiative, we’ve set up a forum for it here.

The Roanoke Times recently printed this op-ed from VBEG member Al Weed:

“A new poll commissioned by the American Windpower Energy Association indicates that fully 75% of Americans support a mandatory renewable electricity standard. …

“The debate over a mandatory RES is in full throat today in Congress, and Rep. Rick Boucher, DAbingdon, is in a position to play a very constructive role. Yet he, like many of his Southern colleagues, is resisting the 25% goal. There are many reasons for this, but without doubt one reason is that renewable electricity will supplant the use of coal. …

“Coal, however, has been fading fast–even without carbon pricing that will make coal pay for the CO2 it emits as a greenhouse gas. Direct employment in coal mining in Virginia in 2007 was down to about 4,800. …

“What should be defended … is the right of these folks to have jobs and clean communities–and to have leaders who will spend more energy helping to build a future …

“We can learn from the experience in Virginia’s tobacco country. . . . Former tobacco farmers at least still have their land and will benefit from the coming biomass economy.”… (Click the link above to read the whole article on The Roanoke Times.)

Another interesting article published on Taiwan’s Taipei News website discussed landfill & solid waste electricity. According to that article,

“Advances in recycling have enabled all 24 trash incinerators around the country to double as biomass electricity plants, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) officials said yesterday, adding that the efficiency of these plants was expected to increase with time.”

Here in the US, however, there have been roadblocks put up for such aggressive use of our waste resources. Debates rage on, particularly in areas with multiple Superfund sites like Florida, over whether such incinerators should be allowed to continue operations and whether new ones should be permitted. A group called GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) has been spearheading local campaigns to go to zero-waste.

While I appreciate their arguments about hazardous waste handling, a ban on all incinerators effects more than just landfill trash and not all “waste” is created (un)equal. I fear that such arguments will keep viable biomass-to-power conversion out of the renewable energy considerations our administration is making. And, while zero-waste is an excellent goal for our future, we still have to decide what to do with the waste we’ve already generated for the past 100 years.

Posted by Kim Swanson to the VBEG group, the following article provides a good overview of the two competing fuel products made from biomass — fuel and electricity. The full article is at http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/22628/.

Technology Review
May 8, 2009

“A study published today in Science concludes that, on average, using biomass to produce electricity is 80 percent more efficient than transforming the biomass into biofuel. In addition, the electricity option would be twice as effective at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The results imply that investment in an ethanol infrastructure, even if based on more efficient cellulosic processes, may prove misguided. The study was done by a collaboration between researchers at Stanford University, the Carnegie Institute of Science, and the University of California, Merced.

“There’s also the potential, according to the study, of capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that use switchgrass, wood chips, and other biomass materials as fuel–an option that doesn’t exist for burning ethanol. Biomass, even though it releases CO2 when burned, overall produces less carbon dioxide than do fossil fuels because plants grown to replenish the resource are assumed to reabsorb those emissions. Capture those combustion emissions instead and sequester them underground, and it would “result in a carbon-negative energy source that removes CO2 from the atmosphere,” according to the study.” … (click the above link to finish the article).

As UC Prof. Elliot Campell notes, most studies don’t even account for “heat as a [usable] by-product, which would make the electricity pathway even more advantageous.”

One of the issues Public Policy Virginia has been looking into is credit for the thermal energy created in biomass electricity generation. Unlike solar and wind, biomass combustion, like coal, creates both heat and hot water, both of which can be transmitted in district energy installations over varying distances (depending on the technology used) to reliably heat homes and provide instant hot water. Those services make biomass combustion capable of 80-90% efficiency, as opposed to the 30-35% one gets from straight electricity generation from either biomass or coal. Such methods would displace a proportionately larger amount of fossil fuel currently consumed for those uses alone.

(Submitted by VBEG Member Tim O’Brien of Relevant Ideas)

Monumental changes in how energy will be generated in the United States have begun. On April 2, 2007, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the State of Massachusetts et al by finding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide, among other gases, in the transportation sector.

The State of Massachusetts, eleven other states, and several local governments and non-governmental organizations filed the case, Massachusetts vs. the Environmental Protection Agency. The petitioners sued the EPA for not regulating the emissions of four greenhouse gases, which included carbon dioxide in the transportation sector under the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act states in Section 202(a)(1) Title 42 U.S.C. § 7521(a)(1), “The Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” The petitioners claimed that global climate change was causing adverse effects to the state of Massachusetts, including sea-level rise caused by global warming.

The EPA argued that petitioners could not prove “standing” (locus standi) in this case. In order to participate in a case of this type a party must be able to demonstrate to the court that there is sufficient connection “to and harm” or standing from the action challenged. Simply stated, the petitioner must have something to lose in order to sue the other party. The Court ruled that petitioners did in fact have standing in challenging the EPA’s decision not to regulate greenhouse gases from the transportation sector.

The Court found that refusal to regulate carbon dioxide by the EPA led to “actual” and “imminent” harm to the state. Further, the ruling pointed out that “the harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized.” Finally, the Court acknowledged that the regulation of greenhouse gases from motor vehicles alone will not reverse global warming, it concluded that proper regulation could play a role in slowing or reducing warming.

This court decision has important and significant climate change policy implications for both short-and-long term, public policy decisions in the future. In the current political and legislative climate, this ruling opens the door to vast regulation of greenhouse gases. Recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said that he would like to pass a climate-change bill by the end of the summer 2009. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-California), said he would like to see legislation enacted May.

The President has called for a new economy, one based in “green energy” in the United States. In the unlikely event that the legislative approach fails, the Executive Branch could enforce new restrictions under the Clean Air Act. Either way, there is a fair amount of certainty that this Supreme Court ruling will serve as a call for comprehensive emissions legislation in the near future. Due to its biomass resources, which can provide a baseload energy substitute for coal where wind and solar cannot, Virginia is uniquely positioned to capitalize as a result of this one court decision.

One of the strongest weapons we have in the biomass arsenal is the overall benefits of burning biomass in place of coal. To wit: Biomass production for power destroys fewer forest lands, preserves biodiversity, provides a carbon neutral (or, depending on technology, carbon negative) source of power on existing technology, reduces total pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (not just carbon, but also mercury, sulphur and other toxic substances which find their way into the atmosphere and water due to coal extraction and combustion practices), and therefore improves not only our living environment but also human health impacts. $4 billion are spent annually on treating coal-related health issues in Kentucky alone. Imagine how many fewer millions would be spent on that if there was a serious investment in biomass for power, instead of coal for power.

And yet the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals still deems it appropriate to support the coal industry in this matter. Read the New York Times article here — http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/science/earth/14mountain.html — or the full court decision here — http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/071355.P.pdf.

From the Madison Daily Cardinal, http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/22010:

“Gov. Jim Doyle announced Friday the Charter Street Heating Plant will switch from burning coal to biomass, a significant step toward reducing emissions in Dane County and the state. UW-Madison operates the Charter Street plant, which was found in 2007 to have violated the Clean Air Act limits on emissions.” (Read the rest at the above link.)

I find it interesting that Wisconsin, which is not a coal state and thus has none of the negative environmental impacts from coal mining and production that our region suffers, can find the political will to make this move for the health benefit of its people, while we in the Appalachian areas, who are demonstrably more effected by coal pollution and possess significantly more biomass resources to replace coal can not.

What will it take to convince our Governor to do the same?

From Feb. 19, 2009, Wall Street Journal.

In the interest of leading people to great places for news updates on biofuel feedstocks, I recommend the following article from the Scientific American, Jan. 2008 edition on switchgrass for ethanol: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn.