cleantech, energy, policy

Will Biomass Power the Utilities of the Near Future?

Tom Eckmann 12/17/08

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inexpensive to build, “clean” from an emissions perspective, produce about half the carbon versus coal, and are easy to site and construct. But we don’t have enough natural gas at an affordable price. In fact, we’re already importing tons of gas from Canada and Mexico and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from other nations. Unfortunately, we have to compete in the world market for this gas, and places like Japan and China are outbidding us, so the price will continue to rise.

Are Most Renewables Realistic?

In terms of renewables, wind is the most competitive, but it doesn’t blow where people live. And if it did, we wouldn’t put up with 300-foot-tall wind turbines all over our cities. Wind is also a distributed resource, meaning the power density is low. A typical coal plant produces 600 megawatts of power, and can produce nearly 5,000,000 megawatt-hours of energy per year. A wind farm that could produce that much energy would consist of 1,000 turbines! That many turbines requires about 24,000 acres of land area. This would likely be scattered over many wind farm locations of 20-100 turbines each. So, for wind to be developed aggressively, we need massive investment in transmission systems to get the energy to power grids. This all costs money—big money—which we may not have today.

Solar has similar intermittency issues, but at least it lends itself to installations right at point of use. This eliminates transmission investment, and reduces losses on the transmission and distribution systems. But it is very costly, and even though silicon panel manufacturing costs are falling rapidly with new manufacturing techniques, it will be a long time, if ever, before solar is less costly than gas-fired generation.

Helping the Utilities Sector

The bottom line favors biomass, because these solutions are clean, available, scalable, and inexpensive. It’s true that utility-scale biomass projects must be near large quantities of fuel source, because transportation costs rapidly overwhelm the ability to be price competitive if fuel is not nearby. But if they’re deployed wisely, biomass solutions could help the utilities industry provide more affordable power to business and residential customers while its crumbling and outdated 19th century power plant infrastructure is transformed. This should be welcome news for utilities, after more than a decade of cost-squeezing mergers and acquisitions and stifled rate increases mandated by rigorous regulators.

Another advantage from biomass deployment: cash-strapped utilities could free up funds to invest in helpful and effective energy efficiency and demand-response programs. These programs require enabling technologies like smart grids, which help connect customers to their individual energy loads and eliminate inefficiencies throughout the production and delivery of power and energy.

For some reason, though, government has been slow to act on biomass—even though the efficiencies, economies, and solid job growth it generates benefits and empowers financially beleaguered middle-class communities in the most important and essential ways.

A recent study from the U.S. departments of Energy and Agriculture asserts that biomass could displace 30 percent or more of our nation’s present petroleum consumption. “This projection,” says the report, “includes 52 million dry tons of fuel-wood harvested from forests, 145 million dry tons of residues from wood processing mills and pulp and paper mills, 47 million dry tons of urban wood residues including construction and demolition debris, 64 million dry tons of residues from logging and site clearing operations, and 60 million dry tons of biomass from fuel treatment operations to reduce fire hazards. All of these forest resources are sustainably available on an annual basis.”

The Critical Role of Government

But despite this encouraging analysis, the Federal government is currently offering a host of tax credits as incentives for solar- and wind-power adoption—but nothing to speak of for biomass. And, at the state level, subsidies and rebates are offered to help those who can’t afford rising fuel costs. In New York State, for example, the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) has recently been bolstered so that a family of four making up to $45,000 can now receive cold-weather fuel subsidies of anywhere from $585 to $800, an increase of about 8 percent over last year. Programs like this are helpful and well intentioned, but they are short-term band-aids, not the embedded long-term paradigm changes we need.

Our view is that serious and immediate attention must be paid to biomass. The utilities industry ought to consider embracing this cheap but effective fuel source on a large scale; and government should find ways to legislate public policy that gives this abundant and affordable energy alternative an opportunity to develop on a broad basis. The state of Maine is clearly trying to do just that. A recent report to the governor declared that wood-burning with modern equipment is good for the environment and that laws supporting this technology transformation need to be put in place.

If it’s given a chance, biomass will reward local economies by stimulating prosperity from coast to coast. Even more importantly, biomass has the potential to become a great unifier, pulling together the public, private and agricultural sectors along with urban and rural areas. We are struggling in uncharted economic and environmental territory today, and it’s clear that well-designed biomass solutions can help keep us grounded and moving forward as we navigate the unprecedented map of doubt and uncertainty that currently confronts us.

Tom Eckmann is chairman and CEO of Greenwood Technologies, a Bellevue, WA-based startup that develops clean-burning, alternative-fuel heating solutions. He was a vice president at Anova Electronics and Digital Systems International, and has started four companies.