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Nation's Largest Biomass Power Plant Starts Up
Southern Company reports that the nation’s largest biomass power plant is putting electricity on the grid in Texas. Southern Company President, Chairman and CEO Thomas Fanning joined state and local dignitaries at the company’s Nacogdoches Generating Facility in mid July to mark commercial operation for the 100 MW facility. Austin Energy is receiving energy from the plant through a 20-year power purchase agreement.
“Today we recognize Southern Company’s on-time, on-budget completion of the nation’s largest biomass-fueled power plant,” Fanning said. The Texas biomass plant joins Southern Company’s growing portfolio of clean alternative energy.
For the local community, the Nacogdoches Generating Facility represents a capital investment of about a half-billion dollars. The facility will deliver $58 million in taxes to the county over a 20-year period and direct and indirect job impact of approximately $5.1 million per year. The plant created more than 1,000 craft jobs at the height of construction and is providing 40 permanent positions. Additionally, some 100 service contracts have been created for operating and maintaining the plant and another 25 for fuel supplies.
The plant, which occupies a 165 acre tract in northeast Texas near Sacul, will be fueled by wood waste. This is a combination of wood-based biomass fuels consisting primarily of sawmill or other wood mill production waste, forest waste, pre-commercial thinnings of cultivated trees, and diseased and other non-commercial tree species. There is also the potential for the use of urban wood waste, tree limbs and branches produced by storms. Approximately 1 million tons of fuel will be procured annually within a 75-mile radius of the plant.
The Nacogdoches Generating Facility is owned and operated by Southern Company subsidiary Southern Power, which acquired the project from American Renewables, LLC, in October 2009. Construction began in November 2009 and the plant met its planned commercial operation schedule of mid-2012.
During the ceremony, Southern Power President Oscar Harper announced that the company has endowed a scholarship for the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches. The scholarship will go to a deserving student to help further his or her education in one of the school’s five undergraduate majors in forestry.
The Nacogdoches Generating Facility uses the newest technology available, including a bubbling fluidized-bed boiler, a condensing steam turbine generator with an evaporative cooling tower, wood fuel handling system and auxiliary support equipment.
Greenworld Buys Pellet Operation
Atlanta-based GreenWorld Development Inc. reports it has signed a binding framework agreement to acquire Natures Earth LLC, a wood pellet manufacturing operation in Laurinburg, NC for $16.5 million. GreenWorld plans to double the production capacity (currently at 120,000 tons) with an investment of $5.5 million.
The acquisition agreement includes the Equine Pine & Freedom Fuel brands owned by Natures Earth LLC.
The plant has rail access on site and is 100 miles from the port of Wilmington, NC. The export output will be exported in bulk or as bagged product. GreenWorld will maintain the current domestic contracts of the facility.
GreenWorld is in discussion with area feedstock suppliers as well as international off-take contracts.
ReEnergy Hosts Demo For Regional Loggers
ReEnergy Holdings and Nortrax hosted loggers at a Demo Day on July 25 at the ReEnergy Lyonsdale facility in Lyon Falls, NY. Featured at the Demo Day were the John Deere 753J feller-buncher and 848H skidder, along with the Morbark Beever M20R Forestry Brush Chipper and Morbark 30/36, 40/36 and 50/48 drum chippers.
ReEnergy has launched a program allowing loggers to secure long-term agreements to provide fuel to ReEnergy while also procuring state-of-the-art Morbark wood chippers. Guests were treated to lunch and talked shop with experts from John Deere, Nortrax, Morbark and ReEnergy.
More than 100 people attended Demo Day and by day’s end numerous loggers had signed up for the program, which allows ReEnergy to purchase wood chippers and enter a five-year contract with participating loggers.
The loggers will make long-term commitments to sell their biomass fuel to ReEnergy, paying for the chippers over the course of their contract via the biomass material they bring to ReEnergy.
South Colton resident and logger Jerry Poste didn’t need convincing that selling his biomass would be profitable. He’s been doing it for 25 years, and the program offered him an opportunity to purchase a new $400,000 chipper. He delivers his product to ReEnergy’s Chateaugay facility.
Along with that 20 MW facility and the 22 MW facility in Lyons Falls, a 60 MW facility is expected to open at Fort Drum in the first quarter of 2013. That location, as part of a $34 million project, is being converted from a coal-burning facility to a biomass site. The project was selected by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to sell renewable energy credits to NYSERDA under the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard.
Pellet Plant Proposed For Jackson, Alabama
Jackson, Alabama may become the site of a 500,000 metric tons per year wood pellet operation. Tom Bolton, managing partner of International Biomass Energy, told the Jackson City Council that his company is finalizing a deal that would invest more than $100 million and create 75-100 jobs.
The city was the proposed site of a wood pellet plant several years ago, but that project never transpired, though the city reportedly spent a half million dollars on site preparation.
Bolton’s career has been in real estate, construction and development, including a hotel project with the city of Jackson.
Bolton said construction could begin in the first quarter of 2013, with startup in mid 2014.
Enviva Breaks Ground On Third Area Mill
Enviva broke ground in late July on a wood pellet plant south of Franklin, Va. in Southampton County. The operation is called Enviva Pellets Southampton LLC.
The company expects it to achieve full scale operations in 18-24 months, with civil and site work commencing shortly.
Enviva started up a pellet plant at Ahoskie, NC in late 2011 with production capacity of 350,000 metric tons, and is already building a plant in Northampton County, NC just west of Ahoskie with more than 400,000 metric tons production capacity. The Southampton plant will have a production capacity of 500,000 metric tons annually, requiring more than 1 million tons of wood. Most of production will go overseas to Europe to fulfill long-term contracts for industrial scale energy generation. The facility will employ more than 70.
The Commonwealth of Virginia and Southampton County are providing economic development incentives including a Governor’s Opportunity Fund grant, workforce training grants, machinery and tools tax rebates, real property tax incentives and other infrastructure grants.
Enviva states that it employs a “build-and-copy” approach to its plant projects, meaning that for the most part the same equipment suppliers and contractors that built the Ahoskie facility are currently working at the Northampton site, and then they’ll move forward to the Southampton site.
Enviva notes that the growth-to-drain ratio (forest volume v. harvest) in the region has been greater than one even at the peak of fiber demand. “It’s one of the reasons we located here. And with our more than 4.5 million tons of annual demand in the region, we have sited our plants strategically to optimize the fiber aggregation by locating each facility 40-50 miles apart. Beyond that, there remains a lot of room in Virginia and elsewhere in this region for expansion of the forest products industry,” according to an Enviva statement.
Along with the wood basket, Enviva points to a well-developed transportation infrastructure, a seasoned logging force and an experienced labor force as positives for the continuing development of its pellet business.
Biofuels Plant Receives Boost
Biofuels producer KiOR recently received Part 79 registration for its Renewable Gasoline Blendstock 5 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The registration, required by manufacturers of motor vehicle fuels by the EPA, must be completed prior to the sale of the product.
KiOR began construction on its fully funded commercial facility in Columbus, Miss. in early 2011, and the refinery is scheduled to begin production later this year. The “initial scale” refinery is projected to produce 11 million gallons of renewable gasoline, biodiesel and fuel oil blend stock annually, using in-woods biomass as feedstock. The plant should use around 500 BDT of biomass daily, according to the company.
Boosting the plant’s commercial potential are offtake agreements reportedly already in place with Hunt Refining, Catchlight Energy (a Chevron and Weyerhaeuser venture) and FedEx Corporate Services. Catchlight also has a feedstock supply agreement with KiOR.
KiOR officials recently announced that once the Columbus plant is fully operational, plans are to break ground on a second biofuel facility near Natchez that’s considerably larger and will utilize approximately 1,500 BDT of feedstock per day.
North Carolina Revises Weight Regs
On June 26 North Carolina authorities implemented a revision to the state’s truck weight regulations for forest products. The upgrade to the previous tolerances raises the allowable gross weight from 84,000 to 90,000 lbs. and the allowable tandem weight from 42,000 to 44,000 lbs.
Those who exceed these weights will encounter enforcement penalties calculated on the basic bridge formula, as is currently practiced.
The North Carolina Farm Bureau introduced its farm language last year and the North Carolina Assn. of Professional Loggers (NCAPL) promptly asked for special language to address raw logs, chips, bark and residuals. The new law allows travel from harvest site to market within 150 miles and does not allow interstate or posted bridge travel, as was the case in previous restrictions. Residuals—chips, sawdust, mulch, or tree bark—qualify from any site.
One sideline was that the NCAPL determined the gross weight tolerance would be of little consequence if it could not be distributed across tandem axles. Steering axle weights are typically 8-12,000 lbs. tops and the tolerance had to go somewhere. The NCAPL worked with the NCDOT state engineer and provided axle length configurations for 54 typical log and chip haulers. The NCDOT called back two days later and said they would support a 44,000 lb. maximum on tandems.
The qualifying trucks for tandem weights must have 11 ft. between the steering axle and number two axle and at least 48 ft. between the steering axle and the last axle. The tandem tolerance of 44,000 lbs. on truck-trailer combinations with axle lengths as stated should be particularly useful, as tandem weight distribution with log trailers and chip vans can be difficult, according to NCAPL.
Mid-South Forestry Show October 5-6
Loggers, their families and employees will head to Starkville, Miss. October 5-6 for the family-friendly Mid-South Forestry Equipment Show. For information visit www.midsouthforestry.org.
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