PFPI-BiomassIsTheNewCoal-April-2-2014

cycle technologies is $59 - $86, depending on the cost of gas. 5 Recently built and proposedbiomass power plants provide examples of the costliness of biopower – for instance, the SouthernCompany’s 116 MW (gross) Nacogdoches plant in Sacul, Texas, the sister facility to theequally large Gainesville Renewable Energy Center in Florida, raised rates for AustinPower customers, and only operated for a few months before being paid to idle, as the utility wasable to purchase cheaper power from wind and natural gas sources. The Gainesville plant raisedrates for its regional customers, as well. In Kentucky, testimony from state hearings on therenewable power purchase agreement between Kentucky Power and the proposed 58 MW (net)ecoPower biomass plant in Hazard indicates that electricity from the plant would raise theaverage residential electricity bill almost $125 per year in one of the poorest regions of the country,eastern Kentucky. 6Additional costs for renewable poweraren’t necessarily unusual, but in the caseof biomass power, developers andproponents justify extra expense byclaiming that biomass power providesWhile a single biomass plants can emit overa million tons of carbon dioxide a year,facilities aren’t ever required to demonstratethese emissions are offset.“clean” and “low carbon” baseload power, as if bioenergy were comparable to wind and solar. Thatsuch claims are misleading is increasingly apparent. Of late, the myth of bioenergy as “climatefriendly”is increasingly crumbling as new science and modeling demonstrate that wood-firedpower plants increase CO 2 emissions over years to decades, even relative to fossil-fueled powerplants. 7 The sheer amount of wood required by these facilities is an indication of their emissions, asforest wood is converted to CO 2 at about a 1:1 rate. 8 For instance, combined demand at the threeconverted Dominion coal plants will be about 2.4 million tons per year, with commensurateCO 2 emissions, and a single facility like the 116 MW Gainesville Renewable Energy plant inFlorida can emit over a million tons of CO 2 per year. The air permit for the 70 MW (gross)Burgess BioPower plant in Berlin, New Hampshire states it will burn close to a milliontons of trees a year, consuming “whole logs” at a rate of 113 tons per hour, 9 the equivalent of clearcuttingmore than one acre of New Hampshire’s forests every hour. While resequestration of theCO 2 emitted by this and other biomass plants being built around the country will require multipledecades, carbon offsets are never actually required to be obtained or demonstrated by these plants.When policy-makers are given a chance to review the forest and greenhouse gas impacts frombiomass energy, they may conclude that it is not worth the costs. For instance, the Vermont PublicService Board recently denied a certificate of “public good” to the proposed 35 MW North540 CFR Parts 60, 70, 71, et al. Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New Stationary Sources:Electric Utility Generating Units; Proposed Rule. Federal Register Vol. 79, No. 5 Wednesday, January 8, 20146Commonwealth of Kentucky, before the Public Service Commission: Application of Kentucky Power concerning the renewableenergy purchase agreement with ecoPower Generation-Hazard, LLC. Case No. 2013-00144. Volume I of court transcript.7For a review, see PFPI report to the Securities and Exchange Commission on bioenergy “greenwashing,” athttp://www.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/PFPI-report-to-SEC-on-bioenergy-Nov-20-2013.pdf8 Burning one ton of wood at 45% moisture content, considered an industry standard, emits 1.008 tons of CO 2 .9New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. Final Temporary/NSR/PSD Air permit for Laidlaw Berlin BioPower,July 26, 2010.14