The following article describes a classic trade-off situation .  The positive efforts to produce electricity locally (Distributed Generation) via hydro could have serious and long-term negative impacts on availablity of water for a healthly fish population as well as creating water challenges as the Central Oregon population continues to grow.

And, as the article points out, there’s the additional concern that serious self-serving, “good-old-boy”, behind-closed-doors negotiations have been happening and that there’s a specific effort to withhold full disclosure from the public.

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Flushed Away: City hydro project could be a drain on Tumalo Creek
Eric Flowers – the Source Weekly – October 28, 2009

You wouldn’t guess it from the rain soaked streets this week or the water gushing down Tumalo Creek, but there are signs aplenty that the upper Deschutes basin is running out of water to meet the demand of farms, cities and fish – all of which have legal, as well as historical and biological, cases for getting their share of water, especially during the parched summer months.

Recent data indicates that well owners are drilling deeper to hit groundwater, hinting that population growth and other high-intensity uses like golf courses may be negatively impacting the aquifer – something that just a few years ago experts said wasn’t likely to happen under the current rules. Meanwhile, pending applications for new groundwater withdrawals are approaching the ceiling the legislature set up when it crafted a series of special rules to stave off a potential development moratorium.

In the case of Bend, conservation campaigns have done little to curb residents’ thirst. The city still ranks significantly higher than similarly sized cities in the valley for per capita water use. And the city council recently spiked a proposal to address the problem with a tiered-rate structure that would have charged big-time water users more than conservation-minded residents. Still, the city has prided itself on being a leader on the basin’s water issues, working collaboratively with groups like the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, the Deschutes Resource Conservancy (DRC) and the local irrigation districts on river restoration efforts designed to restore habitat and pump up traditionally meager summer flows on the Deschutes River and its tributaries.

That’s why the city’s latest water initiative has left some environmental advocates puzzled. Buried inside Bend’s massive surface water treatment plan, which emerged last month, is an initiative that could more than double the city’s withdrawal from Bridge Creek, potentially wiping out some of the summer and winter flows downstream in Tumalo Creek, a major tributary to the middle Deschutes that has already had millions of dollars invested in restoration efforts to offset the effects of erosion and excessive water withdrawals.

The city has yet to release the exact details of its diversion plan, though a feasibility report was due out last month. One of the major elements of the plan, however, is already raising a cautionary flag with some observers. Specifically, the city is proposing to add a small hydropower project to its water supply when it replaces a pipeline that funnels a sizeable chunk of the city’s drinking water from Bridge Creek to the Outback storage facility. The city estimates that by pushing drinking water through a turbine system before funneling it into the storage tanks, it could generate $1.8 million worth of electricity.

The only problem: nobody, except maybe the city, knows just how much surface water – one of the basin’s most scarce and precious resources – the city would have to divert to meet those estimates. And right now the city isn’t talking. According to the Department of Water Resources, Bend holds certificates for about 36 cubic feet per second (cfs) of surface water in Bridge Creek, or about 16,000 gallons per minute. However, the city diverts only about 14 cfs of that on any given day. The rest of the water is set aside for irrigation and “in-stream” flows – the water that is left in the river for fish and all other manner of life that depend on the river for sustenance.

Prior to the 1980s, and for the better part of a century, that number was zero. The state never saw fit to leave any water in Tumalo Creek when it doled out water rights around the turn of the century and farmers and irrigators weren’t about to hand over their water to a few trout and snails. As community values changed and people began to put a greater weight on the inherent value of a natural river, irrigators responded. In the case of Tumalo Creek, the irrigation district changed its point of diversion from near the source of Tumalo Creek to its current location downstream of Shevlin Park, the move restored summer water to roughly ten miles of stream, around Bend’s urban area.

“Tumalo Creek since the mid-‘90s has been on a restoration trend,” said Scott McCaulou, Deschutes River Conservancy program director.

“The situation in Tumalo Creek has been improving over the past 15 years in large part because of Tumalo Irrigation District’s desire to deal with the problem,” said McCaulou, who oversees DRC’s upper basin leasing and water bank programs aimed at restoring flows on the Deschutes River and its tributaries.

In addition to changing its point of diversion, the irrigation district also embarked on several water conservation projects with the assistance of the DRC and other state and federal agencies, McCaulou said.

Those projects, which consisted of replacing miles of open canals with watertight pipes, resulted in restored flows of about 8 cfs, or about 3,500 gallons per minute, below the district’s diversion near Shevlin Park. It’s the only thing keeping the water in that stretch of the river during peak irrigation months of August and September.

At this point it doesn’t appear that the conserved water from those projects is in any danger of being diverted by the city, but it could make it difficult to add more flow to that trickle that represents just a fraction of the water requested for fish by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

And it could impact how much water tumbles down the stream at other important times of the year, including the late spring when fish are beginning to spawn in shallow gravels.While a few cubic feet may not seem like much in a basin that flushes hundreds of gallons of water per second through its canals, it can have a significant impact on a small stream like Tumalo Creek, staving off fish mortality in summer months when water temperatures soar as well as preventing damaging ice-over events during the winter months.

“A few cfs is a significant volume of water in this context where maybe it isn’t on the main stem (of the Deschutes). Small changes could have a large impact and that’s one of the things that we’re interested in having a conversation with the city about once the plan is available,” McCaulou said.

It’s more than just a philosophical or abstract management question. The DRC, in collaboration with other state and federal agencies, has invested some $5 to $7 million in Tumalo Creek since restoration efforts started, mostly in the form of piping projects.

The DRC isn’t the only organization to pour resources into Tumalo Creek restoration in the recent past. The Upper Deschutes Watershed Council has also made a significant investment in Tumalo, mostly in the form of stream channel work designed to counteract erosion and enhance habitat.

The city’s diversion and hydro plan was the topic of discussion at a recent Watershed Council board meeting. And while the council is taking a wait-and-see approach on the issue, it’s watching closely. Like the DRC, the watershed council hasn’t heard much from the city and is waiting for its technical documents to see how much deference the city has given to the environmental issues. But right now, watershed council has very little to go on.

“We don’t know what their intention is, what they want to do, or what the consultants say they should do,” said Watershed Council Executive Director Ryan Houston.

A lack of a clear plan of action, however, didn’t stop the city from recently moving ahead with a major piece of the project. Last month, the city council authorized staff to purchase the steel pipe for the transmission line.

Veteran Bend City Councilor Jim Clinton explained the purchase as something less than a commitment to the Bridge Creek project. Should the city decide to go a different route, Clinton said it could simply recoup its investment by re-selling the pipe – for which there is presumably a demand. Still, the fact that the city would write a check for the pipe has some questioning just how serious the city is about considering other options.

“It’s probably one of the only times I’ve ever seen a government entity agree to buy materials before they actually had a feasibility report that was out and made public for comment. A lot of people might say, ‘So what?’ but usually these kinds of issues are expanded upon when we’re talking about a pretty important resource like Tumalo Creek,” said Tom Davis, a retired engineer and Sisters resident who sits on the Upper Deschutes Watershed Board and is active in fish conservation issues throughout the basin on behalf of the Native Fish Society.

While the Source had a relatively long list of questions for the city about its plan, as well as issues related to its current conservation strategy, phone calls to staff weren’t returned until after deadline. But some of the city’s existing public research does illuminate. For example, the city opted to purchase a pipe that is more than double the system’s current capacity, indicating that it plans to, at some point in time, divert more water. However, there are some legal limitations. According to a consultant report for the city released in September, the city can only divert water for hydro that is actually being used in the drinking system. Whether that would limit how much the city diverts depends on just how many showers and sprinklers are running on a given day – and perhaps on who is counting.

But with a strong financial incentive to divert more water (more water = more power = more dollars) don’t expect the city to pass on any water it can get. As the report indicates the city is counting on the fact that, “water will be available for generations up to the anticipated right/water use volume for each year.”

Not everyone at the city agrees that it should pursue an aggressive diversion strategy. Clinton, who also sits on the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, said he supports the project, but only if the city limits its withdrawal to its historical diversion from Bridge Creek.

“I think that whatever the city does it should hold Tumalo Creek harmless,” Clinton said. “That’s a lot different than saying, ‘Let’s not do Bridge Creek at all.’”

Clinton isn’t the only one on the city council approaching the project with caveats. Not everyone is convinced that preserving the surface diversion makes sense. New federal drinking water rules, which were a big impetus for starting the conversation on the future of the Bridge Creek supply, apply only to surface water, but require from Bend an investment somewhere between $17 million and $30 million to meet new federal treatment standards. There’s also the question of the hydropower feasibility. While the physics are pretty straightforward – water comes downhill and turns a wheel – the economics are a little murkier. Due to the various tax incentives incorporated in the initial outline of the project the city would have to find a private partner to pick up as much as half of the initial investment in the project, or about $41 million when the pipe is included.

Yet there are some upsides to the project. The revenue from the hydro plant would help cut down on planned water-rate increases to the city’s customers. Under one scenario outlined by city staff, the annual-rate increase would be about half what it otherwise would over the next five years if hydro is included. There is also paradoxically an environmental incentive. Wells and pumps (the alternative if Bridge Creek is retired) are huge energy consumers. If the city went that route, it would be importing more energy, likely from coal plants and salmon-killing Columbia dams, to run its wells, rather than exporting hydropower from an existing pipeline.

While staff has pushed these benefits, some councilors are still eyeing the project cautiously.

“There are just so many moving parts with this issue. My main point from the get-go is let’s try to turn this into a series of manageable decisions, rather than just say let’s go forward with treatment and the whole piping, or let’s not do that. There’s no reason why right now we have to make the ultimate management decision,” said Bend City Councilor Jeff Eager.

In the meantime, if the city can’t find a partner for its hydro project, Eager said it might make sense for the staff to start looking at the possibility of moving away from surface water and relying on more wells. In the end, it may just come down to dollars and cents. City staff estimates that energy sales from the hydro project would generate $176 million over the next 50 years, an attractive proposition for a city that has been through several rounds of lay-offs.

But without a private partner, the hydro project is a bust and city-rate payers would have to shoulder the entire cost of the new pipeline through rate increases and charges on new development, which under one scenario could amount to an annual rate increase of up to 10 percent through 2014.

“That’s really the linchpin of the hydro project, if that doesn’t materialize or it looks like we can’t do that, then maybe a great reliance on groundwater makes sense,” Eager said.

‘Boom’ begins Juniper Ridge hydro, canal piping project
KTVZ.com news sources – October 12, 2009

A thunderous roar from a small explosive charge marked the official start of construction Monday on the $26 million Juniper Ridge Project, an unprecedented project that will return water supplies to the Deschutes River and generate carbon-free energy.

U.S. Congressman Greg Walden, along with state officials, representatives from the Central Oregon Irrigation District, Deschutes County, the Deschutes River Conservancy and Portland General Electric Company attended the groundbreaking ceremony five miles north of Bend along Highway 97.

Immediately following the ceremony, construction crews began replacing 2.5 miles of open irrigation canal, owned and operated by Central Oregon Irrigation District (COID), with underground steel pipe and an innovative, small hydropower system.

By conserving water supplies previously lost through the porous canal, the Juniper Ridge Project will benefit Deschutes River salmon and reintroduced steelhead.

Approximately 20 cubic-feet per second of water presently diverted from the Deschutes River for irrigation purposes by COID will be permanently returned to the river, increasing instream river flows for fish and wildlife species.

Once the new pipe is in place, a small hydropower unit will be installed in the summer of 2010. This state-of-the-art unit will generate up to 3.37 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity annually, or enough power for roughly 2,000 homes.

Irrigation district patrons will also benefit because the project will modernize district conveyance facilities and improve overall system efficiencies.

“We appreciate the support we’ve received from the State of Oregon, the federal government and many others,” said Carroll Penhollow, chairman of COID’s board of directors. Penhollow added, “Our farmers, ranchers and everyone else who relies on our district should be proud that we’re improving district efficiencies while protecting the environment.”

The State of Oregon, along with several business and conservation groups played an instrumental role in financing the project.

“We are very pleased to help fund this important project through a state tax credit and small energy loan,” said Mark Long, Director of the Oregon Department of Energy. “This project not only benefits fish and wildlife species, it will provide economic benefits to the local community.”

“This project will improve water quality and fish habitat in a very important part of Oregon,” said Dick Pedersen, Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. “DEQ is pleased to work with a group of people who share our goals of improved water quality. The collaboration between the irrigation district, Oregon Department of Energy and DEQ worked very smoothly.”

“This project is a great example of how we can generate clean renewable local power in Oregon,” said Betsy Kauffman, senior program manager with Energy Trust of Oregon. “We’re happy to be involved with a project that has benefits for the district, the community, and the watershed.”

“The City felt it was important to step forward as a partner in this project,” said Bend City Manager Eric King. “The benefits to the community and the environment are truly significant.”

“Projects like this don’t come along every day. It is gratifying to see so many people come together to make the project happen,” said Julie Keil, Director of Hydro Licensing for PGE. “PGE and the Confederated Tribes are happy to be a part of the effort.”

Total project costs are estimated at $26 million. Oregon’s Department of Energy has provided a $4.2 million Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) to COID, and a $12 million low-interest loan. Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality awarded the District a $2 million grant along with a $2 million zero interest loan from federal stimulus funds.

The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board awarded COID a $1 million grant and the Deschutes River Conservancy is providing a $1 million grant for the project from federal Bureau of Reclamation stimulus funds. Energy Trust of Oregon is providing a $1 million grant.

The City of Bend is contributing $278,000 and the Portland General Electric Company is contributing $250,000. The District is financing $5 million in upfront capital costs and will repay approximately $19 million in loans and debt service.

During the project’s construction in 2009/2010, COID will provide eight landowners with a supplemental water supply to compensate for the shutdown of the irrigation canal. These eight landowners have large livestock herds and no alternative water supply. The District will finance a six-day per week water hauling service to each landowner; the hauler will provide a 2-day supply. District costs for this service are roughly $100,000.

The project’s construction will be managed locally by the Slayden Construction Group along with Jack Robinson & Sons. Materials for the project are being produced by the Northwest Pipe Company of Portland, OR, and the James Leffel & Company of Central OH. All of the project’s materials are made in the U.S.

The Juniper Ridge Project is scheduled to be complete and producing energy by next summer.

Seeking green power solutions for hazy days
Bend Bulletin – August 2, 2009

Portland General Electric got a lesson in one of the shortcomings of renewable energy last week.

With temperatures above 100 degrees in Portland, the company broke its all-time record for summer power consumption Monday, then again Tuesday, and also on Wednesday.

All the while, the company’s Bigelow Canyon Wind Farm 140 miles east of Portland was producing next to no power. The winds that usually suck cool air up the Columbia River and keep summers mild had ceased, baking Portland and idling the turbines at Bigelow Canyon — just when they were most needed.

If wind and solar are going to play a bigger part in meeting the country’s electrical demand, utilities will need to get faster at reacting every time the wind dies down or a cloud moves in front of the sun. Bend’s PV Powered is working on solving a part of the problem.

The federal government recently awarded the company $3 million to get to work building the machines needed to create a future network of thousands or even millions of small-scale solar generating systems.

The Solar Energy Grid Integration System is an initiative of the Department of Energy that seeks to make solar power cost-competitive with other forms of power generation by 2015. Right now, solar power makes up only a tiny fraction of the total energy consumed in the United States, but that could change quickly if current treends continue.

According to a 2007 Energy Department report, 5 to 10 percent of electricity customers could be using some form of solar power within 10 years if homeowners continue adding solar panels to their homes at the current rate.

In 2007, the Oregon Legislature passed a law requiring the state’s largest utilities to generate 25 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025. Several other states have adopted similar goals.

Steve Hummel, vice president of engineering for PV Powered, said the goals are attainable, but only with a coordinated effort involving the government, the American people, the utility industry and companies like his.

“Obama has said we need a man-on-the-moon type of effort to do it, and I believe he’s right,” Hummel said.

Moving from large hydroelectric dams and coal- or gas-fired power plants toward rooftop arrays of solar panels or small stands of wind turbines has potential advantages for the individual consumer, but for the utility industry, it’s a potential headache.

Distributed generation, as it’s known, would allow a homeowner with a home solar system to use the power from a utility at night, and sell excess solar power back to the utility during the day, effectively running the electric meter in reverse.

For the utilities, renewable energy means uncertainty — a sluggish wind turbine can’t be turned up, and a solar panel can’t be quickly moved out of the shade. It’s estimated that if such sources are used for as little as 5 to 10 percent of the total power supply, brownouts and blackouts could occur when they inevitably stop producing electricity from time to time. When the generation is distributed across a large area and is subject to different weather patterns — rather than concentrated at a single plant — predicting the spikes and drops in the current and reacting accordingly becomes even more difficult for utilities.

The problem, Hummel said, will likely be solved by building a better inverter, the device produced by PV Powered. If the company succeeds in building that better inverter over the next year, it’s likely to receive another $3 million from the Department of Energy in 2010 to help bring it to market.

Improving today’s technology

An inverter’s primary purpose in a home solar generating system is to convert direct current electricity into alternating current, the type that runs lights and washing machines and consumer electronics. The inverter also manages the two-way flow of power, sending electricity into the grid when the home system produces a surplus, and drawing electricity from the grid when the home system is generating too little.

Current inverter technology is adequate for providing supplemental solar power to a home, Hummel said, but is ill-suited for coordinating hundreds or thousands of home solar generating systems to help power the grid as a whole. When an inverter detects fluctuations outside a narrow range in the current flowing in from the grid, it shuts off automatically to protect the system, much like a circuit breaker or a power strip. If, for instance, a high level of power usage creates a voltage drop within the grid, all of the solar generating systems connected to that grid could be shut down, further reducing the available power and increasing the risk of brownouts or blackouts.

“It’s very crude. If (the current) is outside of the acceptable voltage and frequency range, it goes down,” Hummel said.

Erick Petersen, the vice president of sales and marketing for PV Powered, said the government’s willingness to fund exploration of how to solve this problem is encouraging for people in his industry.

“It’s one thing to say we want to put renewable energy out there — it’s another to sit down and go, ‘If we do it, what happens?” Petersen said. “So all of this money is going to address some of the fundamental challenges, and create new technology that doesn’t exist today to go with this mass deployment.”

The goal for PV Powered, Hummel said, is to create an inverter that can “talk” to the grid more effectively, and better react to the needs of both the generator or the building it serves, and the grid as a whole.

With a smarter inverter, a home with a solar generating system could maintain constant communication with the utility company, monitoring the price of electricity for sale or purchase in communities where prices fluctuate to reflect demand, as well as weather forecasts, and past patterns of power usage in the building it serves. This information could allow the inverter to independently decide when to sell, buy or store power, while the utility company would be able to better predict how much power it can draw from the distributed solar generation system.

Making the transition

Hummel said it’s likely improved inverters will first be used by utility companies, improving the efficiency of converting solar energy into usable electricity at solar farms, and helping to better manage power generated at wind or solar farms. When a cloud moves over a solar farm, a more sophisticated inverter could detect the drop in power generation immediately, cueing a coal, gas or hydropower generator elsewhere to step up production.

PGE spokesman Steve Corson said that while the Portland utility is pursuing renewable energy sources, even though technical limitations and their unpredictably prevent them from providing a significantly larger share of power production today. The utility is a partner with PV Powered in its grant-funded research and will be helping test whatever products the company develops in a yet-to-be-determined Oregon community next year.

“I think there’s a little bit of a misperception out there among many in the public that this is a simple trade-off — you can get rid of some of these older fossil fuel resources and simply bring on new renewables and energy efficiency, and you’re good to go,” he said. “And the reality is, while there are certainly advantages to these resources, there are also significant challenges in how we manage those resources, and sometimes they simply are not going to produce.”

Unfortunately the following article jumps all over the place, tries but fails to be “fair and balanced”, and approaches a modestly complex subject too simplistically. Part of the role of journalism is to educate readers and to give them intellectual tools for thought and does not give both sides of an argument equal weight when it is not so (i.e. fire suppression is many times a greater culprit for our unhealthy forests than an environmental opposition to logging). 

For just one example, instead of writing the following sentence: They say once you start transporting biomass by truck, or train, or ship, you lose the benefits of biomass because the closer the power plants can be to the forests, the better off you are,  it would be much better to explain WHY you would be better off by explaining the concept of Distributed Generation. And by the way, just who is the “They” who say this?

Just as there are worthwhile ways to turn foodstuffs into energy (biofuels made from “waste” cooking grease) there are worthwhile ways to turn woody biomass into energy (locally produced energy from “waste” wood left over from harvesting timber and from the manufacture of products from that timber).  But growing a corn, a valuble foodstuff, specifically to make ethanol or cutting down trees to burn to make electricity simply does not make sense environmentally or economically. The ethanol industry has clearly proven that this approach to “clean” energy is folly.

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Could Oregon’s Trees Make Us Energy Exporter?
By Ethan Lindsey – OPB News – June 22, 2009

The dictionary defines biomass as living matter in one area.

But the second definition for biomass is what could give Oregon a leading role in the next century.

“Plant materials and animal waste used a source of fuel.”

Using plant and tree materials for energy is good news for Oregon.

Half of the state is forest-land.

But like this national forest between Bend and Sisters, many of Oregon’s forests are unhealthy.

Between a century of fire suppression and decades of environmental opposition to logging – the tree stands here are too thick and too dry.

Phil Chang: “We have stands where there’s 300, 400, 500 small trees all competing with each other and stressing each other out.”

Phil Chang works on natural resources for the central Oregon Intergovernmental Council.

Phil Chang: “If you try to eliminate some of those extra trees, that byproduct of that thinning is biomass. Our current practice is to dispose of hundreds-of-thousands of tons of that biomass per year through pile burning. Chop all of that material into little pieces, pile it, and then stand around and burn it.”

Those piles of biomass used to be considered trash, just fuel for a bonfire.

But suddenly now, biomass represents real, albeit untapped, energy.

Phil Chang: “The irony of the situation is, you could be someone who lives in Sisters, who is looking out your windows at millions of BTUs of energy going up in smoke, in one of these piles, and then you turn around and behind you is your furnace, where you are burning heating oil imported from Saudi Arabia.”

Which is why many hope Oregon could become “the Saudi Arabia” of biomass.

But that’s easier said than done.

Remember, people were calling Iowa the “Saudi Arabia” of corn ethanol just a few years back.

Now, factories are shuttered, corn prices have shot up, and most scientists see major flaws in turning corn into gas.
 
In the state of Oregon, millions-of-dollars were invested in corn ethanol.

Three major industrial power plants were built.

Now, only one remains open.

Jay Holthus: “We call this the main process building.”

Jay Holthus is the plant manager for Pacific Ethanol in Boardman, west of Pendleton.

His plant looks like any oil refinery, except with extra agriculture silos – and lots of corn kernels lying around.

Jay Holthus: “From an ag operation, to a processing operation. The first step is the slurry tank. And that’s where granddad made his mash and had it over the fire.”

The plant’s corporate owner is in bankruptcy – and four of its five power plants across the Western U.S. are idled.

The Boardman facility is still operating; but could be shut down soon.

Holthus says the company has a $27 million matching federal grant to build a newer, better ethanol power plant next door.
 
The newer, better fuel is not a food source like corn – but agricultural waste, grass, or trees. It’s called cellulosic ethanol.

Jay Holthus: “I think we need to have renewable fuel resources. Is it ethanol? Maybe. Is it corn? Probably not. I think we had to learn how to make ethanol, then cellulosic ethanol, then who knows? I think our children may look and say, wow, how barbaric was that.”

With cellulosic ethanol on the rise, the growth market for biomass right now is electricity production.

Government tax credits and energy targets have sent power companies scrambling to build new plants.

Currently, Oregon has just a handful of biomass facilities that generate about 40 megawatts of power. That’s a sliver of the state’s energy use.

Overall, the government predicts biomass will generate almost 5 percent of the country’s power by 2030.

But biomass-produced electricity still costs about 3 times as much as conventional energy sources — more than 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Phil Chang wonders why so much investment goes into turning biomass into gas or electricity instead of heat.

Phil Chang: “Part of the problem is that wood heating seems old school to people. Electricity and liquid transportation fuels get all the attention. I think it’s sexier. But again, it’s so ironic. If you look at the average American home, the largest single energy demand in that home is for heat.”

In the pie chart of U.S. energy use, 1/3 is electricity, 1/3 is auto fuel, and 1/3 is heating.

Half of Oregon’s homes are heated by electricity, which in turn is produced by coal or natural gas.

Biomass heat plants are already a proven technology, in saw-mills, industrial plants, and schools.

And unlike solar and wind power, biomass is a resource that’s always there.

But, like any energy technology, for biomass to hit the big time, it needs government support.

And that’s where environmental concerns may put up a roadblock.

The biggest climate change bill in U.S. history is working its way through Congress right now.

Scientists argue that planting trees can help combat climate change.

But it doesn’t label trees on national forests as renewable energy.

Greg Walden to former-Vice President Al Gore: Why exclude biomass from major energy bill? Watch on YouTube.
 
Last month, in a hearing with former Vice President Al Gore, Republican Congressman Greg Walden, from Hood River, held up a hardened puck made of wood.

Rep Greg Walden: “When that material comes out, why in the devil do we say it’s not renewable and can’t be turned into pucks like this to help reduce carbon from coal. This could be put into a coal plant in my district, if they could get enough of this made. Why do we preclude it in this bill?”

And environmentalists fear that if woody biomass is officially labeled “renewable,” timber companies will over-log national forests.

Walden says he continues to work with Democrats to make woody biomass from federal forests part of the country’s renewable energy goals.

That’s why advocates say Oregon should become ground zero for biomass energy production.

They say once you start transporting biomass by truck, or train, or ship, you lose the benefits of biomass because the closer the power plants can be to the forests, the better off you are.

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The following is an online comment on the above article. It’s worth reading as the comment author obviously has done her research even if it is slanted towards against large-scale biomass energy production and fails to provide sources for claims like “biomass burning emits 1.5 times more CO2 than coal per megawatt”.

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This article overlooks the fact that the American Clean Energy and Security Act, ACES, says that burning National Forests IS clean and green renewable energy! In fact, Congress caved in to Mr. Walden and the incinerator industry and has given them free access to our National Forests for biomass burning! Section 101(a)(18) of the bill contains a loophole big enough for the industry’s largest logging truck, skids and chippers: right there it says federal forests are open to biomass logging – the only thing that’s off limits is “federal land” that is also “high conservation priority land” – whatever that is. These so called forest protection provisions are weak and unenforceable. Worse yet, biomass burning emits 1.5 times more CO2 than coal per megawatt. Government reports show that by 2020 biomass burning will emit 700,000,000 tons of CO2 per year. It emits toxic pollutants that causes asthma, and drains our rivers by using huge volumes of cooling water. But it’s still “clean and green” and we Americans will pay billions for forest incinerators to generate a few megawatts, all while telling the third world to save the rainforests! This does not make sense. Environmental groups like Sierra Club have sold out on this issue. In the meantime, people who really know what is going on on the ground, in communities around the country, are telling the “clean and green renewable biomass” industry the gig is up. You’re not carbon neutral, you are an incinerator by any other name, and its time to fess up to your crime of greenwashing the public. When your burning is causing global warming, its hard to see the truth in that “clean and green” claim. Check out: www.nobiomassburning.org and http://massenvironmentalenergy.org/.

From the hills of Massachusetts
— Posted by MegSheehan

While the jury is out on this idea – there is a scheduled feasibility report due later this summer – it pains CO Renewable that before it is more than an idea the anti-tax folk start a negativity campaign.  The only way Central Oregon – or the nation for that matter – will wean its way off of energy produced outside of our boundaries is to build local power production facilities and incorporate them into a Distributed Generation energy system.  And the only way such a thing can happen is for money to be raised by the eventual users – local taxpayers – via some sort of  tax so these renewable energy projects can be built.

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Bend Considers Building A Hydroelectric Project On Tumalo Creek
By Ethan Lindsey – OPB News – June 10,2009

Many cities and irrigation districts across the state have developed new plans to build small-scale hydroelectric projects.

These aren’t your grandparents’ dams – they are smaller generators — on pipes — that take advantage of the energy in the stream flow.

More than ten miles west of Bend, up in the mountains toward the Three Sisters, a small house was built in the 1920s.

Back then, it wasn’t a quick drive from downtown Bend – especially in the winter when the snow comes down.

The house was for the city’s water caretaker.

The flow from Tumalo Creek provides much of the city’s drinking water, and the caretaker made sure the pipes were working.

Tom Hickmann is the city’s interim assistant public works director.

At the top of a cramped stairwell, Hickmann opens the door to the caretaker’s bedroom.

Tom Hickmann: “The story goes that in the 20s and 30s, when they lived here, this window – we’re two stories up right now – this window was the front door for them in the winter time, because the snow got that deep.”

The house isn’t the only piece of antique workmanship here.

The two main pipes that carry water 11 miles from the mountains to the city are also from the 20s.

And, the city’s water system must be upgraded, to meet federal standards. 

Hickmann says depending on what the city decides to do, the fixes could cost anywhere from $10 to $70 million.

If the city spends more to replace the ancient pipes, it could build a hydroelectric generator along the route.

Tom Hickmann: “The hydroelectric potential here was an afterthought. It was one of those, whether you want to call it an a-ha moment or a duh, what were you thinking moment, either way the reality became we have 1000 feet of potential energy.”

The hydro power could produce an estimated $1.5 million for the city.

And that gives Bend more control over its own energy future.

But residents are concerned they’d have to pay more on their water bills, up front, to build it.

At a city budget meeting where this project was discussed briefly, anti-tax residents and councilors expressed skepticism.

Environmentalists, though,  aren’t inherently against it.

Remember, it’s not a dam – so concerns over fish kill and habitat destruction are reduced.

Ryan Houston is the executive director of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council.

Houston’s job is to look out for fish and habitat concerns. He says his fear of climate change makes him very supportive of renewable power sources like this.

Ryan Houston: “The questions I have are generally over potential future scenarios.”

Houston points out the hydro project may reduce the amount of water farmers can use from Tumalo Creek.

Those farmers instead could choose to pull their water from the bigger Deschutes River.

And that could have a devastating affect on fish restoration.

Ryan Houston: “Whenever you change a system, there is always that added element of complexity because it is now a new situation.”

Back at the caretaker’s Tumalo Creek house, Tom Hickmann says he’s an engineer – and he knows the numbers can be figured out beforehand.

But a lot of this comes down to values.

Tom Hickmann: “Our parents, our grandparents, made this investment – the investment we’re standing on right here, right now. And it was painful when they made it! And we’ve benefited from their investment for the last 80 years.”

Hickmann says the city will get a feasibility report over the summer.

Councilors will then have to decide whether the increased rates now are worth it in the end.

An on-line comment on Todd Payne’s Guest Viewpoint (below) claimed that the recent American Lung Association report, State of the Air: 2009 gave Lane County a failing grade for particulates.  Much of those particulates come from field burning.  Will the Seneca biomass plant significantly add to the particulates?  Read the well-written editorial below.

# # #

Biomass plant will cut Seneca’s carbon release
By Todd Payne* – Guest Viewpoint – April 29, 2009

As the project manager for Seneca Sustainable Energy’s cogeneration plant, I have a hard time understanding the criticism directed at this renewable and reliable source of power.

As we explored the development of the facility, I saw a great benefit in reducing greenhouse gases by using woody biomass rather than natural gas to fuel our sawmill’s dry kilns. Plus, we would generate 18.8 megawatts of local electricity, enough to meet the energy needs of 13,000 homes. This is the kind of project encouraged by the Federal Energy Management Program and by the Oregon Department of Energy.

Everyone I spoke with as we developed our plans indicated that our new facility was a step in the right direction. No one raised any issues. I believe that’s because the benefits of our facility outweigh its air emissions.

We are addressing climate change by replacing a fossil fuel with woody biomass, and reducing our carbon dioxide emissions by 3,500 tons annually.

To date, all carbon reduction programs recognize that biomass is an energy source with zero net carbon emissions from combustion.

That’s because the “biogenic” carbon released is already in circulation in the atmosphere, as opposed to the “anthropogenic” carbon locked up in fossil fuels, such as natural gas, which are in long-term storage underground. This is the key advantage of using woody biomass to create heat and electricity.

Simply put, we are replacing “bad” carbon with “good” carbon. To ignore that fact minimizes a significant benefit of our project.

Natural gas is neither renewable nor sustainable. Wood fuel is widely recognized as both.

In public meetings, the Oregon Toxics Alliance has suggested locating the plant away from people. The most efficient and beneficial use of biomass fuel is in a combined heat and power application, as we propose. Siting the facility away from the mill would not allow its heat to be used in our dry kilns, so we would be forced to continue the use of natural gas.

We knew that our cogeneration plant would create some emissions. Our research and consultation with public officials indicated that those emissions would be well within the standards for protecting public health. In fact, we were encouraged to move forward because it is so important that our society reduce carbon dioxide created by dependence on fossil fuels.

To minimize our emissions, we will spend $11 million on air pollution control technology. This is one-fourth of the total cost of the power plant, and most of the money is focused on reducing particulate emissions.

The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency will regulate our emissions and will review the plant’s technical engineering and regulatory compliance to protect the health and welfare of the public.

In its April 20 guest viewpoint, the Oregon Toxics Alliance claimed to put the air emission numbers for the power plant into context. Unfortunately, only select pieces of information were provided. Saying the power plant would be among the largest industrial emission sources is meaningless without identifying all contributors to total emissions. Motor vehicles, not industrial sources, are the largest emitters of nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide in Lane County and Eugene. The power plant’s NOx emissions will be about 2 percent of motor vehicle emissions, and far less than 1 percent of motor vehicle-generated CO.

The Oregon Toxics Alliance also asserted that Seneca should spend more money and put on additional air pollution controls to reduce NOx and CO emissions. Our application includes evaluations of the potential NOx and CO impacts, using EPA models and procedures coupled with local weather information.

Results showed that the NOx emissions from the plant plus the emissions from all other NOx sources produce an impact that is 65 percent below the standard established by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to protect the health of all citizens. The CO impact from the plant is even smaller. Our emissions are significantly below the public health standards for our community.

We had opportunities to sell our power outside our community. We believe strongly in local control and sustainability, so we are pursuing a power purchase agreement with the Eugene Water & Electric Board. By providing a reliable source of power that does not have to travel over transmission lines from distant sources, we are contributing to our community’s energy independence.

When I started working on the cogeneration facility, my interest was in making the best of use of our mill residues and forest slash. I didn’t realize just how important it is for a community to have sources of renewable, reliable power that don’t have to be brought in from distant sources. I also have a greater appreciation of how the use of woody biomass in this plant can contribute to reducing the effects of the greenhouse gases.

My family and I live in west Eugene. I have no reservations about our cogeneration plant’s impact on the health of my wife or children. I’ve seen the research. I’ve talked with countless experts, both government and private. The type of facility we’re building is exactly what President Obama and Gov. Ted Kulongoski are encouraging.

We at Seneca are proud to be in a position to play a role in contributing to our community’s energy independence and our country’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gases that lead to global warming.

*Todd Payne is the project manager for Seneca Sustainable Energy’s cogeneration plant.

Coming soon to the Sunshine State: the sunshine city
By Michael Grunwald – Time Magazine – April 9, 2009

An NFL lineman turned visionary developer today is unveiling startlingly ambitious plans for a solar-powered city of tomorrow in southwest Florida’s outback, featuring the world’s largest photovoltaic solar plant, a truly smart power grid, recharging stations for electric vehicles and a variety of other green innovations. The community of Babcock Ranch is designed to break new frontiers in sustainable development, quite a shift for a state that has never been sustainable, and lately hasn’t had much development.

“Some people think I got hit in the head a few too many times,” quips developer Syd Kitson, who spent six years in the trenches for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys before entering the real estate business in the mid-1980s. “But I still believe deeply in Florida. And the time has come for something completely different.”

To anyone familiar with southern Florida’s planning-nightmare sprawl of golf courses, strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions named after the plants and animals they replaced, Kitson’s vision for his solar-powered, smart-growth, live-where-you-work city of 45,000 people east of Fort Myers is breathtakingly different. That’s why the press conference held today revealing his development plans for the historic Babcock Ranch property will feature representatives from the Audubon Society, the World Wildlife Fund and the Sierra Club.

The history of Florida is littered with spectacular, landscape-changing proposals that never made it past the drawing board. The watery wisp of Everglades National Park known as Flamingo, population zero, was once touted as the next Chicago. Kitson’s financial partner, Morgan Stanley, has had a rough time lately, and some locals remain skeptical that he can turn his $2 billion green vision into reality. “We’ve been hearing a lot of very exciting ideas, but we have no idea how this is actually going to happen,” says Conservancy of Southwest Florida CEO Andrew McElwaine.

Then again, Kitson has already cleared two of his most difficult hurdles: getting the land and the right to build on it. In 2006, he engineered a deal with then-Governor Jeb Bush and the previous owners of the 91,000-acre ranch in which the state spent $350 million to purchase 73,000 of the most environmentally sensitive acres – the largest preservation buy in Florida history. Kitson paid about about the same amount for the remaining 18,000 acres, and he says half of that will remain green space within the new community.

Kitson has been promising unprecedented sustainability all along, but today’s shocker was the announcement of Florida Power & Light’s plan to provide electricity for Babcock Ranch with a 75-megawatt photovoltaic plant nearly twice as big as the current record-holder in Germany. Solar power has been slow to catch on in the gas-powered Sunshine State, but FPL hopes to start construction on the 400-acre, $300 million plant by year’s end. The utility expects it will provide enough power for Babcock Ranch and beyond. At $4 million per megawatt – FPL estimates the costs to its customers at about 31 cents per month over the life of the project – it should be more than four times as cost-effective as the nuclear reactors FPL is trying to build near the Florida Keys.

Kitson’s slick website also promises “groundbreaking” strategies to promote energy efficiency for all Babcock Ranch buildings. And that’s not all: “Ultra-modern electric vehicles will glide along avenues beneath the glow of solar-powered street lamps, plugging in to recharge at convenient community-wide recharging stations. Revolutionary Smart Grid technologies will monitor and manage energy use, while Smart Home technology will allow residents to operate their homes at maximum efficiency.” Kitson’s goal is to reduce carbon emissions, oil dependence and energy bills, while turning Babcock Ranch into a mecca for clean-energy research and development, attracting high-tech companies that will provide high-wage jobs.

The idea is to create a self-contained community where people can live and shop and work and go to school and have fun without long car trips. Kitson’s construction plans start with a walkable and bikable downtown that will include a magnet school, a wellness facility and sustainable retail as well as 8,000 homes – including affordable homes for local workers. “In Florida, everyone has to drive everywhere they want to go,” Kitson says. “And everyone thinks the solution to congestion is to build more roads. I think the solution is to design communities so you don’t need more cars on the roads.”

Of course, talk is cheap. It’s no secret that growth has been Florida’s primary economic engine for decades. Yet Fortune 500 companies haven’t flocked to its sprawling bedroom communities with lousy schools and overpriced houses, and the paving of paradise has left the state with overtapped aquifers, overcrowded hospitals, overstretched services, traffic jams, a dying Everglades and a vanishing sense of place.

Kitson promises to avoid the mistakes of the past. “We’re impressed with their commitments,” says Wayne Daltry, Lee County’s director of smart growth. “Now we have to pound them to keep their commitments. No plan survives contact with reality – and in this case the reality is called the bottom line.”

Given the dismal state of the economy in Florida and the dismal environmental track record of developers, it’s easy to be skeptical. Kitson already had to lay off some of his southwest Florida staff. But unless the sun stops shining, the current housing collapse won’t last forever. Florida is always going to be nicer than Brooklyn or Cleveland in the winter. It’s about time someone tried to make growth environmentally and economically sustainable. And it’s about time someone tried to use that sunshine for something other than getting a tan.

Biomass energy projects such as the one described below are a possible step towards increasingly necessary Distributed Generation but the question still arises: can the nearby area provide sufficient woody biomass (and, in the case below, solid waste from urban areas) to allow the power plant to operate in a sustainable and eco-friendly fashion?

It is generally accepted that the woody biomass and solid waste necessary to fuel a biomass power plant must be available within a 50-mile radius of the plant.  Much beyond that distance the additional cost (mostly diesel fuel for trucks) usually makes the collection of fuel for the plant simply too expensive.  Sufficient fuels for the long-term and located within a financially feasible collection area are two questions addressed in the comments and related article at: Is Biomass Energy Actually Viable Long-term?

In addition, based on quotes in the article below, the proposed plant appears to be one that would utilize a British-based technology that uses decomposing biomass to produce gas that in turn is burned to generate electricity.  If so, then there is a major challenge to limit the amount of greenhouse gases released by the power generation process.

# # #

Klamath Tribes propose biomass energy plant
Herald and News – September 11, 2008
 
The Klamath Tribes are seeking partners for a proposed biomass generation facility planned for the former Crater Lake Mill site 25 miles north of Chiloquin.

Preliminary plans call for an 8-megawatt plant that would use a variety of biomass sources, such as woody material and solid waste from urban areas. At full capacity, the plant could provide energy for about 4,000 homes.

The plant would cost between $8 million and $12 million and is planned for the former Crater Lake Mill site.

Jef Mitchell, a Klamath tribal council member, said the British technology would use of a variety of biomass sources instead of just one.

“The technology is really extraordinary,” said Mitchell.

Woody material or other matter would be decomposed and 90 percent of it would become gas to drive generators. The rest would be a solid carbon byproduct.

The Tribes purchased the site in August and have designated the 108-acre parcel as the future home of the Giiwas Green Enterprise Park. Plans call for an industrial park with other forest products businesses, such as wood bundling services, manufacture of small diameter poles and posts and juniper products.

When complete, the industrial park would provide an estimated 200 family-wage jobs.

Tribal leaders are working with a national American Indian organization as part of a five-tribe project based on forests and tribal economies.

The Tribes also are working with Oregon Institute of Technology and Klamath Community College to provide technical expertise and training for future employees.

Tom Chester, director of the Oregon Renewable Energy Center at OIT, has discussed the project with the Tribes’ consultant and said issues remain to be worked out, such as how much energy would be generated and what happens to any leftover material.

Toby Freeman, regional community manager with PacifiCorp, said his company would be open to working with the Tribes but that facility would be in the area serviced by Bend-based Mid-State Electric.

PacifiCorp spoke with the Tribes two years ago about the project and provided some financial analysis, Freeman said.

There are dozens of medical offices, urban business parking lots, health care providers and gas stations in Bend that could easily erect solar carports at their businesses.  And Bend has – or claims to have – much more sunshine than Eugene yet the “wet side” Willamette Valley town has at least five solar carport projects to none in Bend. 

# # #

Eugene parking lots get solar-power caps
By Diane Dietz – The Register-Guard - May 1, 2008

The solar energy explosion under way on business rooftops in Eugene is spilling out onto parking lots as firms erect free-standing solar carports to shield their employees and customers and give their companies extra electrical power.

Driven by generous incentives and tax credits, five solar carport projects sprang up in Eugene during the past few years. A medical office, an urban business parking lot, a health care provider and a gas station all have erected solar carports at their businesses.

The carports consist of photovoltaic arrays on slanted, rectangular roofs set on standard steel pillars. From six to 10 cars park between painted lines under each cover.

In California, banks of these free-standing solar carports cover open-air parking lots. They save energy by keeping cars cool — they need less air conditioning at midday to be bearable — and they generate energy to feed to the grid, or for other nearby purposes.

Parking lots are seen as “great potential real estate for solar,” said Rob Del Mar, renewable energy project coordinator for the Oregon Department of Energy. “We will see more and more covered (solar cell) parking.”

From Southern California to the Hudson Valley of New York, energy analysts are counting parking lots, totaling the acreage and estimated power that could be generated if all were covered by carports bearing photovoltaic systems. By some estimates, the country has 4.7 billion acres of parking lots — an embarrassment of asphalt riches.

Unlike the desert, where some visionaries plan vast arrays of solar cells, parking lots have the advantage of being next to a building that uses electricity or a transformer that can tie the juice it produces into the grid. “You’re talking hundreds of feet — and not miles — for your interconnection,” Del Mar said.

One other advantage: The lot-built systems won’t be in the way.

“If your roof is covered with solar cells, what are you going to do when it comes time to change your roof?” said Bill Welch, engineering supervisor for EWEB’s energy management program.

Eugene businessman Heinz Selig spent $240,000 this winter to put a six-vehicle carport on his property at 16th Avenue and Willamette Street, the site of Evergreen Nutrition and other businesses.

But the financial bite will actually be less than that in the end.

Oregon offers a 50 percent tax credit for systems, the federal government offers a 30 percent credit — and Selig signed a contract with EWEB to buy all the power his carport generates at a premium, which is 15 cents per kilowatt.

Selig is a bit of an evangelist when it comes to solar power. He has sent as many as 15 colleagues to Advanced Energy Systems to evaluate launching similar projects.

“If you owe taxes for the federal and state, it’s a no brainer,” Selig said. “I don’t know why everybody is not doing it.”

The Tamarack Wellness Center on Donald Street in south Eugene installed a solar carport over its 10-space employee parking lot two years ago. In the next seven years, Tamarack will have met the conditions of the incentives used to build the system and then the energy it generates will be free for the center’s use. The solar cells should last an additional 10 to 15 years, site manager Dave Mischak said.

“There’s not a lot of maintenance to this,” he said. “You basically rinse down the panels and make sure there’s not dust on them.”

Dr. Kraig Jacobson, who installed a solar carport at the Oak Street Medical building,said the firm chose to put an array of cells on the carport because it allowed a bigger system than if the installers had used the medical building’s roof.

The $156,000 system supplies 15 to 20 percent of the building’s electrical demands. The peak output is during the day, which is valuable because that’s also the period of peak demand on the grid.

Installing the solar energy system means that EWEB will have to rely less on coal-fired power plants to meet peak energy demands, Jacobson said.

He said it’s satisfying to watch the four meters, which indicate carbon dioxide equivalents, or offsets, produced by the cells.

At least every other week a college class, a Boy Scout troop or a curious engineer stops by to examine and to learn about the carbon-sparing system, he said.

The most public of all the solar carports in Eugene is the one over the pumps at Se­Quential Biofuels.

It features an innovative racking system designed by the Eugene-based Energy Design Company, which allows the photo voltaic cells themselves to form the roof of the structure. On some other carport systems, the cells are mounted on top of a roof.

That PV carport costs $10 per square foot, or about $170,000 for the usual size, and Energy Design’s model has the advantage of some transparency between cells.

“Sunlight filters through and illuminates the area underneath,” Vice President Eric Morrison said.

The company is building a 4,000-square-foot solar parking structure for a nursery in Cornelius.

Parking lots are “a perfect unused space with lots and lots of sun. We have so much potential here to create solar power for our communities,” Morrison said.

Most recently, a Eugene developer has included plans for a solar carport in a proposed Spaghetti Heaven restaurant project slated for the Whiteaker neighborhood.

Today’s solar carport owners said they have built their projects against a day when plug-in hybrid cars come on the market.

Then, drivers can juice up during the day by plugging into the solar-electricity-­generating carports. “It’s a nice kind of symbiosis that can be immediately recognized,” Del Mar said.

The plug-ins increase the hybrids’ efficiency, allowing the cars to get 100 miles per gallon, instead of the current 45 miles per gallon.

In a major step this week, the Massachusetts-based A123 company announced that it would begin selling conversion kits to allow Prius hybrids to plug into the electrical grid — although Toyota quickly announced that making the conversion may void thewarranty.

General Motors, meanwhile, is racing to be the first to get a plug-in hybrid to market with its Saturn Vue soon and its Chevy Volt by 2010. Toyota also said its Prius with plug-in capabilities will be ready for corporate buyers in 2010 and for consumers a couple years thereafter.

Heinz will be ready. His carport was wired in advance for plug-ins. He expects fully electric cars to be common within five years.

“This is a good thing,” he said. “I think everybody should do it.”