Central Oregon News Digest • Summer 2009
Compiled by The Garner Group – August 24, 2009

ENERGY

Hydro plants in the pipeline, literally and figuratively

Federal stimulus grants to two Central Oregon irrigation districts, directed at water conservation, will fund canal piping and construction of small-scale generating plants. The Swalley Irrigation District will receive $2 million to complete enclosing 5.1 miles of its main canal north of Bend, including an 0.75-mW hydro plant near Highway 97. Three Sisters Irrigation District was awarded $1.3 million to initiate a pipeline project that will increase stream flows in Whychus Creek. This project eventually will include a 1.5-mW hydro plant. Both generating plants are “in-conduit” designs that utilize water flow within the pipeline.

County approves wind farm, with conditions

The Crook County planning commission has approved the West Butte Wind Power Project, proposed for a 20-acre site near Millican. Conditions include formation of a technical advisory committee to address wildlife concerns. Access will require a right-of-way permit from the Bureau of Land Management, in turn requiring an environmental impact study. Work on the $220 million project, which will involve from 32 to 54 turbines, is expected to start in spring 2010. The 104-mW project falls below the threshold that would require approval beyond the county level.

La Pine may yet see a biomass power plant

While one company’s plans to build a biomass-fueled power plant in La Pine are on hold, another has moved into the arena. Biogreen Sustainable Energy Co. of St. Helens, Ore., will buy a 10-acre parcel in the La Pine Industrial Park and build a $55-$60 million, 19-mW electricity generating plant fueled by thinnings from private and public forests nearby. The project will support 100 construction jobs and employ 20 people directly upon completion, plus another 80-90 indirect jobs in forestry and transportation. Silvan Power Co. has an option to buy 28 acres in La Pine for a biomass power plant but plans apparently have stalled over fuel availability issues.

New Biomass Power Plant to Bring Jobs to La Pine
By Doug Johnson – KOHD-TV News – June 29, 2009
 
In 18 months 10 acres on the corner of Reed Road and Mitts Way in La Pine, will be transformed into a biomass power plant, able to produce almost twenty megawatts of electricity. The plans were approved Monday morning, by the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners.
 
“Going to add to the economy, going to create jobs, they’re going to produce steam, that will maybe be able to use in other applications, other businesses,” says Susan Ross, Director of Property and Facilities for Deschutes County.
 
Biogreen Sustainable Energy out of St. Helens Oregon will build and operate the plant. It expects the plant to bring twenty direct jobs, with as many as ninety indirect jobs such as trucking and forestry to follow. In addition, the company says about one hundred construction jobs should be created in the next four months.

 
“Yeah I’m hoping it can build up around here, because I know this building’s been here a few years and no one else has built around it,” says Justin Doerfler with Toney Construction Company, who’s shop is close to the plant’s site.
 
The plant will use biomass fuels, such as slash piles, forest undergrowth and wood construction materials, to boil water creating steam, which is used to turn a turbine and create electricity. At this time most fuels are being removed from private timber lands, but soon Biogreen says it will partner with wood recyclers to bid on US Forest Service thinning programs. The county says the process is clean, with pollution almost non-existent. There are four other similar plants in Oregon, including on by Roseburg and another by Medford. Other businesses, such as a wood pellet plant, could partner with the biomass plant in the future to share the steam.
 
“There isn’t a whole lot going on anywhere obviously, you know that, and especially in la pine a small town like this, any work would help definitely,” Doerfler says.

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

Seneca deserves a chance to prove its biomass utilization works
Project raises tough questions, but proposal looks sustainable 
By Kitty Piercy – Editorial For The Register-Guard – Jun 7, 2009

The state of Oregon and the Obama administration both support biomass utilization to reduce carbon emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels. Seneca Sawmill Co. is proposing a biomass cogeneration facility that will use residue from timber manufacturing and slash from logging operations, which would otherwise be burned in open air, to produce energy for the company and the broader community.

Nothing is without controversy, especially the environmental effects of energy production — whether it is solar, wind, geothermal or biomass. Toxins are created in manufacturing, human and wildlife populations are affected, and other effects require monitoring and mitigation.

There are legitimate questions about the potential effects of biomass utilization on forest protection, air quality and issues of environmental justice. Seneca itself has generated controversies in the past due to some forest practices and political positions.

I am committed to sustainability, and have asked Eugene area businesses to step forward. At the same time I want to responsibly understand the impacts of all the steps we take.

I asked for answers about the Seneca proposal from experts in forest protection and management, state environmental quality and energy oversight, sociology, sustainability, utilities, air quality protection, toxics, and environmental justice. I also talked to neighbors of the proposed facility.

Here are the answers I received. I don’t claim these answers address all concerns, but they’ve helped me reach my own conclusions.

Will biomass production slow down the usage of other clean forms of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal?

The demand for clean renewable energy is huge and growing. Our best response is conservation and efficiency, but we also need the full portfolio of renewable energy supplies. Governments offer tax credits to encourage this development, with biomass getting about half the tax credits of the other forms.

Won’t Seneca need to cut trees or scrape the forest floor to meet the fuel demands of its cogeneration facility?

Seneca intends to use its own forest products, and has the capacity to run its cogeneration facility with its own timber residue and slash now and into the future. Over-harvesting is not economical. Seneca depends on a sustained, mature forest yield for manufacturing. Seneca complies with the state Forest Practices Act by leaving downed woody debris and wildlife trees to support future forest development.

Is Seneca’s project like other biomass facilities in the state?

Seneca will be the first to use the state-of-the-art selective non-catalytic reduction system to control emissions to an extremely low level. The facility will be totally enclosed and the fuel will be stored inside, which is also not typical. All conveyors and trucks will unload inside the facility.

What effect will the cogeneration plant have on air quality?

Seneca will reduce carbon emissions by eliminating the approximately 8,500 annual truck trips carrying waste products off its manufacturing site, as well as by reducing slash burning in the forests. Modeling of the particulate and emissions controls proposed for this facility shows that emissions will be far below the threshold requirements.

There are concerns that emissions will add to already compromised air quality and affect the health of a low-income neighborhood. While the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency reports the air quality to be the best it has been in 40 years, it measures a limited number of pollutants. There has long been a need for better ambient air monitoring, especially in west Eugene.

Some have suggested Seneca could use a regenerative selective catalytic reduction system to achieve higher reductions of nitrogen oxide emissions — a system primarily used in the Northeast to retrofit old systems. There is debate over whether this would achieve significant air quality improvements, and additional data about potential use of this technology is warranted.

More importantly, experts agree on the need for a broader look at measures that would yield the most significant air quality improvements in west Eugene. For example, we need more education about the health effects of non–permitted wood burning stoves. Furthermore, LRAPA supports additional air quality monitoring, but funding is a challenge. We should make every effort to find a combination of resources that will allow us to conduct ongoing, real-time air quality monitoring in west Eugene.

My conclusions:

As our president recently stated, we must put aside old wars and reach out to former adversaries in order to save this planet. We must work to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and our contribution to global warming. We don’t have perfect solutions, but we are called to do our utmost. We must be vigilant regarding the consequences and impacts of our actions. Biomass utilization, if properly monitored, has great potential but it also can be misappropriated for simple economic gain, without responsibility for environmental and social justice. The triple bottom line of sustainability requires attention to all of these equally.

I support Seneca’s proposal to use its own products more sustainably. I ask the company to make adjustments as new scientific information becomes available and to always bear in mind that it operates in a human setting where its impacts are potentially profound. I challenge Seneca to continually strive for the highest level of emissions and particulate protection possible.

Something fishy about forest biomass claims
By Josh Schlossberg and Shannon Wilson – Register-Guard GUEST VIEWPOINT – May 6, 2009

RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry, states in its October 2008 Wood Biomass Market Report that “the perceived overabundance of ‘waste wood’ in the nation’s forests is simply not there.”

What this means is — even counting on the current unsustainable rate of short-rotation toxic clear-cutting on private forestlands — there’s not enough wood to feed proposed biomass plants, such as Seneca Sawmill Co.’s.

So why are there more and more proposed biomass plants across the United States?

According to the Oregon Forest Biomass Working Group, “The bulk of potentially available forest biomass is located on federal lands.”

Another pro-biomass group claims, “Obtaining a consistent supply of woody biomass from federal lands is one of the primary impediments to developing a biomass utilization sector.”

Prepare to have your fears and hopes exploited in the logging industry’s craftiest fairy tale to date: forest biomass. First the fear: “If we don’t log, the forests will burn up in wildfires and put our lives and homes at risk.” Then the hope: “The leftover waste will be used for green energy to fight climate change.”

The reality is forest biomass extraction would neither protect homes from wildfire nor give us green energy, but would act as a major obstacle to achieving either of those goals.

With climate change making our summers hotter and drier, forest-edge communities will probably be seeing more wildfires.

Luckily, as Jack Cohen — a scientist at the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station — states, simple measures taken around the home and its immediate surroundings can almost eliminate the danger: “Given nonflammable roofs, Stanford Research Institute found a 95 percent (home) survival with (vegetation) clearance of 10 to 18 meters.”

In 2003, seemingly with this concern in mind, the Bush administration and Sen. Ron Wyden gave us the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, the primary stated purpose being “to reduce wildfire risk to communities.” Unfortunately, instead of focusing on projects in the vicinity of homes, a vast portion of HFRA funding has been spent on logging large, fire-resistant trees miles from the nearest town.

Yet thanks to Big Timber public relations campaigns and political distortions, many Americans have bought into the myth that logging stops wildfire and protects their homes from burning.  But not only does HFRA not protect communities from wildfire, it gives the public a false sense of security, resulting in millions of homeowners ignoring fire-wise precautions, putting their homes and lives at risk.

Does that mean industry and agencies want homes to burn? Probably not. But their intent becomes clear when you learn HFRA’s second stated purpose: “to authorize grant programs to improve the commercial value of forest biomass.”

After using fear tactics to dupe Americans into supporting “fire risk reduction” logging, biomass proponents play to our hopes by assuring us that the resulting “waste” can be used to fight climate change, by turning it into a clean, green energy source.

Few deny the need to fund clean alternative energy sources — such as wind and solar — to wean us off our climate-disrupting dependence on waning fossil fuels. But logging for forest biomass is likely to make climate change worse. According to NASA, logging is “the second major way we increase atmospheric CO2,” while the May 2008 issue of Science Daily states, “the use of harvest residues for energy production decreases soil carbon stocks.”

Despite this evidence, forest biomass is getting the big bucks. Already, $50 million of the Forest Service’s stimulus payoff is going to “wood to energy grants to support the increased use of biomass.” Wyden also has a bill (S 536) that would allow federal forestlands to receive “renewable energy” subsidies, while Rep. Peter DeFazio is co-sponsoring a similar bill in the House (HR 1190).

Subsidizing forest biomass effectively takes money away from proven clean, green energy sources. According to EnergyJustice.net, “Biomass competes directly with wind, the cleanest and most promising power source. Eliminating biomass from renewable definitions means wind would get better funding.”

A rational response to climate change and peak oil involves investing in zero-emission energy sources such as wind and solar, while incentivizing greater efficiency measures (i.e., ground-breaking heat pump technologies) and conservation. Not squandering even more tax dollars to further bleed our already over-logged, climate-stabilizing forests.

Even if some Oregonians don’t think forest biomass is a bad idea — other than small-scale heating, it really is — the question they should be asking is this: Is it better than the alternatives it would be replacing: fire-wise homes and wind power?

We hope all Oregonians would agree the answer is no.

Josh Schlossberg and Shannon Wilson of Eugene are co-directors of Eco Advocates.

Stimulus news isn’t all good for our region
Biomass: Money is directed to biofuels, but the woody debris from federal forests is left off Obama’s list. Walden and others want to change that.
By Keith Chu – The Bulletin – May 06, 2009

The White House unveiled its playbook to boost production of U.S. biofuels on Tuesday, but President Barack Obama’s strategy didn’t include biomass from federal forests.

On a conference call with reporters, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced the plan, which includes a massive study of the environmental effects of turning crops into fuel, along with stimulus money to put those ideas into practice.

But Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, said the administration made a mistake by excluding woody debris from federal forests. As wildfires continue to burn large swaths of Central and Eastern Oregon forests, it makes more sense to cut the brush and undergrowth, which reduces fire danger, and use the debris created by the thinning for biofuel, Walden said. Money generated by biofuels could then be used to offset the costs of the thinning projects.

“It comes as a real disappointment but not a shock,” Walden said of the plan.

“The material is there,” Walden said. “Right now, it’s contributing to wildfire rather than renewable fuel. I’d rather have it contribute to renewable fuel.”

When asked about the role of biomass from federal lands, an EPA spokeswoman said current federal rules exclude that material from the definition of renewable biomass.

“Whether such fuel would be a part of the program — (the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act) specifically excluded feedstocks from federal lands,” EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn said in an e-mail.

The White House also announced $786.5 million from the economic stimulus bill to fund pilot biodiesel refineries and research into creating more efficient fuels. Obama laid out his strategy in a memo to the secretaries.

“This memo, in my view, reflects President Obama’s commitment to rural America,” Vilsack said. “It is a firm commitment to making this industry an integral part of 21st-century America.”

While ethanol made from corn is the most prevalent source of biofuel right now, Obama’s plan would encourage the next generation of plant-based fuels, including cellulosic ethanol, and even fuel made from algae. The U.S. must produce 36 billion gallons of biofuels to be used in automobiles by 2022, under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. A pilot project is under way in Boardman, which is scheduled to open near the end of this year.

The technology to create fuel from forest debris is still developing, but experts including University of Washington forestry professor Kristiina Vogt, say there are several promising methods in the works.

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee is slated to debate biofuels next week as part of a larger climate change bill. Walden, who sits on that committee, said he wants to change the definition of renewable biomass to include material from federal forests as part of that bill. He has also introduced a bill with Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., that would redefine biomass.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, who is vice chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said it makes sense to put material from forests to work — as long as protections are in place.

“Here’s an opportunity to save fire suppression costs, to put people to work on the forests and help people develop a sustainable source of biomass with these forest products,” Blumenauer said. “It needs to be very carefully drawn so that it is clear that we’re not putting at risk wilderness areas.”

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.

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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.

While much of Congressman Walden’s general political behavior is simply pandering to his conservative constituency, he is right to ask why is it alright to simply burn forest slash in open piles?  This practice wastes the heat that’s generated from the burn and turns the woody biomass into mostly carbon particulates and carbon dioxiode.  Why not attempt to find a way to utilize the woody byproduct of forestry and thinning to produce energy while reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that escapes into the atmosphere at the same time?

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Walden, Gore debate the merits of biomass
Woody debris from federal land isn’t renewable under energy bill
By Keith Chu - The Bulletin – April 25, 2009

U.S. Rep. Greg Walden and former Vice President Al Gore shared a testy exchange Friday over how to use woody debris from federal lands in a U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.

In an unusual four-day-long hearing this week, Walden repeatedly pressed witnesses about why woody debris from federal land doesn’t count as renewable energy in a massive bill to reduce greenhouse gases that is being debated in the House committee. Gore was on hand as perhaps the most famous of a host of experts on climate change and energy who testified throughout the week.

It’s unclear who exactly requested that debris from federal lands be excluded from federal renewable energy standards. But powerful environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, have said including that material would encourage unsustainable logging in federal forests to meet demand for biomass power plants.

“We think that until and unless we have safeguards in place that address everyone’s concerns about the impact of sourcing some of these biomass resources, then it’s an appropriate safeguard,” David Hawkins, the director of climate programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, testified this week.

On Friday, Walden challenged Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign to slow climate change.

If forests are being thinned now to reduce fire danger, why not turn that woody material into energy, Walden asked.

“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?” Walden said, holding a disk made mostly of compressed sawdust. “This could be put in a coal plant in my district if they could get enough of this made. … Why do they preclude it in this bill?”

Gore said past management of forests has made him wary of changing that provision. Canadian forests haven’t avoided massive wildfires, despite a more aggressive thinning program than in the U.S., Gore said.

“In Canada, they have this kind of management approach, and yet their forests are being devastated,” Gore said. “I think the record of what’s happened when (forests have) been opened up in the past has given a lot of people pause.”

To stress the urgency of acting on climate change, Gore put a question to Walden.

“Congressman, as a matter of curiosity, are you seeing the tree death in your forests from the beetles and the drying?” Gore asked.

“I am,” Walden said, immediately holding aloft three poster-sized photographs of forests in varying degrees of health.

“We have a 79-year backlog (of thinning projects) at the rate we’re treating right now to get these forests into balance to deal with the climate change you outline.”

Walden, along with Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has pushed to change the definition of renewable biomass since a 2007 energy bill blocked woody debris on federal land from counting toward the federal renewable fuel standard.

Walden’s staff said he plans to offer several amendments — perhaps “a whole stack” — when the energy bill is debated in the Energy and Commerce Committee next week.

They will likely include provisions to require federal Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management offices to be heated with biomass, to count woody debris on federal lands as renewable biomass and to include existing hydropower as renewable energy.

Although several Central Oregon biomass proposals are now in limbo, the region’s ample forestland — and the efforts to reduce fire danger — make it a good place to develop biomass power, said Phil Chang, a project manager for the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council.

“Here in Central Oregon, we have a very long season where you can do forest operations. We also have lots of flat ground, a very small stream network and a very large road network,” Chang said. “Central Oregon is one of the best places in the Western U.S. for biomass extraction.”

But if biomass from federal forests doesn’t count toward federal renewable energy quotas, producers will have less incentive to develop that resource, Chang said.

“That would put biomass power plants that uses federal biomass at a huge disadvantage,” Chang said.

Gore pushed back forcefully against critical questions by Republican members of the panel. When Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the top Republican on the committee, read from a book asserting that global warming isn’t hurting ocean coral, as had been predicted, Gore said the science on the harms of global warming is clear.

“I believe you have relied on people you have trusted who have given you bad information,” Gore said to Barton. “I don’t blame the investors who trusted Bernie Madoff, but he gave them bad information.”

And Gore was ready for a question Walden asked every witness this week: Did you read the entire energy bill?

“Congressman, I have read all 648 pages of this bill,” Gore said. “It took me two transcontinental flights on United Airlines to finish it.”

Seneca’s power plant far from green
By John Herberg* – Register-Guard Guest Viewpoint – April 20, 2009

The Register Guard’s April 6 editorial on Seneca Sawmill Co.’s proposed wood-fired power plant tried to place the project’s air pollutants in context. Oregon Toxics Alliance would like to continue that goal.

The editorial disregarded the 470 tons of air pollutants that would be emitted by the plant by comparing them to all possible sources of pollutants in Lane County. That is one way of looking at it, but it overlooks the fact that the plant will be one of the single largest sources of air pollution in Eugene and Lane County.

As stated, the plant will emit 186 tons of nitrogen oxides, or NOx, and 200 tons of carbon monoxide, or CO, per year. That would make this one facility the second-largest emitter of both of those toxins in all of Eugene. Furthermore, it would be the fourth-largest emitter of NOx and seventh-largest for CO in Lane County.

That’s significant, because NOx and CO are known to cause respiratory problems. Given that Lane County already has a higher rate of asthma than Oregon and the nation, shouldn’t limiting asthma-causing pollutants be a priority? NOx and CO also aggravate heart disease. NOx is a major contributor to smog and global warming, and it has been linked to premature death.

NOx and CO account for most of the pollutants, but there’s still another 86 tons per year to consider. Many of them are known or suspected carcinogens, and most cause heart and lung problems. Let’s place them in context also:

The power plant would be Eugene’s single largest emitter of styrene (a carcinogen), acetaldehyde (a carcinogen), hydrogen chloride (causes respiratory illnesses) and napthalene (a carcinogen). Furthermore, all of the existing sources of those toxins are located in one neighborhood: West Eugene.

At 1.7 tons, the proposed plant would be Eugene’s third-largest emitter of formaldehyde (a carcinogen). All nine existing sources are located in West Eugene.

At 1.4 tons, Seneca would be the fourth-largest emitter of toluene (a carcinogen). Nineteen of the 21 existing Eugene’s toluene sources are in West Eugene.

This project is being marketed as a green solution, but it will be a major new source of dangerous air pollutants. To put it in perspective, even a natural gas power plant of the same capacity would produce significantly less pollution.

Could Seneca reduce its emissions? Yes. Seneca could reduce CO emissions by 50 percent and NOx emissions by another 25 percent to 45 percent with technology that’s already being used elsewhere.

Undoubtedly, that technology will cost more. But if Seneca doesn’t spend the money, the public will pay the cost with more visits to the doctor. Economists call this concept externalizing costs. It happens when businesses don’t fully account for their impacts on our health and environment. It’s an unsustainable business practice that must stop.

The location of the proposed power plant brings up another concern. West Eugene is already the central location of large numbers of Eugene’s industrial air pollutant sources. It is also home to rail yard operations and is heavily affected by auto traffic. Yet there is nothing in that neighborhood to accurately measure air quality.

Seneca, the Eugene Water & Electric Board (which is considering purchasing the energy produced from the power plant), the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency (the government agency responsible for protecting Lane County’s air quality), and other industries releasing air pollution in West Eugene should work toward funding an air monitor in that area. That way we can accurately measure the impact that Seneca and other polluters have on the health of their neighbors.

The facts tell the truth, and the facts show that trying to place Seneca’s emissions in context of Lane County’s other air problems can be misleading. This power plant would be a significant, and in some cases the largest, new source of dangerous pollutants in Eugene and Lane County. Seneca can do more to reduce its emissions and help monitor the impact of those that remain. If it doesn’t, it will be the public that pays.

*John Herberg is a staff member of the Oregon Toxics Alliance.

Solar may be mandated, but officials here push for biomass
By Nick Budnick  – The Bulletin - April 18, 2009

After a key legislative deadline passed on Friday, Deschutes County officials are resorting to some creative politicking in the Capitol to change a state solar power requirement.

In 2007, Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law a requirement backed by the solar energy industry that all new public building projects include 1.5 percent of their spending on solar power, such as rooftop panels.

In Deschutes County, however, officials say that money could be better spent on a different alternative energy source dubbed biomass, or as Phil Chang of the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council puts it, a “community-scale thermal energy project.”

In layperson’s terms, that means a stove that burns wood chips.
Chang said biomass heating projects are highly efficient and produce low emissions, and would also help Central Oregon by providing a market for the wood produced by forest thinning projects that “make the community safer” from fire risk.

He said that in the county’s new jail expansion project, providing heat with biomass rather than natural gas would have saved $90,000 to $100,000 a year.

Susan Ross, Deschutes County’s properties and facilities director, said that in the jail project, the state’s solar mandate will mean $500,000 will pay for panels that produce a month’s worth of the facility’s energy needs every year.

But if that same amount of money were spent on biomass, it would produce six months’ worth, she said, adding that biomass “is much more efficient.”

To try and change the state law, Deschutes County asked Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, and Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, to carry Senate Bill 446. It would allow for other alternative and renewable energy sources, including biomass, to be substituted for solar power.

But in the 2009 Legislature, all bills are supposed to have hearings scheduled by April 17. Friday came and went, and SB 446 was not scheduled.

The bill had been assigned to the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, where Chairwoman Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland was reluctant to give a hearing to legislation she didn’t think would pass the House, the bill’s supporters say. She instructed the bill’s backers to win the support of Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, the sponsor of the original solar mandate bill that passed the Legislature in 2007.

That discussion is under way, said Erica Hagedorn of Deschutes County’s lobbying firm, Public Affairs Counsel, adding that she feels like the discussions with Holvey “are making positive strides.”

That still leaves the matter of the deadline that passed, however.

To get around the deadline, and pursue this debate about the future of cutting-edge alternative energy in Oregon, the county will now resort to an age-old maneuver known by an ungraceful term: the “gut and stuff.”

This refers to when lawmakers take a bill number used for one piece of legislation and remove its contents — the “gut” — to be replaced with different legislation entirely — the “stuff.”

The maneuver is designed to circumvent deadlines and accommodate late-breaking political agreements. When it occurs, a bill number alluding to one piece of legislation suddenly may contain a completely different one.

Hagedorn said she is confident another bill number can be found for the legislation, if the negotiations with Holvey bear fruit.

Telfer, the lead co-sponsor of SB 446, chalks the bill’s fate up to “politics.” She nevertheless said Dingfelder has been very helpful, and Telfer hopes a way can be found to “save taxpayers’ money.”

Chang concedes that the bill may face skepticism among environmentalists who fear that the demand for wood created by biomass power plants could eventually be more of a harm to the environment than a boon. But he said the smaller heating projects, essentially wood stoves, that he is promoting, would use far less wood and not threaten anything.

Hagedorn said the legislation’s backers soon should know whether it can proceed.

“I think we’ll know by the end of next week whether it will be ‘go’ or ‘no go,’” she said.