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Do IT this week: Layering
$200 million project under way for FirstEnergy's R.E. Burger to kick dirty coal habit by switching to greener wood pellets
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Nov 01, 2009
Two engineers from Akron-based FirstEnergy Generation Corp. spent 10 days in Europe last summer.
No London. No Paris. No Rome. No Athens. No Riviera. No Alps.
Wood-burning power plants that produce electricity in Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden were the destinations for Harold ''Hal'' M. Kruger and Rick Mahon.
That's because the utility is switching its aging R.E. Burger Power Plant in eastern Ohio from dirty coal to cleaner-burning wood chips — perhaps with some coal — in a $200 million project.
Europe relies more heavily on such ''biomass fuels'' than the United States does, and that's why the FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary went to inspect five plants in the four countries, said Kruger, manager of engineering/air quality compliance for FirstEnergy Corp.
Biomass is the name given to renewable energy sources: wood, farm products, manure, landfills and food waste. It is a growing fuel source. Ohio ranks among the top five states for biomass sources and could be a biomass leader.
Engineers from Ontario Power Generation, which is developing two similar facilities, the Atikokan plant on Lake Superior and Nanticoke plant on Lake Erie, joined Kruger's team. Those two plants are scheduled to switch from coal to wood only in mid-2012.
The Europe trip assured the Americans and Canadians that the technology to produce electricity by burning biomass ''is in
deed viable . . . and successful,'' Kruger said. ''We came back with that assurance. . . . And that was big.
''The challenge for us is that we are going to be pioneers in terms of doing this in this country. It's a medium-sized plant but still a very good-sized project.''
The Burger conversion of two coal-burning units, to be completed by Dec. 31, 2012, will make the plant — on the Ohio River in Shadyside in Belmont County — the largest in the United States and one of the largest biomass-burning power plants in the world.
At present, the largest biomass plants in the United States are the 139-megawatt Okeelanta plant in Florida, which burns sugarcane as fuel, and a 99-megawatt Gaylord-Bogalusa plant in Louisiana, which burns wood wastes.
Plans in the works
Burger's two coal-fired boilers produce 312 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 190,000 houses, or 2 percent of the company's power generation. Those units annually burn 800,000 tons of coal.
FirstEnergy Generation is in the midst of what it calls the Burger's project development phase. A half-dozen company engineers are involved, and the number soon will grow to up to 15. A boiler contract will be let and an outside engineering firm will be hired soon.
Construction is set for 2011-2012.
With the switch, the plant will need up to 1.4 million tons of wood pellets, a renewable energy that looks like rabbit food or briquettes.
FirstEnergy can, under a federal court consent decree, continue to burn up to 20 percent low-sulfur coal at Burger after the switch.
Kruger said the company has not decided whether it will burn only wood and other biomass fuels or whether it will burn coal as well.
What FirstEnergy is doing at the Burger plant could be the solution for many of America's old, small, polluting coal-burning power plants, said company spokesman Mark Durbin.
Retrofitting such plants with scrubbers to comply with federal clean-air mandates is very costly. Switching the plants to biomass might be a better solution, especially as concerns grow over carbon dioxide, Durbin said.
Biomass benefits
Nationally, there are 102 biomass plants that generate electricity in 21 states, according to the Biomass Power Association, a national trade group. Biomass accounts for 2 percent of America's electricity.
''Biomass power is the smart alternative to fossil fuels that will benefit both the environment and the economy,'' said Bob Cleaves, president and chief executive of the association, based in Portland, Maine.
''Renewable biomass power will help Ohio meet aggressive mandates for renewable electricity, reduce greenhouse gases and create green jobs. Biomass power currently accounts for more than half of all the renewable electricity produced in the United States,'' Cleaves said, ''and with continued investment, that number could double as new plants come online.''
Such biomass fuels have heat values that are comparable to coal from the western United States but are inferior to Eastern U.S. coals. They contain little sulfur and ash, resulting in lower emissions of sulfur dioxide and soot or particulate. They produce about half as much nitrogen as coal.
Such plants can be operated continuously, like coal plants but unlike wind and solar plants.
The switch will diversifyFirstEnergy's generation portfolio and will help the utility meet new Ohio rules that call for 12.5 percent of the electricity utilities sell to come from renewable sources by 2025 — with half of that amount generated in Ohio.
The plan is that the biomass FirstEnergy Generation uses for fuel will remove as much carbon dioxide from the environment when it grows as it releases when it is burned. The result would be no net increase in carbon dioxide, a key global warming gas.
At present, there are no limitations on carbon dioxide emissions, but there are plans in Congress to curtail such emissions from utilities and other sources.
Using wood pellets
When the Burger conversion is complete, FirstEnergy will have 1,100 megawatts of renewable energy with biomass, wind and hydro. That will be 9 percent of the company's energy capacity of 14,346 megawatts. The utility will get 52 percent of its energy from coal after the switch is done.
With the switch, the plant itself will produce less electricity because wood produces about one-third less energy than coal, Kruger said.
The company could install equipment called mills that pulverize the wood chips before they are blown into the boilers to boost the plant's power production, he said. He could not say how much that might cost.
The plant's final power output will be determined in mid-2010, he said.
When FirstEnergy announced its decision on Burger in April, the utility said it was looking to burn briquettes of wood chips, cornstalks, switch grass and grains.
Additional research showed that the man-made wood pellets up to three-fourths of an inch in length work very well, Kruger said.
That's because natural wood has too much moisture to burn well, he said.
Testing has shown that the best result is derived when the wood is ground to the consistency of flour, fully dried and then reformed into pellets that are easier to ship, he said.
The utility has an agreement with one firm, Renewafuel LLC, to provide the biofuel to the Burger plant. It intends to provide FirstEnergy with briquettes — roughly 11/4 inches by 11/4 inches by 2 inches — at a cost comparable to Western coal, officials said.
The company, with operations in Michigan and Minnesota, will rely on fast-growing trees like poplars and cottonwoods.
FirstEnergy has no interest in growing the fuel but will rely on numerous suppliers and intends to diversify its fuel supplies, Durbin said.
The utility expects to get its fuel from up to seven plants, each capable of producing 150,000 to 300,000 tons a year, Gary Leidich, the company's executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Generation, said in an Oct. 2 speech in Atlanta.
That would make the Burger plant the largest consumer of biomass in the United States, he said.
Leidich said the plant would require 1 million tons of fuel to produce 200 megawatts and 1.4 million tons to produce 275 megawatts, the plant's practical upper limits unless equipment is added to boost the plant's power output.
Kruger said FirstEnergy Generation is looking at other biomass fuels beyond wood chips but has not determined whether they would be cost effective.
Energy credits
The company intends to begin burning coal with the wood pellets at Burger in 2010, he said.
That will enable the company to look closely at handling and burning wood and testing how it can best be done, as well as to begin earning state renewable energy credits for the utility, he said.
Under Ohio's advanced energy portfolio standard approved in 2008, 25 percent of Ohio's energy must come from advanced and renewable energy by 2025. FirstEnergy Generation earns renewable energy credits for using biomass fuels.
Ohio environmentalists are not thrilled that FirstEnergy will rack up those credits by burning wood with coal, said Amanda Moore of Environment Ohio.
Her group is troubled about the sources of the wood for the Burger plant and whether they will be sustainable and not cause environmental problems elsewhere in the future, she said. ''We have to assume the worst until we see the details fromFirstEnergy,'' she said.
Said Kruger, ''We've embarked on what's going to be a very interesting challenge.''
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.
Two engineers from Akron-based FirstEnergy Generation Corp. spent 10 days in Europe last summer.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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WADSWORTH, OH
Posted 06:44 AM, 11/01/2009
This could really 'fire-up' the tree huggers.
'Plant a tree-save a coal burning power plant'
Seems like a good idea.
Posted 10:13 AM, 11/01/2009
WooHoo...finally a whiff of original thought from the utilities!
Wood is perfectly stored solar energy, and Ohio has an abundance of dead or near-dead trees that can be used for power, and will result in healthier forests.
I disagree with the decision to use pellets because that only raises the processing, and therefore the cost of the biomass. Use chipped whole trees and landscape waste and flash dry it with the waste heat from the power plant.
This will put money in the hands of local haulers instead of the large coal companies.
akron, oh
Posted 10:31 AM, 11/01/2009
@ExAkronite: Well said.
akron, oh
Posted 10:34 AM, 11/01/2009
The alternative to this conversion, was to shut down the plant. Many jobs were saved.
Posted 11:59 AM, 11/01/2009
I have first hand experience with firing biomass in both utility and industrial power plants. I am fully aware of what the Europeans are doing. Biomass firing makes the "Greenies", politicians any anyone else who has no power production background happy. They think it is the wave of the future and environmentally friendly. Environmentally friendly it is not. The same amount of CO2 per pound of carbon input is produced as coal. Compared to coal, significant energy is wasted transporting the huge volume of this low density fuel to the power plant plus there is significant extra energy required to dry off the moisture, which can be as high as 50%. While sulfur content is low, Doixin and other VOCs are an issue. There is also a limited supply of biomass which currently every energy supplier is counting on the same resource. Biomass firing on large scale will result in rapid deforestation because people will quickly learn the fuel cannot be grown as rapid as it is demanded.
For those who think wind and solar are the answer, guess again. They can produce some of the US power demand but not to the extent people think.
So what is the solution to coal? Thirty years ago I would have despised this answer: Nuclear Power. Nuclear power is the densest energy form available. It produces no greenhouse gases.
It would be great to see the US focus on solving the nuclear waste problem which I think is more technically feasible than wasting our national effort on biomass, wind and solar development. I doubt this will every happen because biomass, wind and solar give every two bit start-up company a finger in the pie.
Posted 08:55 PM, 11/01/2009
Medina,
I have to agree with you, but nuclear waste has no solution today. Nuclear will require tens of trillions of dollars to upgrade transmission grid(especially with electric cars on the horizon)and stick some poor state with all the waste (probably New Mexico). The only real long-term solution is for us to learn how to cut back on energy usage.
In the short term, however, distributed CHP (combined heat and power) with _local_ natural gas or _local_ biomass seems like a good solution. If energy costs go up it will become worthwile for individuals or corporations to invest in equipment to sell power back to the grid, but at today's prices it makes no *cents* at all.
Al Gore declared war on CO2, and therefore all carbon-based energy, but his solution (wind, solar, ethanol) does not work, as usual. Until someone figures out nuclear fusion we are stuck with fission and the mess it leaves behind.
Akron, OH
Posted 12:13 AM, 11/02/2009
Medina Reader - A very informed post, thank you. To you and ExAkronite: please check out iter.org. This was just brought to my attention recently. The end-game for renewable fuel, in my opinion, will be nuclear fusion. I think fission is great, and offers a lot to the environment right here and now, but fusion offers similiar benefits, without any radioactive material in or out.
Norton, OH
Posted 12:58 AM, 11/02/2009
Bio-mass, and twisted light bulbs are 1st energy's meager signs of. Fire the entire lot of them CEO down to receptionist.
Seeds are needed for reproduction (unless there are 10,000 people to go down to the Mohican and graft every tree) bio-mass is not reproductive.
akron, oh
Posted 07:36 AM, 11/02/2009
@ Zhellon "Fire the entire lot of them CEO down to receptionist."
That is an extreme comment, uncalled for, and ignorant. How is firing/replacing those who do not make the decisions going to help? It won't. What it would do is eventually raise your electric rates, reduce your service in some way, or both because somebody will have to pay the recruiting cost of replacing all those employees.
akron, oh
Posted 07:38 AM, 11/02/2009
I happen to know that they are also exploring growing algae as biomass. That's a quickly replaced resource.
Posted 08:23 AM, 11/02/2009
According to my calcs pellets would cost 10 times more than the coal they replace. Who pays this?
Energy engineers measure heat in million British thermal units. Coal delivers that much heat cheaply, at $1 to $1.50 when delivered to a power plant in Colorado Springs. Natural gas prices fluctuate more. From $13.50 last July the price plummeted to $3.50 by late winter. Propane runs far more expensive, at about $20. In comparison, wood pellets run about $10 for an equivalent amount of heat.
Posted 10:11 AM, 11/02/2009
If I remember correctly, Akron Thermal tried the pellets route about 5 years ago.
Chicago, IL
Posted 03:16 PM, 11/03/2009
This is a smart move. Indeed, combined heat & power is something utilities should be doing much more of. Now, I may be biased, because I'm associated with Recycled Energy Development (recycled-energy.com), a company that does CHP and waste heat recovery. In addition to woodchips (mentioned in this article), waste heat is an even bigger source of energy that we're not currently utilizing. Turning that heat into clean power and steam would slash greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 20% in the U.S. Meanwhile, costs would fall due to increased efficiency.
