industry
NEWS Mitchell plant conversion delayed for EPA ruling
The conversion of Georgia Power’s Mitchell Generation Plant to biomass feedstock has been delayed, awaiting a U.S. EPA ruling on the industrial boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology (IB MACT) rule. The rule would regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants such as certain acid gases, organics, metals and others from industrial boilers. It will likely affect biomass boilers like the one planned for Plant Mitchell, near Albany, Ga., according to Georgia Power Spokeswoman Lynn Wallace. “Our intent was always to convert this boiler with the understanding that we’re meeting the EPA rules,” she said, adding that undetermined rules make that difficult. The plant operates now on coal, generating 155 megawatts. When converted to biomass feedstocks, including waste wood such as tree limbs, tree tops, needles and leaves, the facility will have a capacity of 96 megawatts, according to the company. Georgia Power was set to begin spending a significant amount of capital on the project at the beginning of this year. “But now that the rule is in question, it’s the prudent thing to do,” Wallace said of the action to delay the project. Otherwise, she added, customers could be subject to a cost risk if expensive changes are necessary to meet any new requirements. The company had initially planned to begin retrofit construction on the plant in April 2011 and go on line in June 2012. A new
project timeline has not been determined, but Wallace said the draft of the ruling should be out in April, at which time Georgia Power will have an idea of whether its already-established standards will suffice. A final ruling is not expected until December 2010. Depending on what the draft brings, the project could be back on track in April. “They may come out with something within our own guidelines,” she said. The timing of the final rule release and the possibility of the company having to change plans may bring Georgia Power uncomfortably close to development deadlines for tax credits and other financial incentives. In the meantime, Georgia Power is looking into alternative boiler technologies, in case the ruling significantly impacts the cost of the planned boiler conversion. “We think it’s in our best interests, just in case the current boiler doesn’t meet their specifications,” Wallace said. The company does not expect to scrap the project altogether, but instead is preparing for possible changes. “We don’t think that the project is going to be cancelled,” Wallace said. “Our hope is it’ll just be a matter of modifying our existing design, or adding new equipment.” —Lisa Gibson
Indiana company to offer energy crop plantlets A company in Indiana aims to streamline Miscanthus giganteus and Arundo donax (giant reed) production by offering growers plantlets resulting from a micropropagation technology. Both crops are high-yielding perennial grasses that have been studied as potential biomass feedstocks for quite some time, but their use as a commercial-scale energy crop has been slow to fruition due to their sterile nature and the labor intensity involved in harvesting the plants. White Technology LLC acquired an exclusive license for the micropropagation technology, developed by University of South Carolina plant geneticists Laszlo Marton and Mihaly Czako, about a year ago. The technology utilizes the regenerative nature of miscanthus and arundo to enable mass plantings of the crops. Kenn Davis, White Technology CEO, said the technology is superior to traditional methods of growing the crops, in that thousands to millions more plants can be grown in the same amount of
time required by other companies working to develop and plant rhizomes. Rhizomes are horizontal, underground plant stems, which are cut from mature plants and then planted for reproduction. “We’ll be able to support large farm operations, large enough to support biomass feedstocks for energy plants in a much shorter period of time; it’s a lot more reliable,” Davis said. Davis said White Technology is putting together package deals for buyers and is currently taking orders. He said interest in the crops has been “overwhelming,” but the company has found very few who are interested in actually purchasing the plantlets. Rather, the majority of inquiries are persons looking for the mature plants to use as feedstocks at biomass plants. “So we’re working to incorporate that philosophy into a package deal,” he added. “We have a lot going on.” —Anna Austin
3|2010 BIOMASS MAGAZINE 23