‘Cow Power To Horsepower’ Researched In Bellingham February 16, 2010

When you think of what federal economic stimulus money has paid for, the first things that come to mind might be highway paving, energy retrofits or high–speed trains. Now here’s one of the most unconventional stimulus projects we’ve heard of. An institute at Western Washington University is getting half a million dollars to examine how to convert cow poop into horsepower.

Five years ago, dairy farmer Darryl Vander Haak flipped the switch on the first poop–to–power generator in Washington State. Officially, the facility near Lynden, Washington is known as a methane digester. Manure from around a 1000 cows goes in one end. Then controlled decomposition yields methane gas. It’s burned like natural gas in an electric generator.

The rub is, electricity sales haven’t been very profitable, or profitable at all says dairyman Vander Haak.

Vander Haak: “We’re looking for alternative ways. The Northwest has too much hydropower to compete with. It would be easier to compete with the gas companies, I guess.”

That’s why Vander Haak was open minded when the director of the Vehicle Research Institute at Western Washington University came calling from down the road in Bellingham. Eric Leonhardt says he’s long had his eye on the dairy herd as a source of transportation fuel.

Leonhardt: “The problem is when the gas comes off the digester, it has not only methane in it — 60 percent — it also has carbon dioxide — forty percent, roughly. And it has a trace of hydrogen sulfide.”

Leonhardt says the challenge is to remove those engine–wrecking impurities cost–effectively. Other than that, powering vehicles with natural gas is not new. Generating the fuel from renewable sources has been done before too, for example at landfills. The U.S. Department of Energy gave the $500,000 grant to improve the fuel refining process and then demonstrate whether biogas could be cost–competitive. At lot depends on the price of fossil fuels.

Leonhardt: “At $6 a gallon, the payoff period isn’t very long.”

Banse: “So $6 a gallon for petroleum fuel?”

Leonhardt: “Yes. If you start at $3 a gallon, it’s a push. It is right on the edge of being possible.”

This spring, the Vehicle Research Institute plans to retrofit a donated airporter shuttle bus. It will take a few months of road testing to confirm Leonhardt’s cost estimates. The researcher has already calculated that the cows from just two large dairies could fuel all the public buses in his home of Whatcom County.

I’m Tom Banse in Bellingham, Washington.

Tom Banse, KUOW – http://kuow.org/program.php?id=19447

Despite possible suit, canola project continues in Ore. February 10, 2010

An economic development grant approved by Josephine County officials last year has hit a snag, but Commissioner Dave Toler said that the project remains worthwhile and has benefited the community.

The $85,000 grant was approved by the board of county commissioners on Jan. 13, 2009 by a 2-1 vote, with Sandi Cassanelli dissenting. It was awarded to the Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation District (JCSWCD), which was charged with administering the grant in cooperation with the Eugene-based firm, N.W. Seed Crushers.

At the time, it was hoped that canola could be grown by area farmers, which could then be crushed, with the resulting oil used for biofuels. The growing of canola is prohibited in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, but not in the southwest portion of the state.

However, the partnership between N.W. Seed Crushers and JCSWCD now appears to be dissolving, and could end up in litigation.

Toler addressed the issue during the Wednesday, Feb. 3 meeting of the Josephine County Renewable Energy Task Force, held at the courthouse in Grants Pass.

Only half of the grant allotment has been spent, Toler said, meaning that the other half is still available.

Toler touted certain aspects of the grant allocation. He said that more than 300 acres of canola have been planted throughout the county as a result, with several growers participating.

Kit Doyle has taken the lead on the project, Toler said, and has created partnerships with many growers. Doyle also has a waiting list of other growers hoping to become involved, Toler said.

A production facility for the crop may be established somewhere in the county soon, Toler said, adding that the Applegate Valley is becoming the local “epicenter” of canola growing.

Once the canola seed is crushed, around 70 percent of the product can be used as an agricultural feed product, Toler said, and the rest can be used as a biofuel.

He said that a new state mandate requires that 3 percent of the diesel consumed in Oregon come from renewable energy sources. There is currently an inadequate supply of such renewables in the state right now, he said, so it is being imported from Montana.

“This is definitely growing,” Toler said.

The grant was intended to stimulate the growth of biofuels crops, Toler said. Unless the commissioners vote to pull the remaining funding back, he said, it can go to a local contractor to continue the project.

“I think it will have a long-term impact in terms of agriculture,” Toler said. “With $43,000, we stimulated part of our agriculture sector. That’s great bang for our buck.”

Doyle will be scheduled to make a presentation to the commissioners sometime in mid-February about the canola project, Toler said.

Scott Jorgensen, Illionois Valley News – http://www.illinois-valley-news.com/archive/2010/02/10/canola/

Oregon Farmers examine biomass crops and power generation

Local farmers Monday were invited to be involved in the renewable energy field, not only as producers of a crop that could be turned into a fuel, but also as owners of the power generation facility that would burn the crop to produce electricity.

The question is “are we going to be in the driver’s seat?” Randon Wilson, an attorney who specializes in forming agriculture co-ops, said. “We have to decide where we are in charge.”

Wilson told the group, gathered at the Boulevard Grange near Ontario, as members of a proposed co-op for production of biomass crops, they could own the whole process from farm to processing to generation, or they could just do a portion of it. That would include producing the biomass crop that would be turned into fuel or producing the crop and the processing facility that would turn the crop into pellets.

It would take about five months to construct a processing plant to make the pellets, Wilson said. Construction of a power plant will take 18 to 24 months, Renewable Ag Energy Inc. President Kirk Christensen said.

The meeting was hosted by representatives of Renewable Ag Energy, Inc., an Ontario company assisting a group of local farmers, Agri Energy Producers, to bring a new crop to Malheur County.

While there is more than one crop that would produce the biomass, the co-op proponents were mainly discussing high biomass sorghum.

The high biomass crops would be planted in late May. Irrigation and fertilizer applications would be similar to corn. It would be harvested in September or October. Chopped green, it would be hauled to a conversion facility, where it would be stored, dried, cubed and shipped.

Harvesting, hauling and processing costs will be absorbed by the co-op, Christensen said.

“We’re not playing the fuel market,” Christensen said.

The farmers would be paid for growing the crop and participate in the profits from the conversion plan and profits from the generation facility, he said.

“We can’t survive on just what is produced on the farm,” Wilson said. “We need more bites. We have to take a look at energy.”

It was estimated the power plant would support 17 to 20 family-wage jobs, Christensen said.

Choices include full integration, wholly owned by the farmers, or partial integration, linked with other joint ventures or investors, Wilson said. But, it becomes difficult when you mix producers and investors, Wilson said, because eventually there are tensions between the two interests.

“We would like to get the jump on creating a state-wide co-op,” he said, adding that different groups of growers could act as separate divisions.

Such a large co-op would give the producers a lot of clout, Wilson said.

“There is a significant market,” he said.

Wilson, Christensen and others were also meeting with representatives from state agencies this week to discuss the permitting processes, land-use and other regulation issues.

Larry Meyer, Argus Observer – http://www.argusobserver.com/articles/2010/02/10/news/doc4b72f4004d160870392186.txt

Oregon’s Steens Mountain could soon have wind farms February 7, 2010

Ruggedly beautiful Steens Mountain stands in an area of southeast Oregon so isolated that it’s barely changed since cattle king Pete French arrived in the late 1800s.

Coyotes yelp at sundown. Drivers are so few that they wave to each other as they pass. Campers, hunters and bird-watchers trek from across the state to breathe in the majestic emptiness and to gaze from the Steens summit across a seemingly endless tapestry of high desert and open range.

But soon, the scenery will change.

Harney County has cleared Columbia Energy Partners of Vancouver to build a wind farm on the mountain’s north slope. By year’s end, 415-foot turbines could start rising from the juniper and sagebrush, among thousands of towers that developers are stampeding to build across eastern Oregon.

In addition, Columbia Energy has two more wind projects in the works for the Steens slope, plus another for Riddle Mountain to the northeast. A Houston company is scouting 18,000 acres to the south for a wind farm in the Pueblo Mountains, and more could follow.

“There are a number of sites being prospected by developers,” said John Audley of Portland’s Renewable Northwest Project, a coalition of companies and groups that promotes renewable-energy projects. “These prospectors are like old gold miners.”

Aside from wind farms, thousands of acres on Steens Mountain are open to homebuilding.

“We counted over 90 sites that you could come in tomorrow and make application to put homes on,” said Steve Grasty, chairman of the Harney County commissioners. One landowner won clearance to build hundreds of homes near the Steens’ Fish Lake.

But while some environmentalists are dismayed by the prospect of development on Steens Mountain — even if it’s green-friendly wind turbines — county officials are thrilled.

“We have an opportunity to put a $1.25 billion investment into this community,” said Grasty, referring to the value of Columbia Energy’s four wind projects and an accompanying transmission line.

“Holy mackerel, and it is an environmentally sensitive way to do it.”

To outsiders, it may seem unthinkable to build on the flank of an Oregon treasure. But to Harney County, it’s simple math.

A century after the close of the Western frontier, the county retains its gun-rack rawness. Residents are self-reliant, a necessity in a county bigger than nine states but with just 7,700 residents.

But the economy, long struggling, has been trampled in the recent recession. December’s jobless rate nudged 18 percent (compared with 11 percent statewide), not far from 1980’s record 21.8 percent, said Jason Yohannan, a state labor economist in La Grande.

The demise of RV-maker Monaco Coach in 2008-09 left Harney County with no manufacturing, Yohannan said, a change from the late 1970s when more than 1,000 residents worked as loggers or in the old Edward Hines Lumber Co. sawmill.

Columbia Energy unfurls the promise of a new industry — and jobs: 150 during an estimated four years of construction, plus 50 to 75 for maintenance after that, said Chris Crowley, Columbia Energy’s president.

Audley said that’s hard to pass up. “There hasn’t been a significant economic investment in Harney County in a long time,” he said. “For better or worse, this is the only industry I know of that’s investing (an average of) $700 million (per wind project) in rural Oregon.”

Grasty said he’s not worried about losing tourism because of the wind turbines. County tourism has grown only 5 percent in 20 years, he said, and the wind farms will be contained.

“They are islands of private property in a sea of public land,” he said.

So far, only Columbia Energy’s first wind farm has been approved: the $300 million Echanis Wind Project, with 40 to 60 wind turbines across 10,000 acres. It’s expected to produce 104 megawatts, enough to power some 30,000 homes.
The project hinges on U.S. Bureau of Land Management approval of the transmission line, which has two possible configurations: a 29-mile line possibly paralleling an existing line that crosses the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge just northwest of Steens Mountain, and a 46-mile line across mostly private land. Crowley expects to gain approval in the fall and launch construction on Echanis soon after.

Columbia Energy recently shelved its West Ridge and East Ridge wind projects headed for the Steens’ north flank, in the face of opposition from the Audubon Society of Portland and the Oregon Natural Desert Association in Bend.

Liz Nysson, spokeswoman for the desert association, said visitors will be appalled to find “industrial-scale wind development” on the slopes of Steens Mountain. The Echanis project, she said, also will be built on habitat for falcons, golden eagles and sage grouse, which is being considered for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Bob Sallinger, the Portland Audubon Society’s conservation director, called the area “an incredibly valuable landscape from a wildlife standpoint.”

“We have a gold-rush mentality in this state about wind,” he said. “We could look back in 10 or 15 years and wish we had done it differently and more thoughtfully.”

Both groups also accuse Columbia Energy of dividing the Steens projects into three pieces of about 104 megawatts each to skirt the state scrutiny that kicks in for projects of 105 megawatts or more.

But Crowley insisted the projects are legitimately separate: “They are on separate pieces of property. They will have separate substations. They will have separate financing.”

He also said Columbia Energy won’t sit on the West and East Ridge projects for long. The company expects to begin construction on one in 2012 and the other in 2013, when it also plans to launch construction on the Riddle Mountain project. All three will be about the same size as Echanis.

Crowley marveled at the area’s wind power. During a 24-hour test Jan. 10, the company clocked an average wind speed on the Steens’ north side of 41 mph.

“There is nowhere else with a resource like this in Oregon,” he said.

Cattle rancher Hoyt Wilson, meanwhile, has mixed feelings about his decision to lease land to Columbia Energy for the Echanis project.

“It’s not something I’m looking forward to,” said Wilson, 67, as he stood in a chilly breeze last week outside the shop and office for his 28,000-acre Mann Lake Ranch.

He remembers when cattle ranching was lucrative. “It used to be a lot of fun to ranch,” he said. “All you had to worry about was Mother Nature.”

But environmental lawsuits have forced the BLM to cut back on the number of cattle and amount of time they can graze on federal lands, pinching him and other ranchers, he said.

“It does you no good if you can run 1,000 cows on your own land for nine months, but you can only run 500 on BLM land for three months,” Wilson said. In other words, what happens to the other 500 cattle? Cows need so much room to graze, that even ranchers with significant land holdings rely on leasing federal lands for part of the year.

Wilson also worried that, after he and his wife die, his son and two daughters wouldn’t be able to afford the taxes on a property worth $4 million but generating no more than $60,000 a year in revenue.

The Columbia Energy deal will enable the family to keep the ranch intact and in the family. In exchange for a 20-year lease, he’ll receive a percentage of the gross sales from the wind farm’s output — about $5,000 to $7,000 a year per turbine.

“Windmills came along,” he said, “and, yeah, that is the way to make a buck.”

The economy comes into play for housing development as well. Under Measure 37, passed by voters in 2004 (and later scaled back by Measure 49), landowners could seek to develop their land under the rules in place at the time of purchase, or be compensated by county government for their economic loss.

But in Harney County, compensation is all but out of the question.

In 2007, for example, landowner Dan Jordan of Burns won the right under Measure 37 to build 640 homes below Fish Lake, a popular recreation site on Steens Mountain’s west side, after the county concluded it could hardly afford to pay him $6.4 million. Grasty said those plans were later scaled way back, and so far, Jordan hasn’t built anything.

Still, those who love the Steens’ open vistas and assume that the mountain is protected as wilderness might be surprised to learn how much of it rests in private hands.

The BLM manages 428,000 acres, including the 170,000-acre Steens Mountain Wilderness Area, and the state administers 1,000 acres. But an additional 67,000 acres on and around the mountain are privately owned, and most of that is at low elevation suitable for homes.

The county’s land-use plan allows ranch or farm dwellings on tracts of at least 160 acres, said Grasty, the county chairman. Owners are expected to maintain some farming or ranching operations, but a local real estate broker, Randy Wilson, said keeping horses or a cow or two is enough.

Wilson, a broker with United Country-Clemens Real Estate in Hines and no relation to Hoyt Wilson, said he’s seeing interest among urbanites eager to escape to Harney County.

“Every week, I get people looking for property,” he said. “A lot of hunters, a lot of people looking to retire.” If they can get access to electricity and county approval to build on or near the mountain, he said, “people are going to jump all over it.”

John Witzel, an outfitter and former rancher who lives in Frenchglen just west of Steens Mountain, said he’s seen a marked shift in attitudes toward development.

Witzel, 51, and his wife, Cindy, were denied permission in 1997 to build 15 guest cabins and a 25-room lodge on the mountain’s west side. After they won Harney County approval to build a “career school” instead, the state Land Use Board of Appeals in 2001 overturned the decision.

“We couldn’t do that because of the viewshed,” Witzel said. “Things have changed, obviously.”

For hard-pressed ranchers, wind turbines are “a way to carry on and keep going,” he said. “I don’t think any of them want to look at windmills, but that’s the way it is.”

Richard Cockle – The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/02/oregons_steens_mountain_could.html

Manure digester not all that Zillah dairy expected February 5, 2010

Dan DeRuyter doubts he would do it again if he knew what he knows today.

The 42-year-old dairy producer east of Zillah operates the only manure digester in Eastern Washington, one of four currently operating in the state.

His 1.2-megawatt capacity digester may ultimately be the only one in a county where facilities like his that turn manure into electricity and usable products would appear to be a natural.

With 61 dairies and about 139,000 cows, Yakima County has the highest concentration of milk producers in the state, which carries with it the dubious distinction of being a large producer of manure.

A single dairy cow produces nearly 150 pounds of wet manure a day.

As a result, dairies are considered one of the culprits contributing to a groundwater contamination problem in the Lower Yakima Valley, where one out of every five wells has nitrate levels above what the federal government considers safe.

While the federal Environmental Protection Agency is trying to pinpoint the source of the contamination, some dairies are trying to find their own solutions, which led DeRuyter to explore what kind of a difference a digester could make on his manure output.

He was encouraged by local and state policymakers, but things aren’t turning out quite the way the models envisioned when he built the $3.8 million facility and began producing power more than three years ago.

DeRuyter, whose dairy has 3,000 cows, has run into a problem with Pacific Power, which has a contract to market his power at a rate of about 6.1 cents per kilowatt hour this year, or more than $1,700 per day. It is a six-month contract that began in November.

The utility argues that a tariff it proposed – ultimately approved by the state Utilities and Transportation Commission – prohibits it from paying him for more than 1 megawatt of electricity at that set rate.

The rate is designed to assure small start-up generators a firm rate to support their operations.

As it stands now, an interim renewal agreement allows DeRuyter to be paid for no more than 1 megawatt, enough power to light about 500 homes.

But DeRuyter needs to be able to market electricity at his capacity of 1.2 megawatts to make the project pencil out and provide a return on his investment.

His operation averaged under 1 megawatt during its first three years. Efficiencies have boosted his ability to generate more power.

Now he finds paying for and operating the digester is a draw on the equity in his farming operation. And it is occurring at the worst time, as dairy producers try to slog through a downturn in milk prices. Prices to dairy producers dropped nearly in half to $12 for 100 pounds early last year. Prices have since rebounded some.

“It’s a situation where they have me over a barrel and just don’t care,” argued DeRuyter, who has taken his case to state lawmakers.

Pacific Power spokesman Tom Gauntt in Portland responded the utility is operating under rules established for it that can’t be ignored.

“Those are the rules we operate by. They can be changed and there are processes involved. We have been talking to the Legislature and talking about the administrative rules to make alterations,” he said. “I don’t think we are opposed to making changes. Until they happen, we have to work with the rules we have.”

“It’s not in our power to make an exception and pretend 1.2 megawatts is 1 megawatt,” he added.

State law and regulations that set out what utilities must do raise public policy questions about the role the state should play in encouraging renewable energy sources, especially in light of Initiative 937.

The initiative, approved by voters in 2007, required utilities such as Pacific Power to meet targets for the use of renewable energy resources in their portfolios.

The ultimate target is 15 percent renewables in the portfolio by 2020.

The commission, which regulates electricity, could modify the tariff rate by rule, but has not done so. Commissioners have to make sure that utility customers receive the best rates possible for power service.

Efforts to modify the system in the Legislature have failed because the various parties – producers and utilities – can’t agree, according to a state lawmaker who is working on the issue.

State Rep. John McCoy, a Tulalip Democratic lawmaker and chair of the Technology, Energy and Communication Committee, said he sympathizes with DeRuyter’s predicament. But right now there’s not consensus to move forward.

“I want to fix that. We have to keep plugging away,” McCoy said in a telephone interview. “I don’t want the DeRuyters to go away. I have talked about anaerobic digesters for years. Now, legislators are starting to get it. I still can’t get the utilities to come around.”

Dairy operators in Yakima County and elsewhere are watching.

Jay Gordon, executive director of the Washington State Dairy Federation, said DeRuyter’s experience is sending the wrong message to others about building a digester to expand uses for the huge amount of manure created every day in Yakima County.

“It needs to be where we can show this will give you a return on investment and not lose your shirt,” Gordon said. “This sends a loud message to farmers and energy companies there is some risk.”

The digester on DeRuyter’s dairy is composed of a huge concrete-lined digester, a 3.3 million-gallon tank that mostly sits below ground level and an engine room with two 900-horsepower motors.

About 150,000 gallons of manure are flushed into the system every day.

Heat is applied to activate microbes that feed on the manure, creating methane. The methane is used to power the motors that turn a generator and create electricity.

Byproducts include a bedding material he uses for his cattle and fertilizer. The bedding material also could replace peat moss for nursery companies. Other uses for the byproduct also are being looked at, such as wood pellets and plywood.

DeRuyter also said the digester has reduced odors from the dairy, something about which his neighbors have commented to him.

Other digester operators in the state are faring better, primarily because they are in the Puget Sound Energy service area.

Kevin Maas, president of Farm Power Northwest LLC, a company that is operating a digester for two farmers in Mount Vernon in Skagit County, said Puget Sound is paying for power up to two megawatts – Puget’s tariff limit – at a rate that started last year at 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour and rises over the next nine years to 12 cents per kilowatt hour. The other two digesters are located in Snohomish and Whatcom counties.

The cap of two megawatts represents what is known as Puget Sound Energy’s avoided cost, what the investor-owned utility would have to pay to generate the energy itself or purchase the energy from someone else.

In Pacific Power’s case, its avoided cost is 1 megawatt.

Pacific Power officials say any production above the 1 megawatt must be submitted under a request for proposals process by which rates are set on a competitive basis and generally are lower.

But Maas argues Pacific Power is doing only the minimum it is required to do.

“The regulations don’t require them to do anything more than the minimum and that is what they are doing with Dan,” Maas said.

DeRuyter said Pacific Power could approach the commission to modify its existing tariff or seek an exception to allow it to go beyond the 1-megawatt limit.

But the utility would have to do that for all producers, said Tom Schooley, accounting manager in the commission’s energy section.

Maas points to Oregon, where utilities are required to offer longer-term contracts and accept power from generators up to 10 megawatts.

“The state government could change all of this by doing the same thing as Oregon,” he said. “It is something the Legislature could solve if it weren’t distracted by a $2.6 billion shortfall.”

The issue is getting a renewed look by the state Utilities and Transportation Commission.

The last chance for a legislative fix died last week when a McCoy bill that sought to modify Initiative 937 died.

The dairy federation’s Gordon said should nothing change in the current, short legislative session, he may try to start a between-session dialogue on the issue.

“My plan is to put together a letter to the UTC and send it out to the utilities asking why we have such a low tariff rate on renewables and can we change that to what we have in Western Washington?”

DAVID LESTER, Yakima Herald-Republic – http://www.bellinghamherald.com/northwest/story/1278356.html

Study suggests burning wood pellets in place of coal can be cost-Effective February 1, 2010

A recent study concludes that burning biomass in place of coal, such as Portland General Electric is considering for its Boardman power plant, can be cost-effective.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, looked at replacing all or part of the coal supplying power plants in Ontario, Canada, and it found that co-firing with wood pellets and coal was a realistic way to reduce a plant’s greenhouse gas emissions.

A mix of 90 percent coal, 10 percent pellets would increase the cost of electricity from the two test plants’ by 0.6 and 0.9 cents per kilowatt hour, the study says, while significantly reducing the amount of climate-changing gasses they produce.

“If 10% co-firing were to be implemented in all coal (plants) in the United States and Canada, electricity generation from biomass could contribute approximately 4% of annual generation of the two countries (185 of 4660 TWh), reducing GHG emissions by 170 million metric tons/year, 5% of emissions from the two countries’ electricity sectors,” the study says.

Read about PGE’s plans for biomass at its Boardman coal-fired power plant here.

“The results suggest that electricity produced from biomass in existing coal GS should be considered, along with other alternatives, as a means of achieving near-term GHG reductions,” it says.

But there are limits to how many pellets forests can sustainable supply, the study cautions.

(Hat tip to Green Inc.)

Matthew Preusch, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/02/study_suggests_burning_wood_pe.html

More on possible biomass plant conversion in Boardman, Ore.

Portland General Electric has three options for its Boardman power plant: close it, stop burning coal there, or make costly upgrades to clean up emissions.

Most of the debate about Boardman, Oregon’s only coal-fired power plant and the state’s largest single source of air pollution, has focused not on whether, but when, it should shut down. But the utility is looking at the possibility of keeping Boardman open by burning biomass instead of coal to spin its turbines.

They aren’t the only utility considering replacing some of their coal with plant material, but they are among the few thinking about doing away with coal entirely by using biomass, said Christopher Wright,  a research engineer and biomass energy specialist at the Idaho National Laboratory.

“In that regard, they are on the forefront of that thinking when we look out on the landscape,” Wright said.

Coal-fired power plants in Europe, charged with reducing emissions of climate-changing gasses, are already replacing portions of their coal with wood pellets imported from British Columbia, the southeastern United States and elsewhere.

“Once the Europeans realized that that was a fairly cost efficient way to meet the goals for renewable energy standards, the demand started to grow very rapidly over the last four or five years,” said Keith Balter, senior economist with Forest Capital Partners in Portland.

North America’s pellet industry has grown from having the capacity to produce about 1 million metric tons in 2003 to an estimated 6 million tons last year, according to a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture study.

U.S. coal plant owners see similar regulations on the horizon, so utilities like PGE are considering mixing wood pellets with coal in their boilers.

“We’re actually looking at doing some co-firing with green pellets in the very near future, just as a test,” said Jaisen Mody,  director of generation projects for PGE.

Right now, Oregon’s wood pellet industry is focused on home-heating stoves and animal bedding products.

Andrew Haden,  vice-president of A3 Energy Partners, a Portland pellet-for-energy company, did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and found that if just 15 percent of Boardman’s energy needs came from biomass, that would require about 500,000 tons of pellets year.

“That would mean a doubling or even tripling of Oregon’s pellet production,” Haden said.

Assuming testing at Boardman goes well, and they could find enough pellets, the Portland-based utility estimates it can replace up to 20 percent of the coal at their 585-megwatt Boardman plant with wood pellets similar to those used to heat homes.

While that would drop Boardman’s contribution to climate change, PGE would still need to install expensive upgrades at the plant to comply with clean air laws, which is what prompted the utility’s recent announcement it could close the plant by 2020, about 20 years ahead of schedule, or switch to an alternative fuel.

“When you replace all the coal with biomass, you could reduce the amount of that equipment substantially,” said Mody.

View full sizeSo PGE is looking at whether it can replace all of the millions of tons of coal it burns a year at Boardman with plant material that has been pre-treated through a still experimental process called torrefaction.

In torrefaction, plant material is roasted at high temperatures – 200 to 300 degrees Celsius – until it becomes a dry, high energy substance similar to the Kingsford charcoal you might use to grill steaks on your Weber.

This so-called torrefied biomass can be easily converted to pellets, making it easy to haul and simple to burn at pulverized coal plants like Boardman.

“This acts like coal and behaves like coal,” Wayne Lei,  director of research and development at PGE.

But it’s not nearly as easy to find as coal.

There are no commercial-scale torrefaction facilities in the U.S. And PGE estimates it would need about 2 million tons of torrefied biomass a year to operate Boardman, which supplies about 15 percent of the energy used by its more than 800,000 customers.

And though the torrefied material has a high energy content, it requires significant energy to produce, calling into question whether it’s a truly renewable resource.

“At this point, it doesn’t seem realistic, because torrefaction is really in an experimental phase and not at a commercial scale,” said Cesia Kearns,  an anti-coal activist with the Sierra Club.

Kearns said PGE should focus on a mix of renewable energy projects and energy efficiency initiatives to replace Boardman’s power production. The utility could also replace part of Boardman’s output with new natural gas plants.

“It’s not going to be a silver bullet, but rather silver buckshot” that replaces Boardman, Kearns said.

Mody said that torrefied biomass, what little there is, costs from $100-120 per ton, roughly three to four times coal hauled by rail from Wyoming.

A big part of that price difference is the cost of transporting the biomass to Boardman.

Lei, PGE’s research chief, said the answer to the supply question could lie in a tall, reed-like grass called Arundo donax, or giant cane.

Californians know the plant as an imported species that has run wild along some of their waterways, causing extensive environmental damage. But PGE thinks the plant can be safely grown as a crop in Oregon and converted to fuel for Boardman.

They would need to convince enough farmers that it’s in their economic interest to grow a lot of giant cane, about 90,000 irrigated acres worth. Morrow County, home to Boardman, has a total of 89,897 acres of irrigated farmland planted in food crops.

“Can they routinely, sustainably get that amount every year from the Oregon countryside?” said Wright of the Idaho national lab.

That’s just one of the questions PGE will consider as it spends the next several years planning for Boardman’s future, or lack thereof.

Matthew Preusch, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/coal-burning_power_plant_in_bo.html

Landowners, developers laying groundwork for community wind farm in Mont. January 18, 2010

In the lull before the storm, the monstrous turbines at Invenergy’s Judith Gap Wind Farm stood still, their blades idle. Less than 20 miles to the northwest, however, a breeze scraped across the snow-crusted benchlands.

“The wind potential is here,” said Pat McNulty, who runs cattle on the northeast end of the Little Belt Mountains. “It’s a unique wind, and it’s here most of the time.”

McNulty and about 30 of his neighbors are hoping to harvest that wind in Montana’s premiere utility-scale community wind farm. As projected, the wind farm would stretch across 55,000 acres of land in central Montana. Ultimately, its turbines would crank up to 500 megawatts of power — nearly four times the production capacity at the neighboring Judith Gap facility. Developers say the project will most likely be developed in phases of 100-plus megawatts, perhaps in several clusters of turbines, over the next five to eight years. At an estimated $2 million per kilowatt, the wind farm would have a $1 billion price tag at full buildout.

The new project — dubbed Judith Highlands Energy LLC — is yet in its infancy with no guarantee it will come to fruition. The parties involved, however, believe prospects are good and they are willing to be patient.

“This is not going to happen overnight,” McNulty said. “But we’ve been really pleased with the way this is going.”

Community wind

What sets Judith Highlands apart is not just its size, but its community-based approach. To appreciate the difference, one only has to speak with landowners who have dealt with the “gold rush mentality” that typifies some in the industry. Too often property owners have been pressed to sign sketchy contracts, offered rock-bottom lease prices and told not to compare their deal with their neighbor’s.

The community approach caught the attention of Rhyno Stinchfield and Steve Tyrrel, CEO and chief operating officer, respectively, of Billings-based Montana Wind Resources LLC. Both long-time proponents of sustainable energy, they were looking for wind development opportunities when they crossed trails with National Wind LLC.

Minnesota-based National Wind specializes in community wind development on a utility scale. The business was established six years ago and now boasts more than a dozen community wind farms in various stages of development, mostly in the Midwest.

“Nobody is doing community wind at this level,” Stinchfield said.

Stinchfield and Tyrrel welcomed the thought of working with an American company — wind development in Montana is dominated by European firms — that would keep stimulus dollars closer to home. But they were especially impressed with National Wind’s community-based model.

“The landowner has the opportunity to participate in the sale of electricity, on top of wind turbine and land payments,” Stinchfield said. “That’s what, in our minds, makes this a truly community project.”

With fewer dollars going out of state or out of country, community wind farms have a higher potential for re-injecting dollars into the local economy. A study conducted by the University of Minnesota concluded that community wind projects have five times the local value added as a corporate wind farm and create 3.4 times as many jobs. Stinchfield says his numbers indicate that roughly 20 percent of the money generated from a community wind project stays local, as compared to 6 percent for a “traditional” development.

And that’s huge, he said, when you’re talking millions of dollars in power generation each year.

“Steve and I have enjoyed working with Montana ranchers and landowners over the past several years,” Stinchfield said. “However, nothing we’ve seen yet has possessed the economic potential of Judith Highlands.”

Local representation

Long before Stinchfield and Tyrrel targeted the Garneill/Buffalo/Hobson area, landowners there had been talking with wind developers. When plans stalled for lack of agreement over contract terms, several locals weren’t willing to abandon the concept.

“We had a small group already meeting,” McNulty said. “We had been working our way up the learning curve.”

So, the potential was ripe when one of McNulty’s neighbors — an individual whose land is a part of the Judith Highlands footprint — happened upon Stinchfield and Tyrrel at last spring’s Montana Agri-Trade Exposition in Billings. He found the notion of a community wind farm appealing and his neighbors agreed.

“That community model, that’s not just a phrase,” said David Dover, who owns land within the boundary of the Judith Highlands proposal. “There’s a local board of directors, so locals get representation.”

Over the ensuing months, the small nucleus of nine landowners grew to 30. A few more may be added when more detailed wind data is in. Ranging in size from a quarter-section to 10,000 acres, their properties straddle portions of Judith Gap, Golden Valley, Fergus and Wheatland counties. In accordance with the community model, all will receive some payment, even if no turbines are placed on their land.

“Part of the fairness of that,” Tyrrel said, “is that, if your land is within the footprint, it’ll be impacted.”

Locals also like the fact that they’re encouraged to discuss among the group the details of their contracts.

“You know exactly what your neighbor signed because it’s the same for you as it is for him,” Dover said. “And we have time. They’re not pushing paper at us.”

Enough to share

Although the community model keeps dollars at home, electricity generated from Judith Highlands will almost certainly be shipped to West Coast markets.

“Montana isn’t really in need of wind power,” Stinchfield said, noting that Montana won’t have any problem meeting its 2015 target of 15 percent renewable energy. He also points out that the going rate for electricity in California is twice that in Montana.

Tyrrel counters the notion that by exporting wind power, rates for Montanans will increase.

“That’s like saying, if we export wheat, we end up paying too much for bread,” he said. “This is an export commodity and should be looked at that way.”

Above all, Tyrrel is enthused that a Montana resource has the potential to decrease the nation’s reliance on foreign energy. It’s American, it’s domestic and it isn’t influenced by international crises, he said.

“Wind has value because it cannot be affected by commodity prices, like coal and natural gas are,” he said. “Once you document a wind regime, you have a known entity that can extend out indefinitely.”

McNulty said the landowners understand that the power generated on their property will light homes and run air conditioners in Los Angeles. But it will also keep create local jobs and boost the local economy.

But, there are risks. There’s the risk that the $100,000-plus spent erecting two meteorological towers last month won’t reveal the type of wind resource they’d hoped for. There’s the risk that the presence of sage grouse or some threatened species will scuttle plans. And there are risks that financing won’t materialize, or there’ll be no way to move the energy to market.

“Basically all of the transmission in Montana has been spoken for,” McNulty said. “And as projects do happen, how much capacity can we get?”

Problems all solvable

Wind farm development may be a roll of the dice, but Gov. Brian Schweitzer believes Judith Highlands stands out from the 50-plus wind projects currently at some stage of dream-to-development in the Big Sky state.

“Some will never be built, and we never know which,” he said, applauding the community concept. “But this one looks very promising.”

Regarding transmission, Schweitzer refers to a project proposed by Grasslands Renewable Energy of Bozeman. The project would tie together wind generation from the eastern two-thirds of the state and deliver it to a hub in Townsend, from where it would be shipped to West Coast markets. If the Grasslands project is realized, it would have the capacity to export as much power as Montana currently generates, Schweitzer said.

Stinchfield admits that transmission presents the biggest hurdle, but he continues to work with transmission developers, including Carl Borgquist of Grasslands.

Regarding financing, Schweitzer commends the developers for actively pursuing Montana investors. While the state does not finance private endeavors, he said it does strive to match developers with financiers.

The Judith Highlands project represents National Wind’s second venture in the Rocky Mountain area, the first being in Colorado.

LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA, Billings Gazette – http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_8e390e86-0266-11df-8bc2-001cc4c002e0.html

Methane digester ready to go at Threemile Canyon Farms December 18, 2009

Marty Myers, general manager at Threemile Canyon Farms, has high hopes for the operation’s new fuel plant.

Workers just completed building a $1 million methane digester near the milking barns.

Myers and Tom Chavez, the farm’s waste manager, hope to begin producing methane gas from the digester in early January.

“This is a pilot project that should handle the manure from 1,000 to 1,500 cows,” Myers said.

Threemile Canyon Farms has a flush dairy. That means employees use water to clean the stalls, washing animal waste into a drainage system that pumps it over revolving screens that remove large solids for composting.

The wastewater then flows into clarifiers, similar to those used in municipal wastewater systems. They allow solids to settle to the bottom, from which the waste again is pumped over the screens.

Myers said some waste from the bottom of the clarifiers eventually will go to the digester, where bacteria will decompose it, producing methane.

The rest will go through settling cells and finally into the lagoon.

“The lagoon water is then clean enough to be pumped through the irrigation system through the pivots as fertilizer,” he said.

The digester isn’t much to look at. Most of it is underground, comprising a 29-foot deep inverted pyramid that is 160 feet square at ground level.

Troy Green, a Kennewick engineer who helped design the digester, said it’s filled with 31,000 neatly stacked tires.

Myers said he and the engineers think this digester will process manure twice as fast as a traditional digester, which takes 20-25 days.

“I think this will reduce the time to seven to 10 days because of the tires,” Myers said. “They give a place for the bacteria to live.”

Waste that isn’t routed to the digester will go through settling cells and finally into the lagoon.

“The lagoon water is then clean enough to be pumped through the irrigation system through the pivots as fertilizer,” he said.

The gas will be collected and used to fire a boiler. It will heat water for use on the 17,000-cow dairy.

This pilot project will determine the system’s success. If it works, Myers plans to build up to a dozen digesters to handle manure from the entire dairy.

“It’s a successful project if it produces enough gas to heat our … water for the dairy,” he said.

The dairy’s propane bill runs about $120,000 per year to do that today. That’s why the methane digester project is a partnership among the farm, Northwest Natural Gas and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

Myers expects it will be 18 months after startup before he’ll know the digester’s effectiveness, but he’s eager to find out.

“If it’s as successful as we think it is, the next eight to 12 will be lesser cost per unit.”

Producing methane from cow manure could even become a revenue stream, Myers said. If the farm can’t burn all the methane it produces, it might build a co-generation plant or sell methane to Portland General Electric, which has a generating plant about four miles from the farm.

DEAN BRICKEY, The East Oregonian – http://www.capitalpress.com/dairy/EO-Threemile-digester-121809

“Community owned” wind company plans 500 megawatts in Mont. November 30, 2009

A Minnesota company has partnered with a Montana developer to pursue more than 500 megawatts of community-owned wind power in central Montana.

National Wind of Minneapolis and Montana Wind Resources of Billings said Monday the project would be built in phases of at least 100-megawatts each over the next five to eight years. Landowners in Judith Basin, Wheatland, Golden Valley and Fergus counties would share in any revenues.

The companies say a separate entity — Judith Highlands Energy LLC — will manage the project, which they describe as the first large, community-owned wind farm in Montana.

The latest entry into Montana’s budding wind power industry comes as corporations including NaturEner, Invenergy and Gaelectric have announced plans to erect more than 1,000 megawatts of wind power turbines over the next several years.

Associated Press – http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_a1dbb94e-ddfd-11de-9f48-001cc4c002e0.html

Wind leases: 30 years with no parole November 26, 2009

Wind power, the new neighbor on the energy block, presents Montana landowners with the opportunity – or potential disaster – of a lifetime, says Bozeman-based energy attorney Hertha Lund.

Montanans in particular seem in better shape to weather the pitfalls of previous black-gold rushes in petroleum and coal, she notes. However, in the fledgling Big Sky Country wind business, it’s unlikely there will be any rush or quick-hit boom at all.
She explained that wind companies get paid per unit of energy minus so-called “wheeling charges” for transmitting the electricity from Montana to light up Las Vegas and Southern California.
“It all goes through NorthWestern Energy Corp., and there’s not enough transmission capacity” for any big boost in production, Lund says.
The wind lease is a new legality completely foreign to mineral rights, oil and gas leases, or other centuries-old court documents.
“What is a wind lease? It’s not like an oil and gas lease where you have split estates and one estate (mineral) has dominance over another … A wind lease is not a property right. A wind lease is a contract for a term lease. It’s a lease with an easement,” Lund explained.
It’s also a long lease – a minimum of 30 years – so it’s incumbent on a landowner to get all the required documents in a row or face disaster and rip-off over the long haul.
Which all sounds fairly scary, given what two other panelists said Nov. 17 at the Northern Plains Resource Council’s 38th annual meeting in Billings.
North Dakotan Danny Nelson said that in half a century of negotiating with petroleum companies, his family never has signed an ideal agreement. “You just do the best you can and learn and move on,” he said. “As far as surface rights, you have none.”
In the case of wind leases, any mistakes stay with you for at least 30 years and then you can move on. Each turbine cost about $2 million, and most wind projects have about 150 turbines, which may justify such a long-term commitment with all of its promises and pitfalls.
“The property value of the personal property of the (wind-farm) infrastructure dwarfs the value of the real property, the land,” Lund said.
As in other energy businesses, said Wyoming lawyer Dennis Kervin, before signing anything, “It’s important to talk to your neighbors. Be organized and share information.”
Kervin said that when the coal-bed methane craze hit northeastern Wyoming in 1998 and “the courthouses were packed with people looking at land titles,” it resembled an Old West free-for-all.
Coal-bed methane was a different animal with its impacts on water rights and legal and environmental issues, and few non-corporate lawyers, let alone ranchers, were trained, equipped or experienced to deal with it, he noted.
“It’s all small print with a lot of words you would never use in your business,” Kervin said, and what is omitted often can be the bane of the landowner later on. Power line and pipeline easements, for example, can become perpetual if not spelled out otherwise.
If there are not surface-use agreements that limit activities such as roads and buildings and require restoration or weed spraying, Kervin said the oil industry will run roughshod over the land.
“With coal-bed methane, the number of subcontractors, the traffic – it’s enormous. There’s a maze of traffic, roads, dirt moving, dust … You can’t even remember what it looked like five or six years ago,” he said.
Although projects such as the wind farm in the Judith Gap area seem aesthetically pleasing and politically correct today, they don’t start out that way, Kervin said.
“They build the turbines with cranes that are so big they have to be assembled on the spot. The turbines are as big as a 747. They have to build a substation, service roads, transmission lines …,” he said, adding that there’s potential for disturbing not just the surface area but streams and aquifers.
Whatever the energy resource, Kervin said, it’s important that landowners get on the ground and with a qualified lawyer before starting anything. Paperwork should include a survey access just for driving out to check the stakes and corners.
Lund said that wind companies, like their petroleum industry counterparts, “try to get more than they need” such as water or mineral rights or passing off the indemnity to the landowner and making them liable for any problems that may occur.
If ranchers are stuck with such indemnity, they might be held responsible if they allow hunters on the property and they end up shooting the turbines instead of the antelope. A more likely scenario would be a windmill worker accidentally touching off a blaze that spreads to neighboring land and leaves the landowner holding the wet gunny sack of blame – and the neighbor the deed to the ranch. That’s why contracts Lund writes routinely include a “no smoking on the property” clause.
Among other advice for would-be wind farmers:
•Ensuring rights to check the books, as payment are based on the amount of energy produced and sold.
•Checking with lawyers and bankers to ensure that the mortgage does not become subservient to the wind lease.
•Doing baseline surveys of the environment to have ongoing projects such as weed spraying and erosion mitigation in legal form.
•Including restoration provisions so that the wind companies don’t just leave behind rusting towers and drooping power lines.

Queen City News – http://www.queencitynews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=10837&mode=flat&order=0&thold=0

Wind farms – the wind blows free and so does the criticism November 18, 2009

Our Views

Probably no one is totally surprised that some criticism is starting to circulate concerning the proliferation of wind generator towers that are now starting to dot the landscapes in this region.

There have been several ‘letters to the editor’ in large and small newspapers where the writers have decried the loss of the ‘pristine prairies’ now that these towers have sprouted up in concentrated, scattered locations where experts have determined the wind flow is best suited for electrical production.

It was just a few years ago that many people invested a lot of thought, planning and, for some, even money into these first wind farm ventures, extolling the benefits of being able to supply clean, electrical power without burning fossil fuels, thus lessening the carbon footprint of electrical generation.

Well, those first efforts paid off, and public utilities realized the huge potential the region has for electrical generation.

And it has meant an additional income source for farmers as they have signed easements allowing the construction of these wind farms and the needed electrical transmission lines. It seems like everyone should be happy – a clean and fairly reliable source of electrical energy that will benefit all electrical consumers (and that’s all of us).

But it turns out that some who have chosen to live on a small acreage in the country and ended up with their residence close to a wind farm are now complaining that the pristine view of the prairie has been destroyed, they can hear a constant low-level noise from the generators and bats and birds are being killed in huge numbers. And they pose the question: “What have we gotten ourselves into now? This should have been thought out more thoroughly.”

Now some of these are the same people who have been fretting over the stack emissions from fossil fuel fired power plants, but when a cleaner alternative comes along they are opposed to that as well. Perhaps we can look to history and learn to not jump to judgment so quickly when it comes to new technology.

In a recent edition of a Sunday newspaper supplement there was an article that asked: “What are the things we should be truly worried about?” The article mentioned the situation in New York City at the start of the 1900s, when the electric streetcars and the automobile started to replace the horses that were used as a source of power for just about everything.

There had to be alarmists at that time as well, who predicted gloom and doom if the horses were replaced by these machines, despite the fact that the horse manure was piling up around the city at a rate of nearly 5 million pounds a day and at times it lined the streets like banks of snow and was piled up to 60 feet high in vacant lots. That can happen when you have over 200,000 horses with each producing around 24 pounds of manure a day. That must have created a wonderful aroma and think of the fly problem.

We’re not dealing with horse manure anymore, but we are looking at new technology that lessens our dependence on fossil fuel. And let us not forget that the world does not have an endless supply of fossil fuel. For that reason, along with many others, it’s important to develop alternative sources of power and this appears to fill the bill for a clean, affordable source of electricity.

Our region has some of the most scenic prairie countryside in the nation, and we empathize with those who enjoy those views because we love them, too. But these wind generators are only located in certain areas. There still remains a lot of beautiful prairie scenery for us to enjoy.

We should be giving some credit to those who had the foresight to make us a major player in this quest for electrical generation capacity. Besides reducing our carbon footprint and dependence on fossil fuels, wind-generated electricity is also providing extra income for producers and helping the rural economy in those areas.

Is it the perfect solution? No. But it is a positive step in the right direction.

Prairie Star – http://www.theprairiestar.com/articles/2009/11/18/ag_news/opinion/edit1.txt

Dairy farm utilizes alternative energy sources October 26, 2009

A farmer in tough times has to squeeze every penny from his operation, but Huls Dairy is squeezing in places few farmers have.

Dairy cows at the Corvallis farm produce 6 million gallons of manure a year, which this fourth-generation farm in Northwest Montana’s Bitterroot Valley taps for methane fuel and a bagged, organic lawn-and-garden fertilizer sold as Afterburner Boost.

The methane generates enough energy to power Huls’ 350-cow dairy operation, plus one home.

“Our farm has tried to utilize our cows, to market whatever we have,” said Tim Huls, who is facing the lowest payments in nearly three decades for his farm’s milk. “It wouldn’t be enough to offset the dairy crisis, in terms of taking you from being in the red, but at this point it’s paid its own way, particularly in fertilizer. Afterburner Boost does very well in the marketplace.”

Finding small ways to save or make a buck has become crucial for Montana farmers struggling with feast-or-famine market prices. Huls likens the erratic price behavior of his commodity to a seismograph reading for Yellowstone National Park. After receiving a record high price for his milk two years ago, Huls would now need dairy payouts to increase a third just to break even.

For Huls Dairy, the decision to go into the methane energy business was as much about squeezing a dollar as bracing for environmental change. Methane from livestock is increasingly being viewed as a liability for farmers, one they might be penalized for producing possible federal legislation to curb global warming.

Methane is 21 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. By scraping the manure from the alleys inside the dairy barn and feeding the waste into an anaerobic digester, Huls Dairy makes a burnable fuel to power its operation, rather than releasing the gas into the atmosphere.

Other farmers are turning to no-till crop practices to minimize the amount of carbon dioxide they release when seeding. In doing so, they allow pollution captured by crops and pulsed into the ground through roots to remain sequestered in the soil. Their hope is that carbon sequestration will offset their costs under any future pollution penalties imposed by the government.

Like Huls, their environmentalism earns a small profit. Farmers sell their sequestered carbon as offsets for industrial polluters buying green credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. But there are concerns that money for carbon won’t be enough.

“There’s a fair amount of uncertainty in the ag world right now about climate change,” Mattson said. “Where does climate change take ag? When you’re working in a business with low, single-digit margins of two or three percent, it’s a concern.”

At Huls Dairy, Tim Huls is thinking about other ways to save a dollar, like local marketing, or better state and federal price controls to keep dairies from operating at a loss. The milking machine squeezes teats as the cows turn round. The pensive dairy farmer squeezes pennies, nickels and dimes.

“You can’t stop feeding your cows. You can’t stop milking your cows. You do what has to be done every day,” Huls said. “You watch costs. You can get involved in policy at the federal and state levels. And you pray, I guess.”

By TOM LUTEY Billings Gazette – http://www.helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/article_7af7b0d8-c0db-11de-853c-001cc4c002e0.html

Great Falls man harnesses wind power for business September 9, 2009

You don’t have to drive to a wind farm to see Montana’s potential energy future – in fact, you may just have to look over at your neighbor’s yard.

Scott Palmer founded Wind Power of Montana, a wind turbine business in Great Falls, and business is good – he’s already installed 15 across Montana. Palmer said, “I’ve always had an interest in wind power, in alternative energy. And we got one of the greatest natural resources in the world here: wind!”

When it comes to setting up a customer with a wind turbine, Palmer says, “We actually do a wind study. We have a wind meter that we can bring out and we actually stand it up in the air to find out the clearest view of every direction.”

They sell a wide range of sizes and prices, all the way up to $15,000, but with incentives and tax credits, a wind turbine could pay for itself in just a few years.

Palmer noted that the energy meter for one of his customers barely moves, and said, “The only charge they have right now is the five-dollar meter charge that they pay every month regardless whether they use any consumption or not.”

It can take a few weeks to get one going, and while interest is peaking across the state, there are rules that limit who can install a wind turbine on their land.

Palmer explained, “The city of Great Falls really made some giant strides to let turbines come into the city limits. But the setback rules can really eliminate a lot of people from being able to put them in their backyards.”

But for those who can, Palmer offers this advice: “Go green!”

Wind Power of Montana plans to start construction on what is believed to be the first commercial wind turbine in Great Falls city limits next week.

MontanasNewsStation.com – http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=11103020

Looking for a biofuels breakthrough in Boardman, Ore. September 5, 2009

On paper, making fuel from plant materials looks like a simple five-step process.

You start with a bundle of twigs. Separate the cellulose, add enzymes, then let the brew ferment. A couple of chemical processes later, you’re powering a car with a product that quite literally grows on trees.

In reality, large-scale ethanol production has only rarely been able to compete with the cost of a barrel of oil. And with the recent recession, the dream of cheap, renewable fuel seems even further from reach.

But former oil executive Jim Imbler, who now heads a Colorado biofuels company called ZeaChem Inc., thinks he might have found the key to profitability in Oregon.

And it lies in Boardman, home to one of the nation’s largest hybrid poplar tree farms, grown by Portland-based GreenWood Resources.

“We’ve done the math, and we can compete with $40- to $50-a-barrel crude oil,” said Imbler, based in Lakewood, Colo. “We’re really excited to get going in Oregon.” Backed by $40 million in venture capital, ZeaChem plans to build a demonstration plant in Boardman that will convert Oregon hybrid poplar trees, grass and agricultural waste into ethanol.

Using an innovative technology, the biorefinery could mean a breakthrough for the biofuels industry, on a quest to meet federal mandates for alternative fuels.

Experts believe cellulose, found in nearly every plant, tree and bush, may be the future for abundant, affordable ethanol. And Oregon, with its vast tree farms, forests and farmlands, is poised to be a field of dreams for the industry, recently criticized for relying too heavily on corn, pitting food resources against fuel.

“Corn is a very energy intensive crop,” said Rick Wallace, the state’s biofuels coordinator. “Biomass has a smaller carbon footprint, and we have a lot of it here. There are a lot of benefits for Oregon if we can develop these technologies.”

By the end of the year, ZeaChem plans to break ground on a five-acre site owned by the Port of Morrow. It hopes its tests, using eastern Oregon wheat straw and trimmings from the Umatilla National Forest, will eventually lead to a commercial plant that pumps out up to 50 million gallons of ethanol a year.

But like many biofuels entrepeneurs on a sprint to the next generation, ZeaChem is gambling on the unknown. Across the Northwest, corn ethanol plants that attracted millions of dollars in public and private investment now stand idle.

By all accounts, ZeaChem’s technology looks promising.

“(Their technology) has a very big potential,” Wallace said. “But can it be done at a commercial level economically? We don’t know these answers yet. If they do, it’s a real benefit to Oregon. ”

Links to Oregon
Dozens, if not hundreds, of companies are racing toward cellulosic ethanol production, which must meet a federal mandate of 16 billion gallons by 2022.

ZeaChem’s secret weapon: a bacterium found in the guts of termites. The bacterium, acetogen, ferments cellulose into acetic acid, which can eventually be turned into ethanol.

The company’s demonstration plant, unlike some other technologies, will use a variety of plant materials, producing about 1.5 million gallons of ethanol a year.

“We can feed softwood trees, hardwood trees, corn cobs,” Imbler said. “If you think about a termite, it doesn’t really care. Our vision is to become a technological skunkworks.”

ZeaChem, with 30 employees and a lab in California, says its patented process offers higher yields at lower cost, with a lower carbon footprint than other methods. The bacterium can also be used to make another, more valuable chemical, ethyl acetate, a solvent in varnishes and lacquers. It enables the development of other lines of business, turning plant material into solvents for paints or chemicals used in plastics.

“We believe ZeaChem is the leading advanced biofuel company,” said Paul Batcheller, a partner in South Dakota-based PrairieGold Venture Partners, a major investor in ZeaChem. “One thing is that their yields translates to a huge economic advantage. I think Oregon has a great advantage in terms of feedstock and marketing the project.”

Oregon offers fertile ground for the company’s giant leap. For starters, the state may provide a financial sweetner: ZeaChem has applied for the state’s Business Energy Tax Credits, which would be worth about $6.5 million.

Another key reason for locating in Oregon: proximity to GreenWood Resources, which owns the 26,000-acre hybrid poplar tree farm in Boardman. The company also owns 6,000 acres near Clatskanie and accounts for 90 percent of the state’s poplar production.

“We love hybrid poplar because its the best deal we can find now,” Imbler said. “If you have something that can grow cheaper, faster, we’re all for it. But I think the hybrid poplar is hard to beat.”

When it comes to growing trees fast and inexpensively, GreenWood Resources is a well-known expert. Its poplars, through traditional breeding methods, can grow 10 to 15 feet each year. The company’s partnership will provide a steady feedstock near the test plant.

“They’re going to need feedstock 24-7 once they get to the commercial level,” said Jake Eaton, GreenWood’s managing director of global acquisitions and resource planning. “We can optimize high yields and produce a low-cost dedicated feedstock.”

Studies show hybrid poplar is a fairly efficient feedstock for cellulosic ethanol. The partnership allows GreenWood to develop trees for a growing market in cellulosic-based chemicals and ethanol.

“From what we can see, they have the best technology out there,” Eaton said.
Recession and risks But making fuel out of plants is not the hard part. After all, scientists over the past year have turned coffee grounds into biodiesel and watermelon rinds into ethanol. Big oil companies are investing billions of dollars into growing algae.

The challenge is to build a commercial plant, which will take lots of plant material and money.

ZeaChem’s project comes at a turbulent time for nation’s ethanol industry, shaken by bankruptcies and failures over the past year. Along with other agricultural industries, biofuels rode the rollercoaster commodities market to its heights last year, only to have prices collapse with the recession.

The fallout from the credit crisis delivered a double punch, freezing access to credit and private capital for new research and construction. Then early this year, oil prices fell, making it difficult for ethanol producers to compete at the pump. So far, all commercial ethanol plants in the U.S. use corn.

“A number of plants misread the commodity markets,” says John Urbanchuk, a Pennsylvania-based expert in agriculture and biofuels with LECG LLC, a global consulting firm. “A lot of people thought that corn prices were going to continue to climb, and they were unable to cover their commodity positions.”

A wave of bankruptices and closures has followed, leaving idle corn ethanol plants and stalled projects across the Northwest.

Cascade Grain LLC, built a $200 million ethanol plant in Clatskanie last year and filed for bankruptcy protection in January. The plant ran for just six months before it was shut down.

In Longview, Wash., Northwest Renewables broke ground on a $100 million corn ethanol plant three years ago. Last week, the company announced the project, on hold for some time, would become a biomass plant with an uncertain timeline.

In Boardman, Pacific Ethanol’s plant continues to pump out 40 million gallons a year, despite filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. The plant uses mostly corn from the Midwest, said company spokesman Paul Koehler.

Now, however, the prospects might be getting brighter for ethanol. Oil prices have increased, and corn and natural gas prices, the two largest costs in the industry, have fallen.

“The outlook today is brighter than six or seven months ago,” Urbanchuk said. “The profitibility picture looks better.”

The long-term prognosis for the industry is for steady growth, mostly due to government environmental policies that ensure demand for ethanol, in particular, cellulosic ethanol. Unlike corn, biomass holds the promise of greater efficiency, and it doesn’t compete for food resources.

For 2009, federal mandates require production of 11 billion gallons of biofuel, of which 100 million gallons which must come from no-corn feedstock. By 2022, cellulosic ethanol must make up nearly half of the government’s required 36 billion gallons of biofuels.

“The industry responded quickly to demand, and now we’re seeing demand and supply move into balance,” said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Washington-DC- based Renewable Fuels Association. “But there’s so much more growth that’s projected, those closed facilities may once again fire up as the economics of the industry improve.”
Implications for Oregon
In Oregon, the push for renewable fuel and energy has big economic implications. Many parties now eye Oregon’s forests for biomass, from wood pellet manufacturers to utility companies. And many others, from foresters to timber fellers to environmentalists, are pinning their hopes on a new, green market for Oregon wood.

Biofuel projects will likely bring new jobs into rural areas hard hit by years of mill closures. And they will put the state on the map in a growing industry.

“We don’t have the corn or the soy the Midwest does,” said Wallace, who works with different state departments in developing biofuels. “We need to get into (cellulosic) biofuels, if we’re going to play. I think we’re going to see more projects like this.”

In Boardman, ZeaChem’s project will create 75 construction jobs and 20 full-time jobs once the plant is running. If the company builds a commercial plant, dozens more jobs could be added.

“We’re excited about that potential,” said Gary Neal, general manager of the Port of Morrow. “There’s going to be a great utilization of the products and biproducts of the region, good paying jobs. We just see lots of pluses, and it’s good for the environment.”

Beyond jobs, developing local sources of fuel will mean more money stays in the state, Wallace said. In 2008, Oregonians spent $8 billion fueling up their cars and trucks. While some of that money goes toward taxes, most of the money spent on transportation fuels goes out of state.

Ultimately, finding uses for the state’s biomass will be good for the forests, said Mike Cloughesy, director of forestry for the Oregon Forest Resources Institute. The state has about 4.25 million acres capable of providing biomass by forest thinning projects, which would prevent wildfires.

“There is more than enough material to go around,” McCloughesy said. “Anything that makes more markets for biomass creates more opportunities for active forest management.”

Amy Hsuan, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/09/a_looking_for_a_biofuels_break.html

WWU Gets Grant To Convert Cow Manure To Fuel September 3, 2009

Western Washington University’s Vehicle Research Institute has been awarded a $500,000 grant for turning cow manure into clean-burning bio-methane for vehicles.

Part of the funding from the Department of Energy will go toward placing new engines in three buses used by Bellingham’s Bellair Charters.

Not only will the busses produce a fraction of the CO₂, but they are also using a renewable resource made from cow manure, which would ordinarily just add its greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, according to VRI Director Eric Leonhardt.

The bio-methane used to power the buses comes from a dairy digester at the Vander Haak Dairy in Lynden.

Manure is put into the digester, which separates the solids from the gases, Leonhardt explained.

The gases are then run through a “scrubber,” to make them clean and ready to burn in a combustion engine.

Leonhardt said Whatcom County cows alone could produce enough bio-methane to run every car, truck, bus and piece of farm equipment in the county.

Tracy Ellis, KGMI (AM) – http://kgmi.com/Western-Gets-Grant-To-Convert-Cow-Manure-To-Fuel/5143532

Klamath farmers oppose planned dam removals May 14, 2009

For several weeks now, farmer Tom Mallams has been carting around the Oregon Capitol a 1-foot-thick bundle of petitions signed by 1,850 Klamath area residents opposed to a plan to remove four Klamath River dams.

The bundle, he said, is heavy and cumbersome. But it is the best way he knows to show lawmakers the considerable opposition to the dam-removal plan.

The plan, called the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, was hammered out over a four-year period by a diverse group of stakeholders, including farmers, ranchers, tribes, conservation groups, fishermen, federal agencies and PacifiCorp, which owns the dams and uses them to generate electricity.

Individual stakeholders, according to the group, all compromised in coming to terms on what they say is the best solution to a controversy that spans decades.

The controversy boiled over in 2001 when the federal government ordered water masters to shut off the flow of Klamath River water to irrigation canals. The shut-off cost Klamath Basin farmers millions of dollars in lost crops.

In addition to removing the four dams, the restoration plan calls for farmers in the Klamath Basin irrigation project to leave in-stream up to 100,000 acre feet of water in dry years – or nearly one-third of their water allocation claims – in exchange for water-delivery assurances.

Farmers outside the project are being asked to leave up to 30,000 acre feet of water in-stream for fish.

The loss of irrigation supplies is painful, said Greg Addington, head of the Klamath Water Users Association. But, Addington said, to be assured of some water is better than risking another complete shut-off.

Under the plan, PacifiCorp ratepayers would pay $200 million toward the cost of removing the dams. California lawmakers are preparing a $250 million bond measure to put before voters to provide backup if the costs exceed $200 million.

Oregon ratepayers, which comprise about 90 percent of PacifiCorp’s approximately 600,000 customers, would pony up $180 million of the $200 million ratepayer fund.

The plan calls for PacifiCorp to start removing the dams in 2020. The projected completion date is 2025.

The stakeholders, one and all, call the plan a major achievement.

But Mallams and others disagree.

In hearings before legislative committees on a bill that would set the plan in motion by capping Oregon ratepayers’ responsibility at $180 million, they argue the potential loss of irrigation water could devastate their ability to raise crops.

And, they say, removing the dams could cost PacifiCorp ratepayers – and possibly Oregon taxpayers – billions of dollars in unforeseen costs.

The opponents, who claim they were shut out of the stakeholder negotiations – a contention other stakeholders deny – say the $450 million top figure of dam-removal costs falls woefully short. As evidence, they point to two studies – one commissioned by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission showing costs could reach $4.5 billion and another showing costs peaking in the $840 million range.

Who, they wonder, will get stuck paying those added costs?

Supporters counter that so-called “off-ramps” are built into the plan. If additional studies show costs will exceed the $450 million top figure, they say federal agencies and others will rethink the plan. Further muting overrun concerns, they say, the Oregon Public Utilities Commission must sign off on rate increases, providing another off-ramp.

The restoration plan’s genesis can be traced to two events: the water shutoff in 2001, which showed Klamath Basin farmers what can happen if they do nothing to protect endangered salmon runs, and the pending expiration of PacifiCorp’s federal license to operate the dams. As part of relicensing provisions, PacifiCorp has been ordered to install fish ladders and conduct other extensive and expensive improvements to the structures, which are 50 years or more old.

A FERC study estimates the expense of installing fish ladders at $350 million.

Also on the table is a state law requiring utilities to generate 25 percent of the state’s power from renewable resources by 2025. Removing the dams and replacing the lost power with renewable energy resources will help PacifiCorp meet those requirements, company officials said.

Also on the plus side, dam removal is expected to enhance fish runs, opening traditional spawning grounds now off-limits to endangered salmon – a contention Mallams and others dispute.

“This offers us the surest and quickest ways of restoring fish runs,” said Jeff Mitchell, tribal council member for the Klamath Tribes. “We’ve gone without salmon now for decades.”

The biggest unknown in the dam-removal cost is the toxicity of sediment that has built up behind the four dams. Particularly worrisome is the amount of asbestos, which was used extensively in dam construction.

Preliminary studies show the sediment contains only minor levels of toxicity. But those studies, even proponents admit, are cursory. Comprehensive studies are planned before steps are taken to remove the dams.

If the sediment is found to be highly toxic, project backers say the secretary of the federal Department of the Interior could put a halt to the plan in 2012, when the department is projected to rule on whether to go forward.

At that point, money collected from ratepayers in a surcharge pot called for in Senate Bill 76 would either be reimbursed or put toward a beneficial use. For example, it could go toward paying for fish ladders and other structural improvements necessary to relicense the dams.

But opponents say the opt-outs don’t provide sufficient protection against officials pushing the plan forward even if dam removal costs skyrocket.

Also, they say, at some point in the dam decommissioning process it will be too late to turn back – regardless of the level of toxicity found in the sediment.

Opponents also question whether PacifiCorp can replace the lost power. If nothing else, they argue, lawmakers should wait for further studies before passing any bill that sets the plan in motion.

“It is irresponsible for us to render a decision on SB76 at this time,” Rep. Bill Garrard, R-Klamath Falls, said in testimony before a House committee last week.

Garrard also told committee members the majority of people in his district oppose dam removal.

“I ask you to please wait until we know if dam removal is the right thing to do,” he said.

Plan proponents, meanwhile, say it is critical to move forward now with Senate Bill 76. By amortizing the cost to ratepayers over 10 years, they say, it will add only between $1.50 and $1.80 a month to the average electric customer’s bill.

Waiting to implement the surcharge, they say, puts ratepayers at risk for a dramatic rate increase at some future date.

“This bill is needed now, not only to demonstrate Oregon’s commitment to the (restoration) agreement, but to soften the impact on ratepayers.” said Mike Carrier, natural resources policy advisor for Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

But adopting SB76, opponents argue, sets in motion a slippery slope they fear could be far more costly for ratepayers in the long run.

Mitch Lies, Capital Press – http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=618&ArticleID=51237&TM=51459.98

Oregon company to turn dairy waste into biofuel May 13, 2009

An Oregon business hopes to become the first company to turn dairy and wood waste into a renewable biofuel called butanol.

Diesel Brewing of Salem plans to burn either dairy or wood waste to create liquid butanol through a process called gasification.

Butanol is a form of alcohol that could completely replace gasoline rather than be blended with it, like ethanol.

CEO Jeff Raines and his business partners are planning to open a pilot plant in Salem by the end of the year.

The test plant would use from about half a ton to one ton of wood and dairy waste per day. If the process proves workable, Raines and his team hope to build commercial-scale plants that use 100 tons of waste per day and produce a couple million gallons of butanol per year.

The Associated Press – http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-14/1242226675139880.xml&storylist=orlocal

NW fuel crop could cut jet fuel emissions by 84% May 11, 2009

A new study at Michigan Tech may help reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a crop that grows in Montana.

According to the study, greenhouse gas emissions from jet fuel could be cut by as much as 84 percent. The research was done by the Sustainable Futures Institute at Michigan Tech using the oil seed crop camelina, which is well-suited for the state of Montana.

“Again, according to our camelina, experts, there are large tracks of land in Montana that are currently used for wheat products in which camelina can be integrated as a rotation crop,” said Professor David Shonnard who conducted the study.

According to susoils.com, Web site about sustainable oils, camelina sativa is a member of the mustard family, a distant relative to canola, and the new darling of biodiesel production. Camelina plants are heavily branched, growing from one to three feet tall producing seed pods containing many small, oily seeds. It’s proof that good things really do come in small packages.

Shonnard continued to say that this study will be ongoing for several years as they continue to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

KPAX – http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=10342323

OSU hosts biomass energy workshop in La Grande, Ore March 27, 2009

Union County’s Oregon State University extension service will host a forestry and agriculture biomass renewable energy workshop Thursday, April 9, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Agriculture Service Center conference room, 10507 N. McAlister Road in Island City. Participants will learn practical approaches and solutions regarding biomass incentives and current knowledge of the environmental effects of biomass removal.

To register and for more information, contact the Union County Extension Office at 963-1010.

http://www.eastoregonian.info/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=48&ArticleID=90650&TM=55196.14

Firm eyes wind farm by Geyser/Stanford, Mont. March 25, 2009

Prompted by interest from a New York developer, the state of Montana is soliciting bids to develop what would be Judith Basin County’s first commercial wind farm.

Dave Healow of Billings-based Two Dot Wind said the area’s wind capacity is “first class all the way from Raynesford to Windham.”

Healow arranged the proposal, which is being called Surprise Creek, but has asked OwnEnergy to invest in and develop the project, he said.

OwnEnergy, which is based in Brooklyn, N.Y., asked the state to seek development bids.

“It looks like a legitimate inquiry at the initial stages of wind development,” said Clive Rooney, area manager for the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s northeast land office in Lewistown. “But who knows whether it will result in a project or not.”

The project involves 3,120 acres of school trust land on a ridge straddling Highway 200 between Geyser and Stanford east of Great Falls, he said.

Preliminary plans call for up to 59 megawatts of wind energy, Rooney said. That’s a little less than half the size of the Judith Gap wind farm.

The land currently is being leased for crops and grazing with the remainder set aside in the Conservation Reserve Program.

“There’s speculation from wind developers in the area, but there are no wind turbines being developed,” Rooney said.

After OwnEnergy nominated the site for wind development, it kicked in a competitive bidding process that will conclude April 29.

A similar bidding procedure is used when state lands are nominated for oil and gas development, Rooney said.

The land would be leased to the company that best demonstrates competency to run a wind farm and offers the best price per megawatt of energy produced, Rooney said.

The state charges wind developers an annual minimum operating fee of 3 percent of gross annual revenues or $3,000 for each megawatt installed on school trust, whichever is greater.

A one-time installation fee of $2,500 per megawatt of installed capacity also is charged.

OwnEnergy’s Web site says it partners with landowners to develop small- to mid-sized wind projects producing 10 to 80 megawatts of electricity.

The company was founded by Jacob Susman, who helped form the alternative energy investing group for Wall Street money manager Goldman Sachs, the Web site says.

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Karl Pucket, Great Falls Tribune – http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20090324/NEWS01/903240303

NorthWestern Energy’s bills reach Gov. Desk in Mont.

The state’s largest electric-and-gas utility is rolling its agenda through the Legislature — an agenda it says will lead to lower energy bills and more “green” power for consumers.

“What we’re trying to do is protect ratepayers from big costs,” says John Fitzpatrick, NorthWestern Energy’s lead lobbyist in the halls of the Capitol. “(And) we’re not looking at any coal. It’s all renewable power.”

Yet critics of the company say NorthWestern’s agenda is more about ensuring it owns the means of power production, which is a new revenue stream for the company, and undercutting competing, independent generators.

“They want to kill any generation capacity that they don’t own,” says Rep. Brady Wiseman, D-Bozeman. “They don’t speak for consumers. They speak for their stockholders.”

Developers of small, independent power projects, particularly wind, also say NorthWestern wants to cut them out of the picture, by changing laws encouraging the purchase of renewable power from these types of projects.

“If they want to be honest about it, they should just seek a repeal of the (renewable-power standards), because that’s what we’ll have in practice if they get their way,” says Suzanne Bessette, a Helena attorney representing small power producers.

Two bills changing Montana’s renewable-power requirements for utilities have passed the Legislature and await Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s signature, and another is before the Senate, having passed the House.

Current law requires NorthWestern to buy a minimum amount of power from small “community” green-power projects by 2010. The two laws that have passed extend the deadline to 2012 and increase the size of projects that would qualify.

The third measure, House Bill 343, says NorthWestern can own the community projects. Together, the three bills would allow NorthWestern to develop or purchase a 25-megawatt renewable project, rather than buying the power from smaller, independent projects. The company says the larger project would produce cheaper power.

Rep. Art Noonan, D-Butte, is sponsoring HB343 and chairing the House Federal Relations, Energy and Telecommunications Committee. He’s supportive of NorthWestern, whose Montana headquarters are in Butte.

Noonan said he wants NorthWestern to be successful in rebuilding itself as a utility that owns its power plants and sells to consumers, like the old Montana Power Co. In the wake of the 1997 deregulation law, MPC sold off its assets and became NorthWestern, which owned no power production and must buy most power on the open market for consumers.

“I would rather have a solid company in Butte that I could look at and regulate, than a thousand little rancher-corporations all owning a few windmills,” he said. “I just won’t apologize in this session for wanting to assist NorthWestern in becoming a strong, viable corporation in our economy.

“I believe that this company wants to provide good, cheap power to the state of Montana and rebuild what once was the glory of Montana Power Co.”

Noonan supports another bill that is bitterly opposed by renewable-power producers.

Senate Bill 403, which faces a vote in Noonan’s committee Wednesday, would allow NorthWestern to get renewable power “credit” by purchasing power from the small producers, but without buying the producers’ green-power credits that certify the purchase.

Fitzpatrick says SB403 would save consumers money, because those credits may cost as much as 50 percent more than the power itself.

Bessette says those numbers are wildly inflated, and even if NorthWestern must buy the credits from her clients, the price for their power would be no more than what the utility’s customers now pay.

Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad and a member of the House Energy Committee, says some of NorthWestern’s initiatives make sense. He says allowing the company to own larger, renewable projects could cut costs for consumers as well as help NorthWestern’s bottom line.

He has voted for most of NorthWestern’s initiatives, but says he worries that the company may make it too difficult for independent projects to provide power to NW customers — power that sometimes may be cheaper than a company development.

“(Their bills) are always framed as being good for the consumer,” he said. “But you have to make sure that when NorthWestern makes that argument, that the consumer interests and shareholder interests really are aligned.”

Fitzpatrick says the more NorthWestern can build its own plants and get them in the “rate base,” which means consumers pay the costs of projects but get first dibs on the power, the more customers will see cheaper costs in the long run.

“The full advantage of rate-basing is you lock in the capital cost over the life of the entity,” he said. “The capital cost of the project remains stable, and it stabilizes rates long-term.”

Wiseman says that argument doesn’t apply to every project, and that NorthWestern wants to squash anything that gets in its way of owning and producing as much generation as possible.

“We voted to let them own generation (in 2007), but we did not vote to give them the power to squeeze everybody else out, which is what they’re doing,” he said. “They’ve got everything they’ve asked for. They’ve rolled us on everything.”

By MIKE DENNISON, IR State Bureau – http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/03/25/state/80st_090325_energy.txt

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Below are links from previous NW Renewable News posts related to Northwestern Energy’s and their ‘campaign’ to destroy small/medium scale renewable energy development in Montana:

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/bill-introduced-in-montana-aimed-at-killing-off-renewable-energy-projects/

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/mont-wind-producers-push-bill-to-press-utility-to-incorporate-their-power/

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/northwestern-energy-still-trying-to-squash-wind-power-in-mont/

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/mont-senate-endorses-renewable-status-for-hydroelectric-dams/

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/new-northwestern-energy-bill-could-outlaw-renewable-development-in-mont/

New NorthWestern Energy Bill may crush Renewable development in Mont. March 15, 2009

Transforming Montana’s renewable energy law is the focus of two bills before lawmakers that have utilities lining up to counter claims that the changes will stall renewable project development in the state.

Senate Bill 403 aims to soften Montana’s renewable portfolio requirements for utilities. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Kelly Gebhardt, R-Roundup, is stoking deep-seated rancor between NorthWestern Energy and small power producers, with both sides claiming the other seeks unfair benefits.

At issue is an existing Montana law that requires public utilities to buy an increasing amount of electricity from renewable sources, such as wind, solar or geothermal, stopping at a cap of 15 percent in 2015.

The battle being pitched between the utilities and small wind developers, such as Horseshoe Bend Wind Park near Great Falls, is playing out over what are known as renewable energy credits — often called RECs or ‘wrecks’ — which are certificates granted to developers for each megawatt of clean power generated.

To meet state rules, NorthWestern Energy and other utilities must purchase these RECs from developers in amounts matching the renewable energy they acquire to meet mandated portfolio requirements. They can also meet state standards just by buying RECs.

But under Gebhardt’s proposed measure, which has already passed the Senate, they could use renewable energy purchases alone to satisfy their quotas.

“The bill the way it’s written lets NorthWestern Energy take credit for the RECs that belong to the developers without paying for them and basically taints them in the process,” said Bill Pascoe, spokesman for Horseshoe Bend, during a Friday House committee hearing for the bill.

RECs can be sold in regional markets, but their popularity turns on confidence in their value. Opponents, including Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, say the proposed change to the state’s 2005 renewables law would erode the value of Montana RECs, since the credits could be tied to energy that has already been used by someone to meet portfolio requirements.

“Our concern is that by basically double-counting the RECs for both in-state use and out-of-state use you compromise the value of the REC,” said Paul Cartwright, energy adviser for the governor.

NorthWestern Energy, however, argues that a different kind of doubling up is going on.

“Essentially there is a double dipping,” said John Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the electric company. “The utility has to buy the qualifying facility power and then it has to buy the equivalent power to meet the renewable standard.”

Under federal law, NorthWestern and other utilities are required to purchase power from small renewable power producers, also known as qualifying facilities.

Since those purchases already required by the federal law cannot be used to meet the state standards, Fitzpatrick said, rate-payers are stuck holding a check of about $13.3 million a year. Under Gebhardt’s measure, the utility would be able to tally those purchases against the state quota.

“If this bill is defeated, those of you who vote against it can go out and say to your constituents ‘I voted for a lot higher rates for you’,” Fitzpatrick told the members of the House Federal Relations, Energy and Telecommunications Committee.

Along with changing the quota standards, lawmakers in the same committee are considering allowing hydroelectric dam upgrades to generate the same renewable energy credits as wind or solar energy.

Under Senate Bill 257, those credits would be available for upgrades completed since the end of 2004, including those at Kerr Dam southwest of Polson, and could be used by PPL Montana to meet its state-mandated renewable purchases.

“What could be more environmentally friendly than an upgrade at an existing facility that poses no environmental impacts?” David Hoffmann, spokesman for PPL said to the committee. A portion of the RECs generated — 22 percent — would also be donated to the low-income energy assistance fund by the utility.

But opponents argue that the measure sponsored by Sen. Jim Keane, D-Butte, sets unfair rules for doling out the credits, even if hydroelectric should be included on the state’s renewables list. Since it would grant RECs for all of the power generated post-upgrade by a dam, instead of just the power associated with the upgrade, they say it would flood the state’s REC market.

“Passing this bill could very well mean that not a single additional new megawatt of renewable energy could be built in Montana,” said Chuck Magraw, of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

According to the governor’s office, if the state’s renewable portfolio standards were left alone, they would generate demand for about 11,000 credits between now and 2014, but under the change proposed by Senate Bill 257, roughly 600,000 new RECs would be created immediately, all belonging to PPL Montana.

Both Senate Bills 403 and 257 have passed the Senate. If they pass out of the House energy committee, they will move to the full House for consideration.

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Below are links from previous NW Renewable News posts related to Northwestern Energy’s and their ‘campaign’ to destroy renewable energy development in Montana:

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/bill-introduced-in-montana-aimed-at-killing-off-renewable-energy-projects/

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/mont-wind-producers-push-bill-to-press-utility-to-incorporate-their-power/

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/northwestern-energy-still-trying-to-squash-wind-power-in-mont/

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/mont-senate-endorses-renewable-status-for-hydroelectric-dams/

Ore. Electric ATV maker hopes to tap organic farm market

Electric all-terrain vehicles may not impress the dune- and trail-riding crowd that rides for recreation, but a few small companies expect organic farmers and vineyard growers will pay a premium to gather cattle and spray vines without the carbon footprint of a gas vehicle.

While automakers are toiling to produce electric cars that will fit the demands of American drivers, Ashland-based Barefoot Motors is on the verge of turning out heavy-duty ATVs that can go 50 miles on a charge costing about 90 cents.

“I think a lot of attention is focused on the more glamorous vehicles—the cars,” said Chief Executive Max Scheder-Bieschin. “But there are lots of other applications where the strength of the technology can be focused.”

Debby Zygielbaum, vineyard manager at organic Robert Sinskey Vineyards in Napa, Calif., test-drove an early Barefoot prototype last year and is eager to be an early adopter when production starts in June. She’d like to haul her spraying equipment without fogging the vines with exhaust fumes, and the ATV could get free power from the vineyard’s solar panels.

“It’s becoming feasible where it will actually become a working vehicle to use in the field,” she said.

The Barefoot ATV’s $12,000 price is 50 percent higher than a heavy-duty gas-powered ATV. But with gas around $2 a gallon and electricity averaging 11.35 cents a kilowatt-hour nationally, the cost evens out over seven years if a farmer drives 5,000 miles a year. It’s even more cost-efficient for farms producing their own power from solar panels or manure digesters, and as gas prices go up.

Barefoot is not the first electric ATV coming to market. Bad Boy Buggies in Natchez, Miss., has vehicles intended for hunters. Doran Electric Vehicles in Huntington Beach, Calif., has been selling the Gorilla for years. Zap Electric Vehicles in Santa Rosa, Calif.—where Scheder-Bieschin formerly worked—has a model called the Dude coming out soon.

The high price of Barefoot’s model comes from the lithium iron phosphate batteries, the same technology General Motors Corp. is putting in the Chevrolet Volt electric car. To keep the price of the Dude around $5,000, Zap had to use lead-acid batteries, which charge slower and have less power.

“I think with electric vehicles, it’s going to be hard, unless you use very expensive and exotic battery technology, to match the performance and price of gasoline vehicles,” said Zap spokesman Alex Campbell. “Our goal was to simply make an affordable and powerful ATV that can satisfy the majority of the needs for ATV owners.”

Rick Doran, president of Doran Electric Vehicles, is also skeptical that electric ATVs will replace gas-powered machines. He said his company has sold only a couple hundred at prices around $8,000. Some have gone to underground mining operations and electric utilities where the lack of exhaust and short turning radius are a plus.

“Personally, I don’t think it’s practical yet,” he said of the technology.

But Scheder-Bieschin said customers don’t have to compromise on performance, as long as their needs fit the vehicle. Farms smaller than 1,000 acres are perfect. The vehicle can work the morning, get recharged at lunch, and go back out in the afternoon, all while staying close to their power source.

“Our goal is not necessarily to replace all the million ATVs sold every year,” he said. “There is room for a different technology. There may be people who love their noise, who love their Harleys. But a guy going up and down the rows of a vineyard doesn’t like the noise, doesn’t like the fumes. If we can get 10,000 of those guys every year we’ll be happy.”

Albert Straus, president of Straus Family Creamery in Marshall, Calif., is so into sustainability that his milk is sold in glass bottles, he uses methane gas from his cows to produce electricity and hot water, and he drives an electric Toyota RAV4 EV.

“My goal has been to get away from fossil fuels as much as possible,” he said.

But he finds it hard to justify the expense of buying an electric ATV for gathering cows and fixing fences until there are tax incentives.

“I think if we can get the government and society backing this type of technology, it is going to make things happen a lot faster,” he said.

Barefoot’s majority owner, Mary Jo Gresens, said the company plans to start slowly, producing 120 vehicles in the first year and growing with the awareness of global warming.

“Up until now, the ATV market has concentrated on fun, sport kinds of things,” said Gresens, a Detroit native who has worked in the automotive industry in the U.S. and Europe. “We’re not that vehicle.”

Barefoot’s first prototype was a stock utility ATV retrofitted with golf cart batteries. But engineers Dave Mounce and Eli Schless have put the production model together from the ground up, taking care to reduce drag from things like brakes and improve efficiency from the drivetrain and steering, which translates into greater range.

“We’re talking about a Yugo versus a Ferrari as far as the level of technological difference,” Mounce said.

Components will be outsourced—batteries from China, most of the rest from the U.S.—and assembled in Ashland. Barefoot expects to expand its staff from five people to as many as 15 when production gets going.

The company started in Santa Rosa, Calif., in 2007, and moved to Oregon to be closer to the growing organic farming and vineyard market and take advantage of Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s efforts to promote green energy.

Current tax credits for electric vehicles apply only to on-road vehicles, but the budget pending in the Legislature would go even further to promote renewable sources of electricity, particularly solar, said Jillian Schoene, a spokeswoman for the governor.

KEZI – http://kdrv.com/news/business/story-98099

NV Energy offers incentives for renewable power March 5, 2009

NV Energy Inc. is offering cash incentives to farmers and ranchers to offset the costs of installing wind or hydro power generating sources.

Officials say the new WindGenerations and HydroGenerations programs are an expansion of the company’s solar program that provides cash incentives to offset costs for installation of solar panels.

Similar incentives are already provided to all utility customers who install wind turbines.

Company officials say the rebates can offset up to 60 percent of the cost of the installed system.

HydroGenerations incentives for agricultural customers are paid by NV Energy according to the size of system installed.

Associated Press – http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/03/04/ap6126784.html

3 more NW dairies turning cow waste into biogas February 18, 2009

A biogas plant at a former dairy near Monroe is turning cow waste from three dairies into methane that can be burned to generate electricity.

The plant is located on a former honor farm once operated by the state prison at Monroe and now owned by the Tulalip Tribes.

It’s operated by the nonprofit Qualco Energy group and has a contract to sell electricity to Puget Sound Energy.

The Everett Herald reports that byproducts of the process are a liquid fertilizer and biosolids that turn into compost.

Associated Press – http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9865829&nav=menu484_2

Republican Lawmakers stall poop power bill in Idaho February 12, 2009

A plan to promote businesses that turn Magic Valley cow manure to power caused a stink in a House committee Thursday, with lawmakers voicing skepticism after a first whiff of incentives like not requiring private businesses to pay any property taxes.

The Revenue and Taxation Committee including Chairman Dennis Lake, a Blackfoot Republican, agreed to hear Office of Energy Resources chief Paul Kjellander explain the bill at an upcoming hearing.

But Lake said he fears “there may be some things in here that this committee can’t live with.”

Rep. Jim Clark, a Hayden Republican, criticized provisions seeking to give Idaho’s utility regulator broad new authority in setting up renewable energy zones, which in addition to the dairy hub near Twin Falls would include other regions, too, according to the proposal.

Kjellander pledged to return with explanations – and possible changes.

Associated Press – http://www.kivitv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9836671

US Senators Introduce Bill Promoting Biogas Through Tax Credits‏ January 23, 2009

Billions of gallons of fossil fuels could be reduced through renewable energy sources produced from animal waste with a little ingenuity and modest government support.

Today, a bipartisan group of seven Senators led by Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska introduced groundbreaking legislation that promotes the development of biogas – a natural gas substitute created by the conversion of organic wastes such as the anaerobic digestion of animal wastes – through tax incentives.

“We already have the technology to break down animal wastes to create biogas but it needs encouragement from the federal government to become a commercially-viable alternative to natural gas. This new energy source would benefit rural communities and the environment while lessening our dependence on fossil fuels and ensuring energy security,” said Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

“We shouldn’t waste the waste; we should promote biogas development.”

“Incentivizing production of clean and affordable energy from agricultural waste is a benefit to everyone,” said Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho.

“Developing our supply of renewable natural gas is one of the many ways our nation’s farmers, ranchers and foresters are proving to be an important part of the solution to our energy needs.”

“This bill puts an existing byproduct to a productive use,” said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

“Ohio’s strength in agriculture along with its growing renewable energy industry positions us be a leader in the production of renewable natural gas. By encouraging its production, we can create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and improve the environment.”

“This bill promotes innovative technology for the production of renewable energy, and it is good for Nebraska’s livestock producers,” said Senator Johanns of Nebraska. “In addition to being a potentially abundant energy resource, biogas holds the added benefit of turning manure from a waste product into an energy resource. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of this legislation.”

“In basketball terms, this proposal should be a slam dunk,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.

“It creates a major new incentive to produce natural gas from renewable sources, allowing dairy farmers, feedlot owners, food processing companies and others to turn waste products into revenue. It reduces environmental emissions of a potent greenhouse gas – methane. And it rewards innovation by allowing a broad range of feedstocks and processing technology to qualify.”

“This type of forward thinking is what is needed for our country’s energy security,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota. “I will continue to work on developing alternative, home grown energy resources that are good for our environment and our economy.”

“By making real investments in the production of alternative energy technologies like biogas we can create good-paying middle-class jobs,” said Senator Stabenow of Michigan.

“This legislation will help ensure farmers and developers throughout Michigan can continue to convert waste into clean energy, all while improving water quality for the Great Lakes.”

Biogas is produced through technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD) that can convert animal wastes and other agricultural or organic wastes into at least 50% methane (the principal ingredient of natural gas). Biogas can be used as is on the farm or co-located with another facility such as an ethanol plant, or as a renewable substitute for natural gas, propane or other fossil fuels.

This legislation, the Biogas Production Incentives Act of 2009, would encourage greater production of biogas for energy purposes by providing biogas producers with a tax credit of $4.27 for every million British thermal units (mmBtu) of biogas produced. This could mean more jobs and a boon for rural communities.

Biogas production also offers environmental benefits such as a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions of both carbon dioxide and methane and improved water quality through better manure management. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, if the U.S. used half of its waste biomass, biogas could replace about 5% of the natural gas currently being used, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by another 45-70 million metric tons per year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture cites a report by the Senate Agriculture Committee estimating that each year 1.37 billion tons of solid animal waste are produced in the U.S. — the production of biogas could help turn much of this waste into a source of renewable energy.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january222009/biogas_legis_1-22-09.php

Farmers seek $1.1M in Separate suits against renewable energy company

A $1.1 million legal brouhaha is brewing between Milton-Freewater area farmers and a renewable energy company seeking access to possibly build a wind farm.

In separate lawsuits, plaintiffs Katherina Walker and Herbert March have accused Northwest Renewable Resources and Gaelectric Northwest of duping them to gain cheap access to their land so Gaelectric could put up wind turbines. They filed the lawsuits with the Umatilla County Circuit Court.

March is the owner and manager of Couse Creek Ranches, which is several miles southeast of Milton-Freewater. Walker owns about 190 acres of farm land near the ranch.

Gaelectric Northwest is a subsidiary of the Irish renewable energy company Gaelectric Holdings. A Fred Cramer owns Northwest Renewable Resources in Baker City. The lawsuits claim Northwest Renewable Resources was acting as an agent of Gaelectric Northwest.

No one involved in the lawsuits has been willing to discuss the matter. March said he couldn’t talk about the case because of where it is in the litigation process. The East Oregonian wasn’t able to reach Walker, and David Blanc, her attorney, didn’t return a phone call. Nor did Michael Hines, the Spokane-base attorney for Gaelectric Northwest, a subsidiary of the Irish renewable energy giant company Gaelectric Holdings. The EO also couldn’t reach Cramer or anyone with Northwest Renewable Resources.

In her suit, Walker is seeking more than $163,000 plus 9 percent interest in economic damages and another $200,000 in noneconomic damages. She alleges the two companies took advantage of her because she was 65 years of age or older. She said the easement agreement to give Gaelectric Northwest access to her land robs her of its true value.

A copy of the agreement in court documents shows Gaelectric Northwest wanted to use her land for free for 18 months to monitor wind and to possibly install wind turbines on the property. After the 18 month period, which started Nov. 2, 2007, Gaelectric could extend the agreement for 50 years “upon the execution of a power contract or sale agreement for electricity” for three percent of the sale’s gross revenue.

March is seeking more than $559,000 plus 9 percent interest in economic damages and another $200,000 in noneconomic damages. His lawsuit makes the same claims, but he also said someone altered the easement agreement he has with Gaelectric. The suit claims the original easement allowed access to a single parcel of land near Basket Mountain Road, but someone changed that to include all the land March and Couse Creek Ranches own.

March’s suit also is a counter suit. In July, Gaelectric Northwest sued the March family and Couse Creek Ranches. Gaelectric’s lawsuit claims March didn’t reveal all other parties who owned the land the company wanted to use.

Gaelectric wants access to the land, it wants the defendants to sign all permits for the installation of wind monitoring equipment and/or wind turbines and the company is seeking attorney’s fees and costs.

Gaelectric also sought a confidentiality order that bars the public from the trial and information about what happens during a trial. Circuit Court Judge Christopher Brauer signed that order Jan. 12. The order also allows any party to the court proceedings to designate any document or information as “attorney’s eyes only” if it would reveal trade secrets, confidential research, financial data or commercial or personal information.

The court has scheduled a jury trial for that case for the mornings of July 7-10 in the Umatilla County Courthouse in Pendleton.

http://www.eastoregonian.info/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=48&ArticleID=87990

Idaho Oilseed Conference: February 12 in Moscow January 19, 2009

The Oilseed Conference will provide up-to-date information on oilseed crops commonly grown in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

Conference Topics

· Discussion of food versus bio-fuel

· Renewable energy research, education and product development in Mexico

· Breeding, genetics, and cultivar development

· Biodiesel research and industry perspectives

· Production and pest management

· Oilseed product development

This conference will be of interest to farmers, oilseed and biodiesel processors, public officials, oilseed researchers, and the public.

For more information:

Julie Haddox

Phone: 208-885-7173
FAX: 208-885-6654
Email: julihad@uidaho.edu

-OR-

http://www.ag.uidaho.edu/oilseeds/conference/

Update: Josephine Co. (OR) gets grant to grow canola for biofuel January 17, 2009

Farmers in Josephine County now have an opportunity to make money growing oil seeds on their land.

The Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation District has just received an $85,000 grant to move the project forward.

So far seeds have been planted on 300 acres of Josephine County farmland. These oil seeds can produce meal for livestock and biofuels. If harvested, one acre of land can generate anywhere $200 to $800 for local farmers.

Wayne McKy has been a Josephine County farmer all his life and spent years working with one particular 20-acre piece of land in Hugo.  “It was cleared early 1900s, it’s cropped so many times, cropped and cropped,” he said.

In October he invested about $200 to plant canola seedlings on 15 acres as part of a new county project.  “Hope it puts a few dollars in my pocket help me I’d like to see farming get started here again,” McKy said.  There are other advantages to the soil. Once the seedlings begin growing, they can get rid of many noxious weeds.

Michelle Baumgartner is a conservationist with the county, she says these seeds grow even in the worst of soil. The grant from the county will pay for three new contractors who will help landowners plant and harvest the seeds. Canola seeds can generate $800 dollars an acre, camelina seeds $200. Once the seeds are harvested, they will be crushed at a biofuel processing plant in Eugene.

The leftovers will become protein rich meal for livestock. Baumgartner says this will be a great opportunity for farmers in the county, many who have land that have been left unused for years.

“On route on right now 5 years completely self sustaining in Josephine County everything utilized and self sustaining here,” she said, explaining that they hope to have a biofuel processing plant in the county by that time.

It would be a golden opportunity for what some farmers say is a dying industry in Josephine County. “You used to see farms all over county you see cream cans out little dairies, then it just got less and less,” she said.

With hopes this spring, these seedlings may bring josephine county to what it used to be.  “You just never know farming is a gamble to a point just like everything else,” McKy said.

The Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation district is still looking for local farmers to participate, you have to have a 5 to 10 acre piece of land but the soil can be marginal.

A presentation will be held at Kelly’s Market in Hugo off exit 66 Saturday at 10 a.m., to show other josephine county landowners how the process works. Another presentation will be held at 2 p.m. At Young’s Farm at 12061 Williams Highway, for information call (541) 846-6051

http://www.ktvl.com/news/county_1188646___article.html/farmers_josephine.html

—————————————————-

Click below for a previous NW Renewable News post on Canola in Josephine County, OR:

https://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/josephine-county-or-considers-growing-canola-for-biofuel/

Pipelines for Dairy Waste Digesters the next logical step December 31, 2008

Dairies produce gas, and utility companies need renewable gas sources for energy. Building a system to deliver the gas while giving dairies credit for reducing emissions seemed like a good fit.

Using methane gas produced in a dairy digester to provide energy isn’t a new concept, but David Albers, a Bakersfield, Calif.-based environmental attorney and dairy owner, provided a new twist. He would design and build projects that take biogas from several dairies, convert it to a form useable by a utility and feed it into their gas pipeline.

Dairy owners receive part of the proceeds from the sale of gas. Sale of the resulting emissions credits, since the project removes greenhouse gases from the environment, also generates income for owners.

Albers’ first project, at his Vintage Dairy in Fresno County, began providing gas to Pacific Gas & Electric Company in October. It is the first in California to deliver pipeline-quality, renewable natural gas to a utility.

His second project, in Kern County, is scheduled to go online by November 2009. With four dairies under contract for that project, he could deliver 500,000 cubic feet of gas per day. Albers’ company, BioEnergy Solutions, has a long-term contract with PG&E to deliver up to 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year. The utility uses the gas to deliver electricity to customers in central and northern California.

“David is the only one in California to do this successfully,” said Ken Brennan of PG&E. “His company is the front runner in the state.”

Brennan said that PG&E is impressed with the quality of the gas that comes from the dairy pipeline.

“The gas molecules are the same as every other natural gas molecule,” Brennan said.

Albers wanted to bypass the electricity production from methane that so many dairies have tried because the generators used to convert gas to electricity have run into problems with the air districts due to their production of nitrous oxides.

Albers saw the gas pipeline route as a better choice.

In his law practice, Albers assists dairy producers with the permit process, which includes responding to public comments about the proposed dairies.

“As part of the process we do an environmental analysis of the project, and in public comments someone would always ask ‘why don’t you build a digester?’

In response, Albers would do an economic analysis for a digester and find it wasn’t economically feasible.

“There was no market to justify the cost,” he said.

Then came a mandate for utilities to use renewable sources for energy.

“I started to talk with PG&E and eight months later I had a contract,” he said.

Albers said he just had to figure out how to build the infrastructure to gather the gas from dairies, convert it to a useable form and send it to the utility.

“It was really just a new application of existing technology. We were putting different Tinkertoys together,” he said.

Read More: http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=617&ArticleID=47517&TM=56671.99

Manure digester summit January 13, but in Wisconsin December 29, 2008

There has been a lot of interest as of late in manure digesters in the northwest. If your a ranch owner who wants to learn more about this, this just might be your best opportunity. Here is the info:

Whether you have less than a 100-head herd or a large herd, digesters can work for you. Come to the seminar to hear how Dane County and Richland County are using community digesters as well as how to implement a manure digester on a 50-head farm.Tuesday, January 13, 2009
9:30AM -3:00PM
Room B-30 West Square Building
505 Broadway
Baraboo, Wisconsin
Cost: $20.00 and includes lunch

PRESENTATIONS:
– OVERVIEW/FEASIBILITY OF MANURE DIGESTERS
John Reindl, former Dane County Recycling Coordinator; Larry Krom, Renewable Energy Manager for Focus on Energy
– FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF MANURE DIGESTER PROJECTS
Larry Krom, Renewable Energy Manager for Focus on Energy; Mike Dreischmeier, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Engineer; Tom Brennan, Bank of Prairie du Sac Agricultural Loan Officer
– REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS FOR MANURE DIGESTER PROJECTS
John Vosberg, Sauk County Land Conservation Department Engineer;
DNR Representative
– TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR MANURE DIGESTER PROJECTS
Vance Haugen, Crawford County UW-Extension Agriculture Agent; Michael Zander, President and CEO of Energies Direct, LLC, Sauk City;
Paul Soglin, CFO of Energies Direct, LLC, Sauk City;
Steve Dvorak, P.E., President of GHD, Inc.
– CASE STUDIES: HOW WE DID IT ON OUR FARMS
Charlie Crave, Crave Brothers Farm
Art Thelen, Wild Rose Dairy
Statz Brothers Farm

WSU report says state should focus on biofuels from waste products, not food December 23, 2008

A Washington State University report says the state should focus on producing biofuels from waste products instead of food products.

The report released Monday by WSU economists was requested last year by state lawmakers.

The team from the WSU School of Economic Sciences says incentives to produce biofuels from corn, sugar beets and canola are not likely to be cost effective. The team says the state should focus on using farm and logging residues or city solid wastes.

The team also recommended a tax on greenhouse gas emissions to promote research and fuels with low carbon emissions.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/575737.html

Idaho energy czar aims to harness cow pie power December 20, 2008

That odor wafting from 550,000 cows that make up Idaho’s growing dairy herd smells like energy independence and economic development to state energy czar Paul Kjellander.

Idaho is now America’s No. 3 milk producer, trailing California and Wisconsin. That also means it’s cow pie central.

Mountains of manure are fueling Kjellander’s dream of pipelines crisscrossing the Snake River plain, linking manure digesters at dairies large and small to central refineries that produce natural gas pure enough for homes or cars. Processed manure would be sold as plant bedding. Dairies could also fire turbines, shooting electricity into the power grid. And they could sell carbon credits in schemes to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Kjellander, who heads up Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s Office of Energy Resources, is pushing a package of income tax credits, property tax waivers and other incentives in the 2009 Legislature starting Jan. 12 to transform Idaho’s southern heartland into a methane Mecca.

Minneapolis-based Cargill, Inc. is already building poop-to-power facilities here, while a tiny startup with big plans is struggling to survive.

“We can put together the right package and right mechanism to help move it along,” Kjellander told The Associated Press. “You’ve got to have somebody locally who is ready to take the risk and move this forward. But the state can provide the right type of incentives.”

Other states are also trying to whet potential investors’ appetites.

Minnesota recently gave a farmer more than $200,000 to finance a project that returns unused electricity to its power grid. Washington offers sales tax exemptions for dairies that install digesters. And in the midst of 2001’s rolling blackouts, California set aside $10 million for “manure methane power production projects.”

Idaho’s measure would eventually allow counties elsewhere, including depressed timber hamlets in the northern forests, to create alternative “energy enterprise zones” to assist companies in turning wood waste to energy.

Read More: http://www.theolympian.com/northwest/story/704681.html

Scientists zero in on turbulance factors with large wind farms

Scientists zero in on turbulance factors with large wind farms

While harnessing more energy from the wind could help satisfy growing demands for electricity and reduce emissions of global-warming gases, turbulence from proposed wind farms could adversely affect the growth of crops in the surrounding countryside.

Solutions to this, and other problems presented by wind farms – containing huge wind turbines, each standing taller than a 60-story building and having blades more than 300 feet long – can be found blowin’ in the wind, a University of Illinois researcher says.

“By identifying better siting criteria, determining the optimum spacing between turbines, and designing more efficient rotors, we can minimize the harmful impacts of large wind farms,” said Somnath Baidya Roy, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the U. of I. “Through careful planning and testing, we can avoid some of the worst pitfalls altogether.”

In recent years, wind-power technology has progressed from small, isolated windmills to large wind farms that contain vast arrays of giant turbines plugged into existing power-distribution networks. A wind farm in northwest Iowa, for example, has more than 600 wind turbines, and provides power to more than 140,000 homes.

“If wind is to be a major player in global electrical production, however, we have to think in terms of even larger scales– of say, thousands of turbines per wind farm,” Baidya Roy said. “Such a wind farm could replace ten coal-fired power plants, but with so many turbines, turbulence could generate huge problems.”

Read More: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216104307.htm

Umatilla and Morrow Counties in Oregon consider Wind farm tax exemption December 19, 2008

Umatilla and Morrow county residents will get their first look at possible property tax exemptions for wind farms at public meetings Friday. The property tax exemptions are called strategic investment programs, or SIP, and provide an incentive for large capital investments – in this case the Echo wind farm.

The Umatilla County meeting will be at 11 a.m. in the Stafford Hansell Government Center in Hermiston, while the Morrow County session will begin at 2 p.m. in at the Morrow County Courthouse Annex and CSEPP Building, at 205 N.E. Third St., in Irrigon.

The proposed SIP provides the advantage of a flat tax rate for the companies involved with the wind farm and a stable 15-year funding base for the two counties. Normally, wind farm taxes follow a steep depreciation curve, eventually dropping to 20 percent of its original value after 10 years.

Those involved admit the SIP is a complicated agreement between the counties and the investor, Oregon Windfarms.

“It’s another way to look at tax deferment, but in a more equitable way for the counties and developers,” said Paul Woodin, executive director of the Community Renewable Energy Association, which has been helping Umatilla County with its SIP.

For a project to qualify for a SIP, a project must put the first $20 million straight onto the tax rolls and pay a community service fee equal to 25 percent of the tax savings but not more than $500,000.

The community service fee provides funds for some of the local taxing districts.

“On a bigger project it caps out at a half million dollars, on a smaller project it tends to follow a percentage,” Woodin said. “That is on each year’s assessed value so if the value goes down the savings goes down.”

There’s one more piece of the SIP: The negotiated settlement. That’s where the county is able to gain some wiggle room for special projects, Woodin explained. For example, in Sherman county an SIP paid for a new library, he said

The SIP can be attractive for a wind company because costs are high in the early years. Some major expenses include construction of the turbines and transmission lines, as well as hooking into the electricity grid.

Using a SIP instead of a front-end-heavy tax depreciation scale can even out some of those tax costs, Woodin said.

“For the developers it’s attractive because … the most delicate time for a project is the early years,” Woodin said.

The Echo wind farm SIP is a bit unusual because the project straddles two counties – Umatilla and Morrow. It places 20 windmills in Morrow County and 19 in Umatilla County with a total generating capacity of 64 megawatts – enough to supply power to 16,000 homes.

Like the wind farm, the SIP must also straddle two counties. The $25 million will be split between the two counties, along with the community service fee.

In Umatilla County, those affected by the community service fee include the general county taxing district, a Umatilla city bond, the Port of Umatilla, Echo Fire District No. 3, the Echo school bond, the Echo local option taxing district, the Echo Cemetery District, the West Umatilla Vector Control, the Umatilla special library district, Blue Mountain Community College and the education service district.

Also, said Umatilla County Board of Commissioners’ executive assistant Connie Caplinger, the county will receive $400,000 over a five-year period in “local improvement payments.” Morrow County will likewise receive $400,000 over the same period, Caplinger said.

She said Friday’s public meeting is to establish the contract between the county, Oregon Windfarms and John Deere Renewable Energy (a financer of the project).

Another meeting with the entities included in the community service fee will take place at a later date.

http://www.eastoregonian.info/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=206&ArticleID=86629&TM=69629.77

Camelina based biofuel will get test flight in Boeing jet December 17, 2008

A Japanese commercial airliner is scheduled to take a test flight next month using jet fuel derived in part from camelina – an emerging biofuels crop that has received strong backing from Montana officials.

Camelina is a seed-oil crop that at least two Northern Plains companies are pursuing as a potential source of alternative fuels. Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Montana’s U.S. senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, have promoted camelina as a way to lessen U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

Camelina companies have been struggling to reach their goal of converting millions of acres of the region’s farmland to production of the crop. Competition with high prices for wheat made attracting farmers difficult.

Representatives of Bozeman-based Sustainable Oils say they hope the upcoming test flight will show farmers that a market for the crop will exist.

Japan Airlines plans a one-hour flight out of Tokyo on Jan. 30, using a jet fuel blend made from Sustainable Oils camelina, said Scott Johnson, general manager of the company built on a partnership between Targeted Growth of Seattle and Green Earth Fuels of Houston.

“We need to prove that it’s a consistent and good source of renewable fuels for this type of market,” Johnson said. He added that the number of acres devoted to the crop “could be scaled up quickly” to meet demand.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing also is participating in the test project. “Until recently it was assumed the only thing we could ever use was petroleum,” said Darin Morgan, head of Boeing’s sustainable fuels program. “Boeing set out to prove that wrong.”

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=272650

Josephine County, OR considers growing canola for biofuel December 16, 2008

A presentation and grant request from the Eugene-based company N.W. Seed Crushers Inc. was received during a Friday, Dec. 12 administrative meeting at the courthouse in Grants Pass by the Josephine County Board of Commissioners.

Company owner Chuck Bergfeld and co-founder Tim Parker’s focus was on the production of biofuel through growing and processing canola, a crop which also can be used as seed meal source.

Bergfeld told the board that a moratorium is in place against canola growing in Willamette Valley, due to fear of it cross-pollinating with grass seed and other crops. That moratorium does not apply south of Lane County, Bergfeld said.

Other advantages, Bergfeld said, are that Josephine County production of the crop could bolster the agricultural industry, increase the value of farmland, and aid in the battle against noxious weeds. It also would help improve county diversity from a timber-dependent economy, he said.

Parker said that by growing canola, farmers can take advantage of tax credits and renewable energy mandates in order to guarantee a market share. The canola crop has been successfully grown in a variety of areas and climates, Bergfeld and Parker said. Water canola has a high yield, even on marginal, non-irrigated soil.

N.W. Seed Crushers supplies equipment to growers, along with personnel, to plant, harvest and transport the seed to market. It also would process the seeds.

But to bring these opportunities to Josephine County, Parker and Bergfeld requested an $85,000 economic development grant from the board. They said that doing so would create local jobs almost immediately.

The board will consider the grant request in January.

http://www.illinois-valley-news.com/archive/2008/12/17/story-joco_oily.html

More on Advanced biodigester to be built in Boardman, OR December 13, 2008

NW Natural is partnering with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) and Threemile Canyon Farms, LLC (TMCF) to build a first-of-its-kind biodigester. This initial Smart Energy project will be built and operated at TMCF in Boardman, Ore. The design, patented by J-U-B ENGINEERS, Inc. out of Kennewick, Wash., will be the first phase in a multiphase project and employs a technology that could be implemented at farms of all sizes throughout the region.

“The economic benefits of this type of project are exactly what we hope to encourage across the state, and especially in Oregon agriculture” said Gov. Ted Kulongoski. “By encouraging the use of tax credits for innovative investments like these, we are demonstrating ways we can help businesses and consumers address climate change and global warming.”

This biodigester investment is also the first project funded by the newly incorporated BEF Renewable Incorporated, a for-profit business that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nonprofit Bonneville Environmental Foundation. The subsidiary business allows investment of foundation dollars in innovative renewable energy projects, which also support the environmental mission of the nonprofit parent organization.
“We’re trying something new here to produce a renewable fuel source, while also reducing methane emissions,” said Margie Gardner, CEO of Bonneville Environmental Foundation.   “This is a design that holds promise for widespread use.”

Work will begin on the biodigester by the end of the year and should be fully operational by mid-March. At that point, waste from 1,200 cows – roughly 144,000 lbs. a day, will be added to the biodigester instead of being left on the farm. The first phase of the biodigester will reduce carbon emissions by 1,500 tons which equals the emissions from the natural gas use of more than 400 homes. While the biogas is to be used on site by Threemile Canyon Farms, it would be enough gas to supply about 102 homes.
The innovative design overcomes one of the biggest challenges for on-farm anaerobic digester development – namely, cost.  Historically, the initial investment to construct a biodigester has been daunting for most dairy farms, especially those using flush systems common among western dairies.

J-U-B’s design incorporates a lined and covered lagoon that eliminates the need for the more standard high-priced concrete or steel tanks.  The covered lagoon is filled with discarded automobile tires which trap and retain bacteria from the cow manure.  In the treatment process, the retained bacteria break down the manure and convert it into methane-rich biogas, a renewable energy source.  This process significantly improves the treatment efficiency of the system, making it a more cost-effective design.
Threemile Canyon Farms produces 1.1 million pounds of milk a day, all of which is shipped to Tillamook’s Columbia River Processing Plant in Boardman for processing and distribution. The farm grows approximately 5,000 acres of organic onions, potatoes, sweet peas and feed crops, along with approximately 20,000 acres of conventional potatoes and feed crops.

http://portland.dbusinessnews.com/shownews.php?newsid=172739&type_news=latest

Oregon’s largest dairy testing a new methane digester technology December 12, 2008

Oregon’s largest dairy will test a new generation of technology that captures methane from cow manure — tapping an underused energy source and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

NW Natural and Bonneville Environmental Foundation are building the $1 million methane digester at Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman.

Methane digesters are not new, but Bill Eddie of the foundation said the model developed by J-U-B Engineers of Boise, Idaho, costs much less and can be used on small farms as well as big ones.

That means small farms wouldn’t have the expense of trucking heavy manure to a central facility. Instead, they could have their own digesters and pipe excess gas to a collection spot.

Unlike older digesters that rely on concrete and steel to build the manure holding basin, the new design contours the earth and lines the basin with plastic. The covered basin is filled with old tires, which serve as a matrix for bacteria that break down the manure, allowing the methane to be drawn off for use as fuel.

The utility and the environmental group get half the capital costs back as state energy tax credits spread over five years. NW Natural can sell carbon offsets to its 6,300 Smart Energy customers, who make up about 1 percent of its customer base. The dairy can substitute the methane for propane to heat water that is used to clean milking parlors.

Agriculture accounts for about a third of the methane released into the atmosphere in the U.S. Other sources include landfills, coal mining, and oil and gas refineries. It is considered the No. 2 greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, after carbon dioxide.

Oregon is one of the seven western states and four Canadian provinces that have signed the Western Climate Initiative to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the region by 15 percent by 2020.

The Threemile Canyon equipment is scheduled to go on line in March.

“It’s a risky project,” said Eddie. “Every piece of the revenue stream is going to be important.”

Farm manager Marty Myers said the digester fits the dairy’s existing manure handling operation and easily be expanded if the test works out. The methane could ultimately power the refrigeration units that cool milk.

Threemile Canyon Farms employs 300 people full time and 400 seasonally. The farm milks 16,000 cows on a farm covering 93,000 acres. Until now, the manure has been held in a lagoon and sprayed on the farm’s 37,000 acres of farmland growing feed for the cows.

The digester will handle the manure from 1,200 cows, each producing an estimated 120 pounds of manure a day — for a total of about 144,000 pounds a day.

Once technology is ready to remove impurities, NW Natural expects to use digester methane in its pipelines, said spokesman Bill Edmonds. Methane is the main component of natural gas.

Stephanie Page, renewable energy specialist for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said methane digesters are coming into increasing use in Oregon. Two are working on diary waste in Tillamook and Salem, and others are in municipal waste. A fruit processing company outside Corvallis is developing one.

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-28/1229040870144480.xml&storylist=orlocal

Farmers Reaping Stability From Wind December 4, 2008

Hilderbrand Lane slices through acres of wheat fields as it heads east out of Wasco, a tiny town burrowed into Oregon’s poorest county. Stubble from summer’s harvest bristles in every direction. Nothing interrupts the tawny expanse until the road rises to expose hundreds of wind turbines. Tall and shimmery in the midday haze, they overpower the landscape, striking, unsettling.

“I like em,” says John Hilderbrand, 81, a straight-talking but jocular wheat farmer who lives along his namesake road in the two-story house his grandfather built in 1900. “They’re grinding out dollars.”

Hilderbrand, the first in Sherman County to allow turbines on his land, reaps about $30,000 a year in lease payments. And the checks come without fail, he says, unlike the income from his wheat operation, which is squirrelly as the weather.

“Fact is, I don’t see any disadvantages,” says Hilderbrand, who likes talking about the wind almost as much as spinning yarns about rogue bears, stuffed rats and clueless urban slickers who insist on calling the county’s rich glacial silt “dirt” not “soil.”

In 2000, Sherman County had no turbines. Now it’s home to one of the highest concentrations in the Columbia River Gorge, where a wind-energy boom is under way.

The projects in the ground so far represent an investment of close to $1 billion, and they’ve begun to pump millions of dollars into this county of 1,700 residents, with jobs and tax and lease payments.

http://www.agweekly.com/articles/2008/12/04/news/ag_news/news43.txt

Possible Grant for Sustainable Wood Products in Baker Co. (OR) November 21, 2008

A $2 million grant is breathing life into planning for a new sustainable wood products industry in Baker County capable of providing income for woodland owners and low-cost power, heat, wood pellets and firewood to the community.

All combined, the analysis of available information suggests a range of 59,000 to 70,000 green tons of woody biomass supply each year. This does not include the 20,000 green tons of residential slash volume from completed harvest operations that (the Oregon Department of Forestry) estimates is currently piled on private forests,” according to the report.

Biomass from federal forests could add another 60,000 green tons to the supply, and possibly much more if forest officials authorize more thinning.

Christoffersen described a system where woodland owners would thin their timber stands and the larger logs not sold to mills would be cut and dried for firewood. Smaller trees and other woody biomass, including slash piles from logging, would supply the gasifier power plant and the pellet mill. Heat created as a byproduct from the gasifier plant could be used to dry the pellets.

http://www.bakercityherald.com/2008112178032/News/Business/Building-a-new-wood-products-industry

Montana Urged to Boost Wind Power November 17, 2008

Randy Udall, son of former Arizona congressman Mo Udall, urged Montana to invest in wind Power as keynote speaker of the 37th annual Northern Plains Resource Council meeting in Billings, MT.

Udall believes Montana should take advantage of its abundance of wind energy noting, “I’m convinced Montana should plant wind turbines as if they were trees in the coming decades.”

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/11/16/news/state/27-montana.txt