Wood for Fuel: Kern biomass projects would throw a log on state's alternative fuels drive
| Saturday, Sep 26 2009 12:00 PM
Last Updated Monday, Sep 28 2009 03:44 PM
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Felix Adamo / Californian file photo This coal- and petroleum coke-fired plant, Mt. Poso Cogeneration Co., produces electricity for consumers and steam for enhanced oil production. The owners want to spend $50 million converting it to run on agricultural and urban wood waste. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced Monday it has entered into a 15-year agreement to buy power from the plant near Bakersfield. This photo was taken in March 2004.
Something as simple yet subtle as burning wood to make heat is bringing together Kern's two biggest industries -- oil and agriculture -- at the leading edge of California's push for more renewable energy.
Two multimillion-dollar projects proposed in the area would generate steam for oil production by combusting biomass, in this case mostly waste wood and tree trimmings from local agriculture and urban sources. One of the plants would also produce enough electricity to power 47,000 average homes after its conversion from being coal-fired.
Companies involved boldly hope to make money in an endeavor researchers say has for decades proved uniquely challenging, particularly because renewable sources are often pricier and harder to get than coal and other nonrenewables.
Recently assistance has come from Sacramento in the form of emissions rules and requirements that electric utilities buy more of their power from plants that run on renewable resources.
Even if biomass plants like these do get special consideration in the energy marketplace, they earn it by diversifying utilities' fuel base and by generating power 24 hours a day, something wind and solar do not, said Mike Marelli, director of renewable contracts at Southern California Edison, the nation's leading utility in terms of the size of its renewables portfolio, which was 7 percent biomass last year.
He and others familiar with the technology said Kern's wealth of constantly rotating farmland is key to the projects' financial viability.
"If you have a fuel source and you need to get rid of it, it's a great combination: ... the ag waste issue (and) producing renewable energy," Marelli said.
The two projects would add to a very small number of California biomass generators of steam for oil production. They could solidify Kern's growing reputation as a place for innovation in alternative energy, when viewed in the context of other recent and proposed large investments in solar power, wind turbines and hydrogen energy in the county.
Pricey plans
Mt. Poso Cogeneration Co. plans to spend $50 million retooling its 20-year-old, 50-megawatt-per-hour plant near Bakersfield, which creates steam by burning coal and petroleum coke. The steam helps draw out thick Kern crude from oil wells owned by the same group of investors. As a "cogen" facility, the company also generates electricity, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced last week it has signed a 15-year contract to buy Mt. Poso's biomass-powered energy once it converts to a 44-megawatt biomass plant, expected to be complete in 2012.
Mt. Poso partner Michael Hawkins said the company had little choice but to convert to biomass, since new emissions regulations would have almost certainly shut down the coal-fired operation. But as an ag waste burner, he said, the owners expect to recover their investment within 10 to 20 years.
Mt. Poso helps PG&E meet Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's executive order calling for 33 percent of the state's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. PG&E finds the plant especially advantageous because it already exists, making it a good deal among renewable power sources.
"We would definitely like to see more" projects like Mt. Poso's, said PG&E's director of renewable energy policy and strategy, Aaron Johnson.
The other biomass project proposed in Kern is a $5.5 million demonstration project that Vancouver-based Global Green Solutions Inc. is building in Kern's Belridge area for Aera Energy LLC, a large Bakersfield-based oil producer that also does steam injection. Aera is putting $3 million into the pilot project, which is now under construction and is on track for completion next year. Aera plans to order 10 more plants if the first meets its requirements.
The chief operating officer of the Global subsidiary involved in the deal, Craig Harting, said Aera doesn't need the plants to produce electricity, and so the energy will be more efficiently directed toward producing steam. He said it will use a relatively clean process to burn waste from local growers of citrus, stone fruit and nuts.
"Our strategy is to find things that don't have much other use," he said.
Air pollution created by power plants burning ag waste is comparable to that of coal-fired plants permitted in California, San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District officials say. But they add that this kind of biomass is preferable to coal because it spews less sulphur oxide and certain other pollutants, and the carbon it releases into the air is captured in the plant's growth. Unlike fossil fuels, biomass does not reintroduce carbon buried long ago.
Getting the fuel
Farmers are generally happy to sell or give away biomass they used to incinerate out in the open, in many cases, before new regulations came along that the air district says have cut ag burning by 75 percent since 2004.
But farmers and energy producers have not always worked together well. Seasonal changes in agriculture have at times starved biomass generators. And farmers have sometimes had trouble competing with urban wood waste from Los Angeles, said the director of environmental affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation, Cynthia Cory.
Harting at Global said the Belridge project would run on 100 percent ag waste. Hawkins at Mt. Poso said his company expects to get half its biomass fuel from agriculture and half from urban sources including commercial and residential wood scrap. These materials are typically gathered and sold by municipalities that are under regulatory pressure to keep the waste out of landfills by composting or turning them biomass fuel.
A big user of Kern's urban and ag wood waste these days is a 50-megawatt biomass power plant in Delano that generates enough electricity for 50,000 average homes, making it a little more powerful than the Mr. Poso project would be, except that the Delano plant produces no steam for oil production.
Owner Covanta Energy says the plant consumes more than 580,000 tons of wood waste a year from Kern and Tulare counties, mostly from orchards. It also takes in tens of thousands of tons of urban wood waste, about 40 percent of the total generated in unincorporated Kern.
Looking forward
Despite the success in Delano, many of California's 30 or so commercial biomass plants have had a hard time, said Stephen Kaffka, director of the California Biomass Collaborative and an extension agronomist with the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
"It's marginal," he said. "It's not like it's printing money." Kaffka added that there may be hope in new work being done now by one of the university's graduate students, who he said is working on the financing and engineering of conversion projects like Mt. Poso's.
Indeed, such conversions may hold particular promise, said Chris Zygarlicke, deputy associate director for research at the Energy and Environmental Research Center, a 340-person firm below the University of North Dakota. He agreed with Kaffka that simple combustion such as what's proposed in Kern seems to work best, but predicted that finding enough biomass fuel locally could yet become a challenge for a plant the size of Mt. Poso.
Zygarlicke also said nowhere across the country is biomass succeeding without some kind of government help. Given the state's framework of incentives and regulations, "if California can't do it, nobody'll be able to do it," he said.
The partner at Mt. Poso, Hawkins, voiced optimism for the industry's future. But he said the industry ultimately will have to survive without special government support.
"I think eventually the technology will drive costs down, and make renewable energy more competitive. I don't think we have a choice," he said. "If it doesn't, I don't think we can sustain this kind of (cost-benefit) disparity in the long run."
