Legislature(2009 - 2010)BUTROVICH 205
02/05/2009 10:30 AM Senate ENERGY
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Overview: Biomass Energy in Alaska | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON ENERGY
February 5, 2009
10:33 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Lesil McGuire, Chair
Senator Albert Kookesh
Senator Bill Wielechowski
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Lyman Hoffman
Senator Bert Stedman
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
Overview: Biomass energy in Alaska
Presenters:
-Peter Crimp, Alternative Energy Program Coordinator
Alaska Energy Authority
-Gwen Holdmann, Director
Alaska Center for Energy and Power
-Donna Vukich, General Manager
Naknek Electric Association
-Yvonne Kopy, Planner
Bristol Bay Borough
-Greg O'Claray, Statewide Coordinator
Alaska Chip, Ltd.
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to consider
WITNESS REGISTER
PETER CRIMP, Coordinator
Alternative Energy and Energy Efficiency Program
Alaska Energy Authority (AEA)
Anchorage AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided an overview of Alaska's biomass
energy.
GWEN HOLDMANN, Director
Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP)
Fairbanks AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Discussed near-term applied biomass systems
that may work in Alaska.
MS. DONNA VUKICH, General Manager
Naknek Electric Association (NEA)
Naknek, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Discussed an effort to use fish waste as a
biomass source in western Alaska.
YVONNE KOPY, Planner and Grant Writer
Bristol Bay Borough
Naknek AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Discussed an effort to use fish waste as a
biomass source in western Alaska.
GREG O'CLARAY, Statewide Coordinator
Alaska Chip, Ltd.
Juneau AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided information on firewood operations
in Ketchikan.
STEVE SELEY, Owner
Alaska Chip LLC.
Ketchikan AK
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided information on firewood operations
in Ketchikan.
ACTION NARRATIVE
10:33:38 AM
CHAIR LESIL MCGUIRE called the Senate Special Committee on
Energy meeting to order at 10:33. Present at the call to order
were Senators Kookesh, Wielechowski, and McGuire.
10:34:21 AM
^Overview: Biomass Energy in Alaska
OVERVIEW: BIOMASS ENERGY IN ALASKA
CHAIR MCGUIRE announced a presentation by Peter Crimp.
PETER CRIMP, Alternative Energy and Energy Efficiency Program
Coordinator, Alaska Energy Authority (AEA), said AEA is a public
corporation that has been in operation since 1976. "We own
stuff," including the Anchorage/Fairbanks intertie, Bradley Lake
Hydro, and a rural energy group. AEA has built many tank farms
and power systems throughout the state. It works with the Denali
Commission. AEA has an alternative energy section, which he
manages, and it includes programs for biomass, hydroelectric,
wind, and others. AEA is now performing a technical and economic
review of a renewable energy fund. His talk will focus on wood
energy, but there are a number of biomass resources throughout
the state, including fish oil and municipal waste. There is a
wood energy development task group and an infrastructure among
agencies for developing wood energy. The AEA has be working with
a project in Craig, Alaska.
10:37:23 AM
MR. CRIMP said AEA has helped Anchorage with a landfill gas
feasibility analysis. Wood has been the standby in Alaska.
Fairbanks was originally powered by wood. He noted the use of
wood for power at the old pulp mills in Ketchikan and Sitka.
MR. CRIMP showed a map of renewable energy resources in Alaska.
The green area is where the forests are, and "generally it's in
the Interior." The fish processing facilities are marked on the
map by blue fishes. There is a fair amount of waste available
from them. There are also sawmills and garbage in the major
cities. Alaskans are using roughly 100,000 cords per year for
heating residences. That is a very rough estimate. The state has
over 18,500 square miles of productive forest that can grow 3.5
million cords of wood per year. Wood cutting can conflict with
other uses, but benefits include wildfire risk reduction,
economic development, and habitat enhancement.
10:40:34 AM
MR. CRIMP showed a diagram of how much wood, garbage, and fish
oil is available in "diesel gallon equivalents." Sustainably-
available wood equals about 500 million gallons worth of diesel.
That isn't enough wood to run the state. "Of course that
probably wouldn't be such a good idea anyway." But it is an
important component of energy use in Alaska.
10:41:23 AM
MR. CRIMP said he will discuss technology ranging from
residential wood heating to gasification and pyrolysis. But air
pollution is a big consideration. It is a problem in Fairbanks
because people are not burning wood efficiently. Another issue
is fuel depletion and logging aesthetics. Some people don't like
the look of cut-over areas, but he is not one of them. System
reliability and complexity is a consideration too. But economic
feasibility is the overriding factor. "Are there people to buy
the heat and power? What are the other alternatives?" He showed
an image of a smoky, inefficient, outdoor wood boiler.
10:43:03 AM
MR. CRIMP said AEA has been developing a demonstration project
in Dot Lake for burning wood efficiently with no smoke and more
heat. It heats a washateria and seven residences. He showed a
cross section of the boiler. It has a 4,400-gallon tank with a
by-pass fire tube. The wood heats the water and the water is
used as a heating source. The project stimulated other ones when
the price of heating oil spiked last year. So one was installed
in Tanana, which also heats a washateria and other buildings.
10:45:39 AM
CHAIR MCGUIRE asked about the price, the time it takes to
develop, and the capacity.
MR. CRIMP replied that they are fairly simple projects, "low
hanging fruit for some communities." It costs about $250,000 and
has an 8-year payback, depending on the cost of wood and oil.
The unit has about 10 times the energy of a residential system.
He said that the Dot Lake unit uses slabs of wood from a local
sawmill and pays about $35 per cord (and the price may be
considerably higher now). In Tanana, instead of exporting money
from the community to pay for oil that is barged in, "residents
can fill up ... bunks with wood and get $200 per cord."
10:47:42 AM
MR. CRIMP showed photos of a chip-fired facility near Dry Creek.
It is a boiler system by Decton. It uses sawmill wastes that
would have to be dealt with otherwise. There is no local market
for it. It heats a dry kiln for value-added wood processing and
another building. He showed a new project in Craig, which was
funded by AEA, the federal government, and the Denali
Commission. It is a chip-fired boiler that heats two schools and
the community pool. It is high-tech and clean burning.
10:49:20 AM
MR. CRIMP said wood-fired power is another step up in
complexity, and none exist in Alaska. It can be economic when
there is plentiful low-cost fuel, it is displacing diesel oil,
and there is a large market for both power and heat. It worked
for the Southeast pulp mills, and he said it is reasonable to
ask if small rural communities can use it. He presented an
Alaska map showing preliminary economic feasibility assessments.
It has been incorporated in models for the Alaska energy plan. A
demonstration project is needed, along with land management
planning regarding the harvest levels.
10:51:24 AM
MR. CRIMP showed a photo of a small module gasifier made by
Community Power Corporation who wants to demonstrate it in
Alaska. He noted an organic Rankin cycle to convert wood into
heat to supply a unit, such as what runs Chena Hot Springs.
MR. CRIMP said that Alaska Village Initiatives have proposed
gearing up the harvest in rural communities. The big question is
how much it would cost to supply a wood system. "Going out in
snow-goes with a chainsaw is not a way to necessarily supply a
utility." Mechanized logging would be desired with a good
management plan to reduce conflict with subsistence and other
uses. A track hoe with a cutter head would cost about $600,000.
Fuel supply is generally available for small villages. Wood
supply would be a concern in a place like Dillingham, but Tanana
would have a lot of wood and the question would be the cost.
10:53:34 AM
MR. CRIMP said he doesn't know much about converting biomass to
liquids. There are technologies that will convert carbon-based
substances, like coal and wood, into a liquid fuel. "Fischer-
Tropsch is one of those." Southern Southeast has looked at
converting to ethanol. Wood is burned in a starved-air system
that breaks the carbon into smaller chains and then synthesizes
it into the hydrocarbons desired and burns the rest for power
and heat.
MR. CRIMP said AEA has been aggressively working with
communities to develop wood-fired heating projects. Wood
requires a commitment, it doesn't just dribble out of an oil
tank. Chip-fired heating is a stepping stone between wood heat
and power generation. "And of course bio-refineries, liquid
fuels, are the future."
10:55:48 AM
GWEN HOLDMANN, Director, Alaska Center for Energy and Power
(ACEP), Fairbanks, said her program is interested in near-term
applied solutions that are not currently commercially viable in
Alaska, "and that would be combined heat and power with biomass
resources." ACEP is less interested in looking at liquid fuels
from biomass because it's further off in the future. Also, it is
extensively researched in the Lower 48, so Alaska doesn't need
to focus on it. Alaska can wait to see what others do and take
advantage of it. Using cellulose, like feedstock, for liquid
fuel would be very exciting, but ACEP is waiting to see it
develop a little more. It's not a technical challenge, but an
economic one. The components need to work consistently and
economically.
10:57:41 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said the university has looked at burning fish oil
in diesel generators quite a bit. It is doable, but oil has a
shelf life. Research on algae is being done elsewhere. She noted
that a large tree grows from a small seed, and asked where all
the matter or mass comes from. That mass is really from the
atmosphere; it is basically CO2 and water. Combusting or
gasifying a biomass resource releases greenhouse gases, but they
are the same gases that are taken in during the life of that
tree. So as long as biomass is being planted on a sustainable
basis, it is renewable.
11:00:29 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said Fairbanks was heavily deforested in the last
century for power and heating. The advantages of biomass are
that it can supply on-demand base-load power, similar to
geothermal. It is available year round, unlike wind or solar. It
is carbon neutral and can be processed into a syngas or liquid
fuel. It can potentially be used for transportation
applications, "but that is down the road a ways." It is also
good because heating is more important than electric power in
Alaska's rural communities.
11:01:38 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said the disadvantages are that biomass is
expensive to handle, it has a very low energy density so it must
be used near its source, it is labor intensive, storage can be a
challenge, and small scale technology is still emerging.
11:02:20 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said the disadvantages mean that it can provide for
local jobs. Biomass in the Lower 48 is in widespread use as a
power source. It is typically used in a combustion cycle to
drive a steam turbine. It is supplying about one percent of the
total U.S. generating capacity, which is pretty significant for
a renewable resource. Worldwide, biomass is the primary energy
source for half of the world's population, so Alaska has an
opportunity to develop a niche market in commercializing the
technology. Europe is now the leader in clean biomass
technologies. She showed a photo of a 2-megawatt gasification
plant in Austria.
11:03:51 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said one research challenge is to reduce capital
costs. "A lot of these technologies are technically feasible if
you're willing to throw enough money at it." Component costs
need to be reduced. The efficiency of the energy conversion
needs to improve. The smaller the system, the less efficient it
is. Emissions need to be reduced, and integration with existing
generation systems needs to be better. Alaska has isolated
grids, even the state is an isolated grid, and that differs with
the Lower 48 states, so no one else will be addressing that
challenge. But it is more common throughout the world.
11:04:44 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said gasification and direct combustion are the two
avenues being considered for power generation from biomass.
Direct combustion is the older version. Gasification is
incomplete combustion to form a syngas that can then be used to
drive a gas turbine. One of Alaska's challenges is to achieve
optimal performance for varying fuel conditions. There will be
different moisture levels and different trees, for example.
11:05:48 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said it would require approximately 500 acres to
grow a biomass crop, like willow or alder, to fuel a 500 kW
generator sustainably, assuming the use of about five tons per
acre per year. She is not sure that can be sustained in Alaska.
Biomass crops are fast growing and are grown specifically for
energy generation. Most of the money stays in the community. It
is important to be thinking about stabilizing costs and keeping
jobs and not so much about reducing the cost of power or heat.
Biomass is a crop and farmers can start growing it before the
power plant is built.
11:07:05 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said Sweden has been growing willows since the
1970s. There are similarities between Alaska and Sweden. Sweden
has done a lot of resource assessment and has refined the
technology. It is expensive and usually requires a subsidy. The
University of New York has been partnering in Alaska to look at
growing willows and other plants as a biomass crop. There is a
500-acre test plot in New York that is co-fired in a nearby coal
power plant. Co-firing biomass in coal plants is an easy way to
use biomass in the near term. Eielson has a coal power plant and
there was a recycling program where paper products were
densified and burned in the coal plant. The program ended in
2006 after there was a fire in the facility.
11:08:14 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said willows can also be used to clean up waste
water and landfills. Alyeska is one of the leaders in looking at
growing short rotation biomass crops because of its need to
revegetate. The University of Alaska is looking at fast-growing
grasses. Growth rates can be augmented with fertilizer.
11:10:42 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said Chena Hot Springs and United Technologies are
looking at substituting the heat from the geothermal resource
with biomass to drive that type of organic Rankin cycle turbine.
This is a major Fortune 500 company that is interested in
solving Alaska's rural power generation issues. [United
Technologies] sees a niche industry that can go worldwide, and
it wants to invest in demonstration products in the state.
Alaska should capitalize on that. The Chena geothermal power
plant has low temperatures and is very inefficient. It runs at
about 8 percent efficiency, but it doesn't matter when you're
not paying for the fuel. Biomass fuel costs money and work, so
the efficiency needs to be increased. Using both power and heat
increases the efficiency up to 80 percent.
11:13:06 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said the project doesn't use a steam cycle, but an
organic Rankin cycle, which uses a refrigerant that is boiled
into a vapor, and it doesn't freeze or need high pressures.
There is a demonstration project at K & K Recycling [near North
Pole, AK] that AEA and ACEP have been involved in. It will be a
400 kW system - analogous to the Chena project. It is being done
by the same owners. The fuels will be paper, cardboard, and
brush. It is the same stuff that used to go into the Eielson
recycling program that ended in 2006. It is designed for rural,
stand-alone applications. It heats up thermal oil instead of hot
water, and the thermal oil supplies the heat to run the power
generation cycle. The cost of power is estimated to be about 6.4
cents in this urban area. It will be co-located with greenhouses
and space heating. It represents high-value niche markets for
emerging technologies. Alaskan villages could provide global
leadership in rural biomass power systems, especially for 100kW
to 5mW modular systems. She suggests urging manufacturers to use
Alaska for testing.
11:14:30 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said Iceland became the world leader in geothermal
development. When Icelanders decided to switch to geothermal,
they didn't know anything about it. They didn't even have an
engineering program at their university. They were way behind
where Alaska is now, but they made a commitment to become the
world leader in geothermal. Icelanders went to Boise, Idaho, to
learn about the oldest district heating system in the country.
11:15:25 AM
MS. HOLDMANN said ACEP is an applied research program at the
University of Alaska, and it verifies performance and
reliability of equipment. It does not build products, it
assesses them economically and technically. It looks at
integration with existing power systems for all different types
of renewables. It tries to purchase products that claim to work.
Some people actually market things that don't exist, so ACEP
saves other people the time with testing technology that isn't
really ready for prime time. ACEP works with manufacturers that
do have a good product to make them better and more applicable
for Alaska. Efficiency is ACEP's top priority. Secondly, they
look at off-the-shelf technology, and then new technologies.
MS. HOLDMANN gave three examples of how ACEP pursues its
mission. It does flow battery testing at the university to
improve the system. It has tested fuel cell products, but they
are not in the near term in Alaska so that has been abandoned.
ACEP is doing a lot of product testing on waste heat recovery
systems for existing diesel generators.
MS. DONNA VUKICH, General Manager, Naknek Electric Association
(NEA), Naknek, said NEA is working with the Bristol Bay Bureau
on a project developed by Yvonne Kopy.
YVONNE KOPY, Planner and Grant Writer, Bristol Bay Borough,
Naknek, thanked [Mr. Crimp and Ms. Holdmann] for all their work
in renewable energy. There are few trees but many fish in
Southwest Alaska. She proposed a simple feasibility study of
using fish oil as an energy source. The ultimate goal is a fish
waste processing facility to create fish oil and other value-
added products that is operated with 100 percent clean energy.
11:18:56 AM
MS. KOPY said that if the facility proves to be successful, the
technology could be transferred to other industries. Bristol Bay
is home to a huge fishery, including the largest sockeye fishery
in the world. It is a likely location to place a model facility.
11:19:42 AM
MS. KOPY said fish processing wastes 50 percent of every fish.
That number is growing because Lower 48 markets are targeted
instead of Asian markets. Canning wastes only 20 to 30 percent
of the fish, but new markets are for filets. Bristol Bay
harvested 29 million sockeye salmon or 170 million pounds. An
average of 30 percent waste puts 57 million pounds of ground-up
waste into the river system. Her proposal would use the waste
for energy. It is not new technology. Unisea Inc. in Dutch
Harbor, Alaska, is currently rendering its waste into fish oil
and mixing it with diesel to generate energy for its plant.
There is a cooperative arrangement in Kodiak to render fish
waste to create oil and pellets. Juneau has a floating
processing facility that is rendering fish waste into oil.
11:21:43 AM
MS. KOPY said the technology is not new, but she wants to look
at untested technologies. The work she has done so far has
suggested that there isn't enough fish oil to run an entire
facility 100 percent, so other sources, like wood, solar, or
wind, are needed, depending on the area. Cogeneration would make
it possible to operate a fish waste facility 100 percent on
renewable energy. Current projects are a great start, but she is
asking for financing and funding to go into more depth. The
project partners include the University of Alaska, the Center
for Economic Development, and the Institute of Social and
Economic Research (ISER), which will research economics and
viability. Through study and innovation it is possible to
develop this facility, and it could be duplicated throughout
Southwest Alaska, a region that has suffered economically.
11:23:51 AM
CHAIR MCGUIRE asked if the project is in its initial stage.
MS. KOPY said, yes, it is just at the feasibility assessment.
CHAIR MCGUIRE said she looks forward to its completion.
DONNA VUKICH said NEA is very committed to working with the
borough, industry, and residents who want to use the resource
for economic development and energy.
11:24:59 AM
The committee took an at-ease.
11:28:25 AM
GREG O'CLARAY, Statewide Coordinator, Alaska Chip, Ltd., Juneau,
said Alaska Chip is owned by the Seley family in Ketchikan, a
longtime, timber-harvesting family. This is an exciting project,
and Mr. O'Claray came out of retirement for it. He spent four
years working for Governor Murkowski to solve the unemployment
and economic problems in rural Alaska by providing jobs. "We
were not able to solve it because all the pieces aren't there."
His current project is selling firewood out of the back of a van
in Juneau. He showed "an example of the type of products that
are being generated in the plant operated by the Seley family in
Ketchikan." He had a piece of wood cut from standing dead yellow
cedar. It is aromatic and burns hot. It sells good. It's not as
heavy. Ms. Holdmann used oak as an example for the life cycle of
a tree, which doesn't grow in Alaska. A cord of hemlock has the
same BTUs as 157 gallons of fuel oil. He showed a picture of a
log splitting machine that Mr. Seley paid over $500,000 for. A
person logging for firewood in our forests would go broke,
"because the firewood really is taken from the 30 percent
unmarketable commercial timber." But no one can stay in business
making firewood out of high-value timber. The 30 percent would
normally be considered waste material and left in the woods. Mr.
Seley bought the machine at the urging of the U.S. Forest
Service because of concern over waste wood in clear cuts. The
machine will take a log about 60-feet long, and it will cut,
split, and pile it in eight seconds. Mr. Seley cut 21 cords of
wood in less than two hours by himself, and Mr. O'Claray sold 14
cords in three days.
11:34:18 AM
MR. O'CLARAY said that Mr. Seley's idea is to move wood or chips
to energy-starved communities in western Alaska. There is no
year-round employment in the bush communities, so social
problems mount. Young people leave to find jobs, and the whole
village structure was falling apart. He was involved in training
people in construction work, but it is nomadic work. Many young
people didn't want to leave their villages because of their
family structure. With a subsistence lifestyle, when the caribou
come, people need to hunt. A five-day a week job doesn't fit
their lifestyle. It is easy to job-share if the industry is
there. Mr. Seley's project "will entail manpower to be used at
the other end." If he ships 400 cords of wood into Bristol Bay
on a barge, it will require people to unload and distribute it.
11:36:10 AM
MR. O'CLARAY said the idea is to send wood in massive amounts to
western Alaska and have it stored in the summer. It would then
be distributed to families in the winter. "And, basically, that
is what we're all about." The chip technology is a reality.
People have been heating with wood products in boilers in Europe
for five years. "They laugh at us when they find out we're still
burning diesel in our boilers and in our homes." He showed a
picture of a typical boiler. He noted that he got 10 cords of
wood in a 20-foot van by hand-loading it. He showed a picture of
a pile of wood at the end of a conveyer belt. The boiler works
on the same type of technology as a little conveyer belt inside
an auger system.
11:38:44 AM
MR. O'CLARAY said chips or cords are superior to pellets.
Pellets come from the shavings from making lumber, sawdust, and
a binder. That is why they are more expensive. When pellets get
wet they turn to mush, and this is wet country. If chips get
wet, they can be dried. Most furnaces wet down the chips so they
will burn at the same rate all the time. Hemlock is a "stable
BTU releaser" because it has moisture in it. "you can hold a
fire all night by throwing a couple chunks or sticks of hemlock
in there with the cedar."
CHAIR MCGUIRE asked where the project stands now.
MR. O'CLARAY answered that they are "ready to go," and they are
splitting wood now for shipping to Southeast Alaska communities,
but the legislature needs to provide a subsidy to move the
product north. Mr. Seley wants to sell the product at the same
price he sells it for in Ketchikan where there is no freight
costs -- $175 per cord for hemlock.
SENATOR KOOKESH said it is all done with waste wood.
MR. O'CLARAY said yes. Cedar is valuable for totem carvings and
other uses.
SENATOR KOOKESH asked why he showed the KOB system, and if Mr.
Seley is a distributor.
11:41:24 AM
STEVE SELEY, Owner, Alaska Chip LLC., Ketchikan, said he has an
affiliation with an engineering company that specializes in
these boilers. "We've chosen to provide the data on the KOB
because it was readily available, we knew it was accurate, and
it was a proven system." He does not distribute the product but
wanted to show what was available. He added that Western Tugboat
will commit a 9,000-ton barge that could transport 2,200 cords
of split wood or 3,000 dry tons of chips to western Alaska. He
said he can deliver wood to Nome at a price that is equivalent
to $2.37 oil, and chips would be worth $1.78 per gallon of oil.
11:43:03 AM
MR. SELEY said the concept is simple. His company has been in
business for 35 years. He owns and operates remote camps in the
Tongass National Forest, and he is very familiar with costs. The
camps are like communities in rural Alaska. About 70 percent of
the demand on the diesel generators is for heat. The new Tongass
Land Management Plan identifies 257 million board feet of annual
harvest. The 30 percent component that is waste wood could
replace 31 million gallons of heating fuel. He proposes to use
the expertise of the Southeast Alaska timber industry. It is
located along the water, and it is a perfect fit for a coastal
community in western Alaska. There are wood-burning appliances
and systems, so no research is necessary. It is an immediate
solution to high-cost energy; "we challenge any alternate fuel
source to match what we can do with wood today."
11:46:17 AM
There being no further business to come before the Energy
Committee, it was adjourned at 11:47 a.m.
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