Relying on 2007 U.S. Forest Service data, American Renewables and GRU projected current logging operations in the region leave behind approximately 1.35 million tons of residue annually and, to meet their projected mix of fuels, they would need 850,000 tons of that a year. From all sources, the plant is projected to need one million tons of wood a year. The reliance on wood waste, primarily the residue left from logging operations and forest thinnings, has successfully worked in the Northeast for decades. In fact, Gainesville has modeled its plans on the 50-megawatt McNeil Generating Plant in Burlington, Vt.
Newspaper Feb 4, 2010
Compared to coal or other traditional fossil fuels, emissions from burning biomass are significantly lower. Nitrous oxide emissions are 1/10th and sulfur dioxide, which can result in acid rain, less than 1/30th. Also, using biomass fuels results in only 42 percent of the particulate pollution of comparable coal plants. And, burning wood wastes in the field, as is now done during logging and road building operations, releases 10 times more particulates than biomass electrical generation. Biomass energy is essentially carbon neutral, Brinkman says. “It does not add new carbon to the active carbon cycle, unlike fossil fuels, which remove carbon from geologic storage.
Is There Enough Wood to Fuel the Plant?In a sense, a biomass plant is little more than an enormous and efficient campfire. It uses wood to create steam to turn a generator, and it can burn anything from waste limbs and stumps from forestry operations, to broken pallets, your bagged oak leaves—even treated cow manure. But it takes a lot of wood to generate that steam. The 100-MW biomass plant planned for Gainesville will require 3,250 tons of waste wood every day. Getting all that wood to the plant will take 130 tractor trailers a day. (A coal plant of similar size would require approximately 800 tons of coal or 32 diesel truck-loads a day.) Another way to imagine this volume, says Dian Deevey, chairwoman of the Alachua County Environmental Protection Advisory Committee, is to consider that the yearly wood needed is equivalent to 880 square miles of timberland—an area slightly larger than all of Alachua County.
American Renewables reports that it will draw on an extensive area for the fuel: “The project will require approximately one million tons of fuel annually, which will be procured within a 75-mile radius of the project site.” Thus, the biomass plant’s sourcing support area could be as much as 17,662 square miles, equivalent to the area, coast-to-coast, from Valdosta to Leesburg. Dr. E. Dwight Adams, retired UF professor of physics and former member of the Alachua County Energy Committee, worries whether such a large mass of wood will be sustainable and, if it is, whether freighting it here is good for the environment. “My main concern is that there may not be enough good fuels in the region. We’ll have to use wood trucked in after hurricanes and tornadoes,” Adam says, adding that he’s concerned about the impact of removing all that wood. “I wonder if we’re robbing the soil of nutrients,” he says.
“The primary fuels will be forest residue, mill residue, pre-commercial tree thinnings, used pallets and urban wood waste that are generated by landscaping contractors, power line clearance contractors and other non-forestry related sources of woody debris,” wrote Drs. Douglas Carter and Matthew Langholtz. “Supplementary fuels could include herbaceous plant matter, agricultural residues, diseased trees, woody storm debris, whole tree chips and pulpwood chips.”Levin Gaston, chief operating officer at Wood Resource Recovery in Gainesville, a business that specializes in wood debris and yard waste recovery, recycling, composting and site management, scoffs at those who say we’ll run out of fuel. “There is plenty of biomass out there,” he says. Gaston also argues that burning biomass significantly reduces the materials dumped in landfills, cuts greenhouse gas emissions and curbs our reliance on costly and unstable supplies of fuel, such as foreign oil.
Newspaper March 24, 2010
Newspaper May 3, 2010
Newspaper May 28, 2010
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100528/articles/5281002FL PSC narrowly approved the proposal to build the plant! In Feb they were poised to deny it to give city officials time to answer about concerns.
Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet have the final say on the project later this year (November) - and FDEP has to review too.
Hunzinger is the general manager of GRU and is for it saying we should go towards renewable energy.
Craig Lowe points out that the city has low risk, just has to buy the power from American Renewables, not assume the risks they are assuming! he also said it could probably benefit from future carbon regulations and avoid probable future taxes on coal.
Plant to use leftover wood from tree clearings collected from a 75-mile radius around Gainesville, harnessing carbon that would have been released anyway (because they burn wood piles in those cleared plots).
Newspaper July 11, 2010
Together, the Suwannee River Water Management District Governing Board, the city of Gainesville, Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU), the city of Alachua, and the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center (GREC) are signing a Memorandum of Understanding that will result in the savings of hundreds of thousands, and eventually 1.4 million gallons, of fresh groundwater per day through using water from purple pipes. Through this model public-private partnership, GRU and GREC will build a purple pipeline to deliver reclaimed water from the city of Alachua to the proposed GREC facility, thereby reducing groundwater pumpage in the Santa Fe River Basin.
Newspaper Aug 1, 2010
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100802/ARTICLES/8021001/1002A study released last month seemed to indict biomass as a fuel source, indicating that it gives off more greenhouse gases than coal. Study was based in Massach where they used whole trees. Here, 78% of fuel would be wood waste, leftover limbs, and downed trees from wind etc. This stuff is what gets burned on site now, or breaks down sitting there releasing carbon. The fuel supply will be setup by BioResource Management Inc, a Gainesville firm. They think this all will create healthier forests because there will be incentive to thin them.
Paula Stahmer, one of two Gainesville residents who intervened as GREC went before the Florida Public Service Commission, objects to the project on a number of grounds - from the financial makeup of the partially redacted contract between Gainesville Regional Utilities and American Renewables to the need for a 100-megawatt plant, regardless of the fuel source. But the underlying issue is environmental. The operation would be "destroying our most valuable carbon sink: wood," Stahmer said Thursday. Dian Deevey also intervened in the PSC process to no avail. Wednesday, Stahmer and Deevy filed an appeal that will be sent to the state Supreme Court. If their appeal isn't granted, the matter will be left to Gov. Charlie Crist and his Cabinet to decide - and opponents already are getting involved in that process.
On July 26, former Gainesville Mayor Tom Bussing filed to intervene in the state Department of Environmental Protection's review of the site (happens before the Crist/cabinet review), according to a news release about the legal challenge released Thursday. "Dr. Bussing says the site approval should be denied because of the burner's negative health impacts and deforestation of public lands that will be cut for biomass fuel," the release stated
EPA does not think Biomass plants are carbon neutral (duh). They need a permit to based on greenhouse gas emissions.
"If the forest regrows, carbon neutrality is always obtained," Tim Martin for SFRC said. "It just depends on how long it takes." He says trees are part of our current carbon cycle, whereas coal is not, and we are bringing it up and adding it to the mass balance. Uhh... but he forgot about all the trucks that will be bringing it to the plant...? In North Florida, for instance, a forest can regrow in about 20 years, while in Massachusetts, it can take about 90 years.
The plant will use about 1.4 million gallons of water a day, and according to the agreement, about 400,000 of that will be reclaimed water purchased from the city of Alachua. The rest will come from groundwater.
Article about consumptive water use for power plants (2003)
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/33905.pdfConsumptive water use per kilowatt hour generated by thermoelectric plants? The biomass plant falls into the thermoelectric category... In the United States, approximately 89% of the energy produced in power plants is generated by thermoelectric systems, which evaporate water during the cooling of the condenser water. Average across the US: the final result for typical thermoelectric power plants was 0.47 gal (1.8 L) of fresh water evaporated per kWh of end-use electricity - multiply by 1000 --> 470 gallons (1,800 L) per hour per megawatt * 100 --> 180,000 Liters per hour per day or 47,000 gallons per hour per day --> * 24 --> 4,320,000 liters or 1,128,000 gallons per day.
My own research on water consumption with Water Use data:
The 1.4 million gallons per day proposed pumping by the plant would increase the usage of water in the whole county by 2.5% compared to 2005 numbers (from USGS water use report by Marella). This adds up to 42.7 million gallons a month. I went into my water use database to compare to other users in the SRWMD.
The average groundwater use of all 75 permitted Public Supply and Commercial/Industrial/Power/Mining permittees in SRWMD was 29.7 million gallons per month in 2007.
The average groundwater use of all Public Supply and Commercial/Industrial/Power/Mining permittees in Alachua County that is in SRWMD was 14.8 million gallons per month in 2007.
There were six SRWMD groundwater users that used more than 42.7 million gallons per month out of 75 total permitted users in those 2 categories in 2007:
Buckeye Paper Mill in Taylor County used average of 1205 million gallons per month (they recently got a permit to discharge 50-60 million gallons to the Gulf I read somewhere)
PCS Phosphate Mine in Hamilton County used average of 276 million gallons per month
Lake City in Columbia County used average of 107.3 million gallons per month
GRU Deerhaven Plant in Alachua County used average of 55.8 million gallons per month
City of Perry in Taylor County used average of 54.6 million gallons per month
City of Alachua used 48.0 million gallons per month.
3 of the 7 biggest users would all be in the same place if biomass plant pumps the proposed groundwater.
the Black River near Lesterville, in southeastern Missouri. It’s in the heart of the St. Francois Mountains - a small region of 1.4+ billion year old igneous rocks that are home to some of the most unique natural features in MO (Elephant Rock State Park and Johnson’s Shut-ins). These small mountains contain some of the highest points in the state, and “form the core of the Ozarks.” They are the largest of only three igneous rock exposures in Missouri (bright fuchsia on the map!) Source: 
