Another One Bites the Dust: Michigan Coal Plant Converts to Biomass
In yet another indication that the days of king coal are numbered, another coal-fired power plant in the U.S. is converting to biomass. Michigan’s L’Anse Warden Electric Company purchased an existing coal, oil, and natural gas power plant and promptly made the switch in order to engage in some sustainable synergy with a nearby manufacturing operation of the CertainTeed Corporation.
The CertainTeed facility will get the benefit of using electricity with a lower carbon footprint than coal. It will also give something back. The factory will recycle its formerly landfilled scrap by sending it to the Warden power plant for fuel, and that’s just the tip of the sustainable iceberg.
CertainTeed and Coal-to-Biomass
Aside from the Michigan plant, CertainTeed has 6,000 employees in more than 65 factories in the U.S. and Canada. Its home base, though, is in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The location is significant because Pennsylvania is coal country, and when one of a coal state’s major corporate citizens gives coal the brush-off, it’s a clear indication that fossil fuels are losing their stranglehold on the rest of the industrial community.
CertainTeed and Sustainability
CertainTeed is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, and it provides a glimpse into a more sustainable future for manufacturing. In addition to biomass electricity, CertainTeed’s Michigan plant will get excess steam from the Warden facility for its production process, replacing the natural gas it previously used to manufacture ceiling tiles. But wait, there’s more. In 2008 the factory produced more than 7,600 tons of soil booster for farms, the result of recycling inert sludge instead of sending it to landfills. The plant also has a lifecycle approach to ceiling tile manufacturing, mixing a slurry made of old recycled ceiling tiles with virgin materials.
Coal vs. Biomass
Biomass is not without a carbon footprint of its own, but it can be a significantly smaller one than coal and it boasts a number of advantages that coal cannot claim. For example, a coal-to-biomass conversion in Hawaii will help reduce energy-churning shipments of coal to the islands, while relieving a solid waste crisis by diverting local agricultural waste from landfills. And, a new biomass plant in Texas is expected to yield ash that is safe to recycle as soil booster – a far cry from the coal ash that is causing so many problems elsewhere.
Image: Open pit coal mine by Jen SFO-BCO on flickr.com.
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November 30th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
BP)-Uses (VRNM)Proprietary Tech because =
Three to four times more cellulosic ethanol
from every acre of feedstock.combination
SPEECH BY PHILIP NEW, CEO-(BP)-Bio-Fuels
ETHANOL 2009 CONFERENCE, PARIS,
BIOFUELS_THE ROLE OF ADVANCED BIOFUELS_AND WHY
WE NEED TO GET THERE SOONER
Thank you for the opportunity to join the
discussion today on behalf of Biofuels.
We believe this is necessary if biofuels are to
fulfil their potential. Biofuels have a
great future in the long term.
Looking to cellulosic options, we have formed a
JV called Vercipia Biofuels with
Verenium Corporation,centred on the technology
Verenium has developed to release the sugars
locked up in the cell walls of the plant.
It uses speciality enzymes and proprietary
fermentation organisms to break solid
cellulose down to a six-carbon sugar
while five-carbon sugar is processed
separately as a liquid. This enables us to use
as much of the crop as possible.
We’re also using very tall, high yielding
grasses.
This combination to deliver
three to four times more cellulosic ethanol
from every acre of feedstock.
We are planning a commercial scale facility at
Highlands Country Florida where
we will produce 135m litres (36m gallons) a
year from crops which we expect to
yield 18-20 dry tonnes an acre.
We expect to break ground in 2010 and be
operating by 2012
November 30th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
All drawbacks aside, I say amen!
December 1st, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Anybody that still thinks ethanol from corn, sugar, or cellulose is good and sustainable has their head in the sand. Think about this for a second. If all of these acres used to grow this biomass were instead reforested and we continued to burn fossil fuels, we would have a reduction in carbon emissions rather than an increase like this would cause. To even put a dent in the use of coal with biomass we would have to chop down every forest in the U.S. to turn into farmland. Sound sustainable?