by jboullion | Sep 24, 2010 | Uncategorized
From a story by Heather Sawaski on WAOW-TV, Wausau:
PARK FALLS (WAOW) — Flambeau River Papers in Park Falls is going to get a little greener.
Company leaders say when the new biomass plant is complete, the mill will use all of its waste energy, making it the first mill in North America not to use any fossil fuels. That’s a far cry from where the future of the paper mill stood just over 4 years ago. That’s when CEO Butch Johnson bought it out of bankruptcy. That’s when the idea of a biomass refinery in the Northwoods started to take shape.
“We’re no smarter than the guys before us that went bankrupt,” Johnson explained. “What can we do differently with our operation so we can ensure our employees, our partners in our project that we’re going to keep going? So we looked at a green initiative from the get go.”
The $300 will convert biomass from bark and sawdust into diesel for domestic markets.
Johnson says between logging, construction, and operation, the plant will bring in hundreds of jobs.
“We buy currently about 140,000 cords of wood for this paper mill,” he said. “With the bio-refinery, we would be buying an additional 365,000 cords of wood.”
by jboullion | Sep 20, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Kevin Murphy in the Wausau Daily Herald:
MADISON — The Citizens Utility Board wants the Wisconsin Public Service Commission to take a harder look at the environmental impact a power plant planned for Rothschild might have.
CUB asked the PSC last week to reconsider its preliminary decision not to conduct an environmental impact statement for the 50 megawatt, biomass-fueled generating plant We Energies wants to build on the south side of the Domtar paper mill.
PSC staff has conducted a preliminary environmental assessment, or EA, of the project that found it would pose no significant threat to the quality of the human environment. CUB said, however, that that conclusion is contrary to PSC staff’s own preliminary determination that the plant will have significant impacts unless mitigation measures are implemented.
by jboullion | Sep 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an announcement issued by the Energy Center of Wisconsin:
Free live webinar
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
1:00pm – 2:00pm CDT
Presented by Peter Taglia, Staff Scientist, Clean Wisconsin
The Midwest contains the world’s largest concentration of productive agriculture and food processing, and produces enormous amounts of animal and food waste. The Midwest is also rich in woody biomass and other forestry resources that can be sustainably harvested.
However, only a tiny portion of these wastes is converted to biogas, a renewable substitute for natural gas that reduces fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas pollution. For agricultural waste alone, the Midwest’s 55 anaerobic digesters pale in comparison to Germany’s, which exceed 4,000 despite its significantly smaller agricultural output.
This webinar explores the potential for this renewable energy resource to grow by examining biogas sources, conversion technologies, and outputs together with energy policies needed to support them. With appropriate policy and deployment, biogas can become a substantial source of energy in the Midwest.
by jboullion | Sep 9, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Kathleen Foody in the Wausau Daily Herald:
ROTHSCHILD — State regulators, opponents and proponents of a proposed biomass plant in Rothschild agreed Wednesday to hold a Nov. 30 public hearing on the project.
Attorneys for We Energies, the Milwaukee utility behind the plan, and other interested groups gathered in Madison to set the timeline.
The $255 million project announced in September 2009 would burn woody biomass, creating electricity for We Energies to sell and steam to power the Domtar Mill’s paper-making process.
We Energies needs the facility to be operational by the end of 2013 to qualify for federal tax credits and meet renewable energy requirements for utilities. The company has pushed for approval by state regulators at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources by the end of the year to meet that goal.
The location and specific time of the hearing has not been set, PSC spokeswoman Teresa Weidemann-Smith said.
by jboullion | Sep 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an editoiral in the Wausau Daily Herald:
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission this week released its findings from a more than five-month review of the environmental impact of the proposed biomass plant in Rothschild.
The results? Well, the PSC found fault with some of the claims made by Domtar and We Energies, the companies whose joint project the plant would be. It’s not clear whether the plant can claim to be “carbon neutral,” according to regulators. And it’s possible, the report suggested, that the companies are lowballing their estimates of the plant’s impact on forests.
Those findings must be taken seriously. But so must the PSC finding that the proposed biomass project will not have a “significant impact on the human environment.” Emissions will come in below the standards set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
To many, that always has been the most important question: Will the air we breathe be clean? There certainly are significant concerns that do not directly have to do with the plant’s emissions. But the biggest, most emotional questions always have revolved around the quality of the air our communities’ children breathe.
On emissions, the PSC findings are not the last word on the subject. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will have final authority on air emissions, and we should wait for its say before forming a final judgment.
As we’ve seen in the sometimes-heated debate about this project, the creation of a new plant like this is a charged subject. People are right to ask questions and to seek independent analyses of any project of this size.
What we’ve seen, though, is that there really is a fairly intensive process in place for review of this matter. We’ve seen numerous public hearings in several forums — almost all of which have been well-attended by those who represent the full spectrum of opinions on this project. The democratically elected government of Rothschild has had the opportunity to make its decision about zoning for the project.
With the release of this PSC report, we’ve seen an independent analysis of the facts put forward by Domtar and We Energies. The result of that analysis was not completely uncritical or uncomplicated — but it certainly didn’t find that the companies had lied, or fudged their numbers, or otherwise behaved in a way that raises more serious questions.
The next piece, perhaps the most important piece, will be the DNR analysis.
