Clark County Proposed Biomass Plant is not that Green

Clark County Commissioners want to install a Biomass plant in the downtown Vancouver.  Just let that thought roll around in your mind for a moment.  A Biomass plant will, by the counties own admission, need about 8 truck loads of forest debris and wood processing leftovers per day.  A Biomass plant will require a smokestack, which means pollution any way you look at it, a smokestack is an exhaust pipe and no matter what spin you put on it exhaust is used to expel unwanted gases. 

 What is a Biomass plant you may ask?  Biomass is the idea of people looking for “green” alternatives to energy that will bypass the use of petroleum products.  A Biomass plant is made to run on the bits and pieces of tree leftover at logging and tree thinning sites as well as debris from wood processing like wood ends and sawdust.  Sounds like a nice way to get some cheap energy without burning it in the forest, doesn’t it?  Well, let us take a closer look at this idea.

So, in theory, the wood debris enters the furnace and a natural gas fire ignites the wood fuel, which makes a hotter fire that heats the boiler.  The steam travels out of the boiler and into a steam pipe system (mostly already installed for the current system) and provides heat and cooling options.  In this plant there is also plans for an electrical generator that will be activated by the steam power.  There are many Biomass plants at work in the world today, some work off wood, some off trash and others like in Ireland work off bog from swamps.

So in that case why wouldn’t a Biomass work for us in downtown? Biomass does not bypass the use of petroleum products at all.  The debris and wood pieces have to be trucked to the Biomass plant in diesel burning trucks.  Trucks that are empty on their way back for more wood fuel and still burning diesel fuel.  The wood processing equipment at wood mills and the logging machinery also runs on petroleum based fuels.

The County is looking for a private partner to shoulder the costs of the plant and run it the first ten years when the county will pay a “nominal” fee to reacquire the plant.  This would not give the private partner enough time to recognize full depreciation of the plant.  A sale of the plant would cause a serious issue with the IRS (under current rules).  Even with expected accelerated depreciation and green technology credits it makes little sense.

Here is another issue; the Biomass system is under review by the U.S. Government that could have it removed from the list of approved green technologies.  Even Eco-God Al Gore has been quoted as doubting the benefits versus time and costs.  In this case what do you think will happen to those green technology credits? 

Above and beyond all this there is competition for these left over wood chips and bits by Biomass plants, the price of the raw wood fuel is climbing leaving one to wonder how economical this will be.  As demand rises for anything so will the price.

The Biomass plant faces several obstacles.  First is the fact that this part of Vancouver is not zoned for this.  It will up to the Vancouver City Council to vote on whether to allow a zoning change.  After that the rest of the feasibility study needs to be completed.  It is possible that the County Commissioners may find that this is not viable.  However, at a recent public meeting about this subject the county people involved are very excited about it and one person even told me that even if the city votes against it there are ways around that.  Such arrogance that green technology breeds.