There is a very interesting announcement from First Energy
, the country's fifth largest investor owned utility. First Energy will convert one of its coal-burning power generator plants, originally built in the 1940's, to biomass, creating one of the largest biomass power generating facilities in the US. The announcement was made by FirstEnergy President and CEO Anthony J. Alexander and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland at the R. E. Burger Plant in Ohio. Alexander said that this will "continue our support of state and federal efforts to increase reliance on renewable energy sources." State guidelines require that 25 percent of Ohio's energy come from "advanced and renewable energy sources by 2025."
The cost for retrofitting two units at the Burger Plant is estimated at approximately $200 million. The two units at the plant will generate up to 312 megawatts (MW) of electricity, which is their current capacity.
The plant will have lower emissions when burning biomass than it does now burning coal. It is planned that ultimately the Burger Plant will support a "closed-loop" system that will use biomass derived from a crop that would be grown only as a fuel source, and that the process would be net carbon neutral. The crop when growing would remove as much CO2 from the atmosphere at it creates when burned to generate electricity.
The future of the plant has been in doubt for some time because of the estimated "hundreds of millions of dollars" need to comply with federal governmental emission standards including a new scrubber stack. The Burger plant has been the site of a demonstration project using Powerspan's Elector-Catalytic Oxidation (ECO) multi-pollutant removal process since 1998. (Photo courtesy of Power Magazine.)
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