Biomass power plant proposals floated

Concept went through the wringer eight years ago

The prospect of significant new energy production in the Flathead by biomass plants has been in the news in recent weeks, but this is not the first time the idea has been seriously explored.

F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. has proposed generating up to 12 megawatts of electrical power in a co-generating plant that would replace the 100-year-old boiler at its Half Moon sawmill.

Co-generating facilities typically capture waste heat from industrial processes and use it to produce energy for other processes inside a mill or factory or for outside distribution. Stoltze needs to produce steam for its wood-drying equipment, but it could also produce electricity for sale to Flathead Electric Cooperative or NorthWestern Energy.

The Co-op, which supplies the Flathead's entire 170-megawatt load, buys all of its power from the Bonneville Power Administration. But that power is likely capped. Any future demand in the valley," and the Flathead has been one of the fastest growing counties in the state," would need to be met with either open-market purchases from outside the area, conservation measures that reduce local demand, or electrical generation here in the valley.

The Stoltze plant could create eight jobs, according to plant manager Joe O'Rourke, and could be operational in 18-24 months, once funding and permits were secured. The co-generating facility could cost $50 million to build, and general manager Chuck Roady has been meeting with state and federal officials in hopes of using federal stimulus money for the project.

The idea for a second biomass-powered generating plant in the Flathead was floated in mid-February by Sen. Ryan Zinke, R-Whitefish. He said wood waste from local mills could be used to generate up to 35 megawatts at a facility built at the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. smelter.

Zinke pointed out that burning wood was "carbon neutral" in terms of affecting global climate. He also noted that CFAC was a good site because a BPA substation is located there, providing good access to the electrical grid.

CFAC's power needs sparked the first serious study of biomass power in the Flathead back in 2001. The aluminum smelter and other large Montana industrial consumers had shut down as the West Coast energy crisis drove electrical prices to unheard of levels," in some cases increasing 100-fold from $20 a megawatt-hour several years earlier to $2,000 on the spot market in California, where the crisis began.

More than $90,000 was collected from local governments by the Flathead County Economic Development Authority to hire the power consultant firm R.W. Beck to find 125 megawatts of power for CFAC. Their conclusion was that no technology existed for a construction of a local generating plant to meet that need at a reasonable cost.

Using some of the leftover study money, FCEDA turned to biomass. Their sister agency in Ravalli County was already backing a 5.7-megawatt biomass plant in Darby promoted by businessman Gary Callihan. Bob Brown, who was Secretary of State at the time, brought Callihan to Kalispell in May for a presentation.

A biomass-powered electrical generating plant seemed to be a win-win-win solution, providing power during an energy crisis, improving forest health by thinning operations on federal lands, and creating jobs all around.

FCEDA paid for Dale Williams, who was county commissioner at the time, to travel to Finland, where biomass plants employed up to 6,000 workers and generated up to 4,750 megawatts of power.

Callihan represented Timberjack, a company that made equipment used for forest-thinning, and which had invested in a Swedish biomass company. He told FCEDA that a biomass plant in the Flathead could produce power for $15 per megawatt-hour. He also claimed its emissions would be cleaner than a natural gas-fired turbine plant.

Callihan explained how Timberjack equipment took slash from logging operations and compacted the limbs and debris into cigar-shaped bundles weighing up to 1,500 pounds apiece. Each bundle could produce up to 1.4 megawatt-hours in a biomass plant, he said. Consuming about 8 1/2 bundles per hour would generate 12 megawatts of usable power.

Additional equipment would be used to rake the forest ground clean, Callihan said. That woody material could also be burned in the biomass plant. The result would be a park-like forest floor, which he compared to the Black Forest of Germany.

Myrt Webb, who was FCEDA's project manager at the time, was skeptical of Callihan's assertions from the get-go, and he set out to conduct a biomass-fuel inventory. After receiving responses from major landowners in a 60-mile radius, Webb presented his report in December 2001.

"Presently, affordable production of biomass-fueled power is not feasible," the report concluded.

The best-case scenario called for a 50-megawatt plant, which would produce power at $87 per megawatt-hour. Federal tax credits, grants for capital investment and income from co-generation might reduce the costs to $38 per megawatt-hour.

Webb's study estimated 10,000 acres of thinning operations would need to take place on forest lands every year. The cost of equipment to harvest biomass on the Flathead's mountainous terrain could cost $60 million.

"How much fuel will be available is a political and economic question," Webb told FCEDA, noting that the fuel was there, but access and harvesting methods were the issue.

Elizabeth Harris (now Marchi), who was FCEDA's CEO at the time, supported Webb's conclusions.

"The economics are just not there," she said.

By the time Webb delivered his report, serious allegations had surfaced about Callihan's business dealings in Washington state. According to Missoula attorney Patrick HagEstad, Callihan had three unsatisfied judgments involving timber trespass and selling land he did not own. Callihan also faced a $100,000 consumer-protection judgment brought by the Washington state assistant attorney general.

Callihan called the allegations groundless and false. Both Brown and Williams said at the time that they were unaware of Callihan's legal problems and that they still supported biomass projects in the Flathead.

The biomass fuel supply issue is likely to continue to be both political and economical. While government subsidies might address costs of men and equipment harvesting wood on mountainous terrain, environmental groups might not support all that work.

Rep. Mike Jopek, D-Whitefish, brought up that point during a Feb. 27 talk at the Whitefish library. The 12-megawatt plant proposed by Stoltze might require a truckload of woody material every hour to keep it running at capacity, he said.