no wood-fired grid power for you!

[kalakoa]

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/201...nua-helco/

I can't decide if it's tragedy, or comedy.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If only Hawaii County had a volcano, a viable geothermal electric capability, with deep wells and plenty of water (rainfall?), then we could take advantage of a technology called CarbFix. It’s used in Iceland as a method of capturing CO2 emissions and permanently storing them underground. Our power grid could then increase locally produced geothermal and renewable wood as fuel, and cut back on imported oil.

If only.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...n-storage/

[RoGo]

On July 27, 2017 the Public Utilities Commission approved 3 solar projects on Oahu and the very next day they approved burning sticks for the Big Island. Biomass to be hauled on Hwy 11 from Pahala to Pepeekeo and on Hwy 19 from Hamakua to Pepeekeo. Hu Honua has shown that it is just a money making scheme for its investors to collect million dollar tax credits in the name of "renewable" energy, and nothing more. So for tonight I am happy.

[randomq]

RoGo, how familiar are you with the project? Were there going to be mitigation measures to scrub the exhaust? Was it better or worse than the oil burning we are doing now? Thanks.

[leilanidude]

Why the PUC approved it in the first place is mind boggling, just for the price they were allowing HELCO to buy it at. It was not going to reduce the cost of electricity for the consumer.

[kalakoa]

Were there going to be mitigation measures to scrub the exhaust?

It's possible that the plant itself could include scrubbers, but this wouldn't do much to mitigate the emissions from delivering 10 truckloads of logs a day, chainsaws to cut them down, and the part where a living tree actively sequesters carbon.

Why the PUC approved it in the first place is mind boggling

Well ... when your president is the former Director of Public Works ...

[MarkP]

Oil usually contains sulfur which contributes to acid rain. Most plants are mandated to burn low sulfur oil. There are also fuel additives that are basic and neutralize the acid. The chief emissions are CO and NOx. CO is high during start-up and when running at part load. It can be mitigated with catalytic converters. NOx is generated at high temperatures. I am not sure how this is managed in a wood-fired steam boiler. In oil fueled turbines it is managed through water injection or with a catalyst and ammonia.

Wood burning stoves are notorious for producing tiny particulates but those can be greatly reduced by tightly managing fuel and air inputs. The average homeowner fills up the stove in the evening and turns down the air so the fire will burn, or rather smoulder, all night. This produces terrible smoke and particulates. An automated boiler like Hu Honua would have had a Continuous Emissions Monitoring System and carefully controlled fuel and air inputs so it would have been pretty clean and it would have had to meet emissions limits dictated by the EPA. I heard once but don't recall what specific emissions would be monitored but I am certain CO would be one of them and opacity (smoke) would be another.

My point is that there will always be some emissions, just like when we drive to the store or wherever but that those emissions would be limited and monitored and Hu Honua would be accountable to the DOH and ultimately to the EPA. It is true that it would be better to leave the trees alive and even plant more as long as we had some other source of power but the only alternative is oil. Solar PV is also an option but I don't know how nasty it is to manufacture solar panels. Do we care if that happens in China? We should.

I get kind of triggered by vague references to scrubbers without knowing what is to be scrubbed out. If we could scrub the CO2 out that would be game changing. I honestly don't know how cleanly wood chips can be burned but again the DOH and EPA will be involved. It's not like there can be a Mr Burns like character who gazes lovingly at the black smoke belching from the stack.

And we all drive and use electricity.

[terracore]

"the court ruled “the PUC erred by failing to explicitly consider the reduction of (greenhouse gas emissions) in approving the amended power purchase agreement, as required by statute … .”"

Turning biomass into energy is carbon neutral. The carbon released by turning it into fuel was removed from the air during the plant's lifetime. One could argue that the cutting/trucking/etc part isn't carbon neutral, but if the exhaust at the electricity plant is treated, "scrubbed", to remove carbon, then turning biomass into energy is actually carbon negative. "If it's done right".

In essence, most forms of energy production is "carbon neutral", but in the case of fossil fuels we are mining the extracts of biomass that lived millions of years ago and time-traveling their carbon footprint into our present-day environment.

[Rob Tucker]

If the PUC "failed to consider", they failed to consider.... doesn't matter what the outside analysis might be.

[riversnout]

If the evil carbon is the excuse to stop this monstrosity, I will overlook the lazy argument. There are WAY more important reasons to kill this:

How about taking 21.6 million gallons of water per day from the Hakalau aquifer to cool the turbines,
How about injecting the hot contaminated water back into the aquifer via 3 injection wells that are less than 100 feet from the edge of geologically unstable cliffs,
How about the power purchase agreement with Helco to pay 21.5-32 cents per kilowatt for 30 years compared to solar which is only 9-11.