Biomass Plant nears completion

Author: James Kerrigan

After fewer than two years of construction in the southern part of campus, the Biomass Plant project is nearing its end and will likely be operational by January 2009. Flanked by the recently completed Donald E. Axinn '51 Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Starr Library and the under-renovation McCullough Student Center, the Biomass Plant will contribute to the College's Carbon Reduction Initiative and catch up with the campus' current energy demands.

Despite being a couple of months behind schedule, Assistant Director of Facilities Services, Central Heating/Utilities and Co-Head of the Biomass project Mike Moser is optimistic that the Plant will be up and running by the time students return to campus for Winter Term.

"The project has gone well from my perspective, including contractor performance and schedule," wrote Moser in an e-mail. "Final air permit testing [should be] performed in the last week of January."

The Plant is expected to reduce the College's consumption of Number 6 fuel by one million gallons per year by converting biomass fuel into useable steam energy that will connect directly to the existing plant infrastructure. Chiptech, a Vermont business, provided the B-Series Gasifier that converts wood chips into gas, which then is coupled to a Johnson fire tube boiler that generates 250 psig (pounds per square inch) of saturated steam, according to a project report released last March. In the end, this fuel cutback represents a 50 percent drop from current energy use numbers.

Following the lead of the Carbon Reduction Initiative's Working Group, students in the 2003 Winter Term course "Scientific and Institutional Challenges of Becoming Carbon Neutral" completed a 200-page report entitled Carbon Neutrality at Middlebury College. It addressed several issues, but perhaps most importantly provided a portfolio of strategies deemed most likely to: (1) be feasible within the constraints of Middlebury College operations, (2) produce the greatest net reduction in campus Carbon Dioxide Equivalent emissions, or (3) have the greatest long-term potential for significant mitigation of campus climate impact. A biomass plant proposal was among the report's explorations.

"Because water heating and air heating are connected (carbon dioxide emission source is the same), the only true way to reduce emissions is to switch to a cleaner fuel source, particularly a renewable resource," the report concluded on page 30. "Thus, switching to biomass will make the largest impact of all strategies for both objectives within the sector as well as all reduction strategies in this report."

While it took a few years for this report to gain traction, the plan became increasingly viable in early 2005 and central to reducing the biggest contributor to the College's carbon footprint: fuel oil. Construction began in the spring of 2007 and has been underway ever since. Although the Plant is not operational, the gasifier is readily visible from the street through the two-story, east-facing glass wall.

When the Plant is completed, it will use 20,000 tons of wood chips annually. In the short term, Cousineau Forest Projects, a New Hampshire-based company, will coordinate the delivery of three full size tractor-trailer loads per day. Hopefully, this outsourcing will be replaced in the long run by a green chip source - a fuel that is grown, harvested, processed and delivered to the plant in a sustainable way. With this in mind, Middlebury College initiated a partnership with the SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry to plant a nine-acre experimental plot of willow biomass energy crop.

To be sustainable, however, the College would need three plots totaling 1200 acres. Each plot could be harvested every three years on a rotating basis. Before implementation, the nine-acre test plot must prove effective.

Director of Business Services Tom Corbin asserted the importance of testing willow harvesting's viability, according to a College press release issued on July 14.

College Forester Steve Weber agreed that there is much work to be done, but is cautiously optimistic. "It will be a big challenge to see this actually on the scale we need," said Weber, "but it would be great to actually see it come to fruition."