Humboldt County, California is facing an energy crisis. It鈥檚 also facing an energy opportunity.
Traditionally, one-third of the county鈥檚 energy production has come from converting woody biomass to energy. But local biomass power plants are closing, just as the county is trying to join the likes of Sonoma and Marin counties in taking over its own energy rates and encourage more locally-sourced power.
In this first of two stories, we take a closer look at a biomass industry in jeopardy.
Ben Campbell, manager of Mad River Lumber in Arcata, looks over a load of what鈥檚 known as 鈥渉og fuel鈥� going up a conveyor belt at the lumber mill.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just a mix of everything we have,鈥� Campbell says. 鈥淏ark, wood, leftover chips - and it gets ground up by these hammers and this is what comes out. It鈥檚 woody biomass is what it is.鈥�
When it comes to wood products, hog fuel is the bottom of the barrel. But it鈥檚 still valuable. It can be sold to power plants and burned to drive turbines and create energy.
Bob Britt is the former owner of Mad River Lumber and has been in the industry for over 50 years. He says Mad River had been getting about $16,000 a month from the Fairhaven Power Plant, one of three biomass power plants in the county. Now that revenue stream is gone.
Fairhaven shut down. So did Blue Lake. And Scotia isn鈥檛 accepting hog fuel from area mills.
And Britt says, 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 have a place to ship our waste product, we鈥檙e shut down.鈥�
With that goes 25 high-paying jobs, a slew of trucking contracts, and a ripple effect through an economy that has always been strongly linked to the timber industry.
Steve Hackett is an economics professor at Humboldt State University who specializes in natural resources and clean energy.
鈥淭he fact that the biomass power plants are struggling in the current model is not necessarily surprising,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ecause the public utilities they have to go after the lowest cost renewables. That鈥檚 an obligation to their rate-payers.鈥�
Converting biomass to energy is not cheap. It鈥檚 labor intensive, and it鈥檚 not subsidized like some other renewables. And, as it stands now, it doesn鈥檛 operate on the scale of wind and solar.
Yana Valachovic, director and forest advisor for the UC Extension office along the north coast, says it鈥檚 not simple to compare one renewable energy source against another.
鈥淚t鈥檚 complicated when you think about renewability because you have to think about where is it manufactured, what energy source is used to manufacture it, and then what is the raw product that is being utilized in some way,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o the transportation, the extraction, and the production of all of that material has to be thought about.鈥�
Which brings up extracting bioenergy not just from lumber mill waste but the forest itself. Valachovic and others are looking for viable ways to burn forest slash for energy. The idea is to clean up our fuel-heavy forests and minimize catastrophic wildfires. These fires are actually the number one cause of particulate pollution in what is otherwise an area with astounding air quality.
But critics point out that transportation costs may make this too expensive and not a carbon neutral solution as proponents contend.
Everyone agrees that woody biomass is currently our most accessible and abundant local renewable. What remains debatable is how good it is for the economy and environment.
Jim Zoellic is a research engineer at the Schatz Energy Research Center on the Humboldt State campus. He believes that, although biomass may not offer the only solution, a highly localized energy source is definitely needed.
鈥淗umboldt County, the amount of electricity we use here is about 170-180 megawatt peak 鈥� about 110 average,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he lines that connect us to the central valley - the main backbone of the electricity grid goes right down the I-5 corridor -聽 that capacity is about 70 megawatts. That doesn鈥檛 even meet our average load, let alone our peak load. So we have to generate power in Humboldt County to meet our demands."
So with area biomass plants being either closed, outdated, or not running at capacity, Humboldt County will be forced to make some hard decisions regarding energy within the next decade. Will the biomass industry be revitalized? Or, will other emerging technologies like wind and offshore tidal energy become serious contenders?
Tomorrow, in part two of our story, we鈥檒l take a look at a Humboldt agency that is looking to maximize local energy options, provide more consumer control over what kinds of energy are used, and stimulate the local economy in the process.