Dive Summary:
- Ken Silverstein writes for Forbes that co-firing biomass at existing coal plants could breathe new life into the facilities.
- He looks at an instance where Dominion Resources turned waste wood into as much as $250 million a year in savings for southwestern Virginia.
- Public Service Co. of New Hampshire recently converted three of its plants, and Southern Company has built a new facility in Texas that it is looking to replicate.
From the article:
"... The shift to cleaner burning fuels is all part of Virginia’s voluntary renewable portfolio standard that calls on the state’s investor-owned utilities to provide 15 percent of their power from green sources by 2025. Wood chips, in fact, are part of the biomass family. But unlike their agricultural brethren, they do not result in food shortages and those wood chips could be mixed in with coal before it is combusted. Dominion maintains that the wood fuel is 'carbon neutral,' although some disagree. ..."
