Maine sites eyed for bio-oil refinery

[jpak]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2007/01/09/maine_sites_eyed_for_bio_oil_refinery/

MILLINOCKET, Maine --A developer is looking at several sites in Maine for a refinery that would turn forest products into clean-burning oil to be used as fuel in electrical plants.

Fractionation Development Center is considering Baileyville in Washington County, the Down East and Katahdin regions, Madison, Old Town, Presque Isle and Skowhegan among potential sites for a $45 million refinery, said FDC Executive Director Scott Christiansen.

The Rumford-based nonprofit firm, which promotes Maine biomass technologies, says the plant would be the first of several to eventually be built in Maine. Each would create at least 60 jobs for processing up to 900 tons of wood a day into bio-oil.

The oil helps to create electricity about as cleanly as natural gas in specially designed plants located near the refineries, Christiansen said.

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[lazyriver]

1. I'm not too far from Old Town and this news both

interests me and concerns me. I'm all for bio fuel technology and for growing the anemic economy around here but wonder about the potential for pollution from the refining process. Do you know anything about the process and its risks? I'm going to start doing a little research...

[jpak]

2. I posted this a while back

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=47684#47838

The Press Herald OP has expired, but this should be a start.

...and I'm REALLY exited about this...

The biorefineries don't require additional wood input to existing paper mills - and they could replace a substantial part of the state's oil consumption (and more if folks got out of their pickups and SUVs and into Priuses).

There's a lot happening with renewables in Maine...

new wood pellet mills (Athens, Old Town)

new corn fuel pellet operations (Farmington and Fort Kent)

the Maliseet biodiesel facility in Aroostook County

the proposed biorefineries

1000 MW of new wind power

"hundreds" of MW of new tidal turbine power in the lower Penobscot and Kennebec Rivers.

Maine could be truly energy independent in a few decades...

Dirigo

edit: more info on biorefineries...

http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/biorefinery.html?print

http://www.umainetoday.umaine.edu/Issues/v6i3/forest.html

[lazyriver]

3. Cool. Thanks!

Some good reading material for later tonight...

[jpak]

4. more links...

http://www.mainefdc.org/Press_Room/

Report: Forest Waste Could Provide 50% of Maine’s Energy Needs

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/02/report_forest_w.html

The Fractionation Development Center (FDC), a Maine non-profit group, has released a plan detailing how the state could turn its vast quantities of forest waste into a range of biofuels and chemicals, providing up to 50% of the state’s annual energy needs.

The FDC released the study in cooperation with the Maine River Valley Growth Council. The study, conducted over the past 18 months, was funded by the US Department of Energy and the Maine Technology Institute as the result of Maine Forest Bio-products legislation introduced by Maine Senators Collins and Snowe, and Congressman Michaud.

The report assesses the potential for three primary forest-waste biomass conversion technologies:

* Pyrolysis, the chemical decomposition of organic material by heat in the absence of oxygen. Pyrolysis products include bio-carbon (char) and bio-oil.

* Gasification for the production of syngas for further catalytic processing into fuels or for direct use in power generation.

* Fractionation, the separation of biomass into three main components—cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin—with minimized cross contamination of the major fractions and minimized degradation products.

The report sees fractionation as a longer-term (10–15 years) technology, and focuses for the short (0–5 years) and medium (5–10 years) terms on pyrolysis and gasification, respectively.

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Lots of down-loadable presentations from the recent Maine Biomass and Biofuels Conference...

http://www.maineswcds.org/biomass.htm