From Coal to Biomass: Hawaii to Convert Power Plant
On the Big Island’s Hamakua Coast, the 24-megawatt Hu Honua Bioenergy Facility will convert locally grown biomass into electricity. 95% of the area’s residents signed a petition in support of converting the coal burning plant into a biomass facility. The converted facility is expected to stimulate local agricultural business, prevent tens of thousands of tons of green waste from ending up in landfills, and create hundreds of local jobs.
Image: Hyperborea
I think it’s fantastic! What a great solution; creating green energy, jobs and saving the environment + the landfill at the same time.
Best of success to the project.
This is not the whole story. The “petition” was circulated by the local union and they selectively targeted signers. There is also a petition with 800 signatures against from members of the surrounding Pepeekeo community. Biomass is not truly renewable, there are a lot of questions about sustainable tree resources here on the island (which by the way Hu Honua does not own). And biomass is NOT clean green energy, it is a smokestack industry with emissions that fall under state and federal regulation. There are problems with the burning of eucalyptus, the primary tree resource here— high hydrogen chloride levels that skyrocket above EPA limits as well as other pollutants. We are fighting a similar power plant project in my community of Ookala, about 20 miles north of this one you’ve posted about in Pepeekeo. Truly clean green energy is geothermal, solar and wind and that’s where our island should be headed in answer to energy needs— we have an abundance of all three.
why don’t these guys tell the truth – they are trying to start up an aging power plant less than 100 yards from people’s property. Little children are less than 25o yards away.
MMA Renewables are a wholly owned subsidiary of MMA – a company who is under investigation from the SEC for securities fraud, who has several class action lawsuits for insider trading and who’s stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Their stock (way before the meltdown of the market we are in now) went from $25 a share to less than a dollar a share. Not exactly the kind of people you want to trust with your energy future.
here is an article on it –
http://www.bigislandweekly.com/articles/2008/08/06/read/news/news08.txt
Power Play
A prospective biomass energy producer wants to set up shop on the Big Island. But residents have a lot of unanswered questions
By J. M. Buck
Wednesday, August 6, 2008 11:20 AM HST
Sustainable energy — it’s no longer an environmentalist’s pipe dream. In Hawai’i, a state that ranks high on the charts for dependence on fossil fuel-generated power, implementation of sustainable energy production is a reality.
But that doesn’t mean every “clean energy” project is a panacea.
On May 21, the state acknowledged the urgency of the moment with a kickoff meeting held by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) at the State Capital Auditorium for the development of Hawai`i’s Bioenergy Master Plan. The discussion orbited primarily around ethanol and other sustainable crop alternatives for fuel production. Representatives from Maui and Hawaii counties wistfully reported their intent and commitment to sustainable technology. One wellspring of sustainable energy being investigated as a viable source of biomass for electrical generation is tens of thousands of acres of eucalyptus forest on the Big Island’s Hamakua Coast.
Driving up the Hawai`i Belt Road from Hilo to Honoka’a, one is thrust into a mental downshift by the unexpected whispering vastness of immense tracts of Eucalyptus grandis. Much of the forest is owned by Kamehameha Schools and Parker Ranch. Being that biomass power generation using forest products has been implemented quite successfully in several locales around the world where monoculture is feasible, there is little doubt that someone will be producing biomass power on the Big Island in the near future. And one of the hopeful players in the biomass game is the excitingly named Hu Honua Bioenergy.
Hu Honua, backed by mega-investor MMA Renewable Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of financially ailing Municipal Mortgage and Equity LLC (MuniMae), is vying for favor with Hawaii Electric Light Co. (HELCO) and the residents of the North Hilo enclave of Pepe’ekeo in hopes of revitalizing the dilapidated Pepe’ekeo Mill Power Plant for biomass energy production.
Hu Honua has met with the Pepe’ekeo Community Association (PCA) on four occasions thus far. But for some Pepe’ekeo residents, Hu Honua’s prescribed pill tastes just a little too happy-happy-joy-joy for them to swallow. Promises include road improvements, hundreds of jobs, reduction of waste in the landfill, almost no particulates emitting from a 169-foot-tall boiler stack and minimal quality-of-life impact from trucks, pollution, invasive species and noise. Residents remember the detrimental emissions when the plant was up and running and they are concerned about repeating that scenario.
“The dust lands on my water tank. I drink that water. It’s going to contaminate my roof and my catchment tank. The trucks kick up dust; there’s wear and tear of tires,” lamented a Pepe’ekeo resident at the July 9 community meeting.
One Pepe’ekeo banana farmer expressed concern about a spread of banana bunchy-top disease coming in with the biomass feedstock.
“You start trucking all these pests in, you’ll wipe out my crop,” he said. “Those pests haven’t reached this area. When they reach here, I’m done.”
The aging plant, which is currently permitted to burn coal and fuel oil, shut down its boilers in 2005. Hu Honua is in the midst of what they call “Phase I”: repair and maintenance of the Pepe’ekeo plant. According to Hu Honua’s presentation to the PCA, Phase I began on July 7 and will take one year to complete. Phase II — construction and refurbishment — is predicted to take 12-18 months. Hu Honua has hopes for liftoff in 2010.
According to notes taken by three different residents at PCA meetings, Dan KenKnight, president of Hu Honua and Oahu-based Ethanol Research Hawaii LLC (ERH), reported that the plant will keep coal on hand to use as a backup fuel “in the event of a natural disaster.” What caused residents to furrow their brow was that, when pressured, they say KenKnight admitted in a June 23 meeting that there is no way to avoid burning coal.
“If we are to be useful for the grid, reliability is an issue. We cannot pull coal out of the permit application,” KenKnight is reported to have said, according to the notes. “If we have to burn coal, it will be no more than 25 percent, and it will be the cleanest grade of coal — low sulfur, 0.05 percent. We will do things to mitigate what we don’t like about the coal, like used washed coal to reduce dust.”
In an interview, KenKnight said that at the time, coal still was in the picture because they were doing a study of alternative backup fuels.
“When HECO gives us a power purchase agreement, we’re going to have to be able to say come what may, we will be a firm supplier of electricity, so we have to have a backup fuel,” he said. “We’ve got through the technical and logistical issues of switching from coal and we’re now giving you the information that we’re removing it from the application.”
KenKnight says they want to use biodiesel instead of coal and are seeking “an ample source” for their backup fuel.
Hu Honua’s current covered source permit allows only the burning of coal, diesel fuel oil, used transmission and engine oil, hydraulic and lube oil and Base oil – as fuel. All of these must be blended with fuel oil #2 before being fired in the boiler.
According to Hawai`i Department of Health Engineering Section Supervisor Nolan Hirai, Hu Honua has not yet applied for a modification to its permit.
“We have an existing permit for an existing facility that was originally issued to the former Hilo Coast Power Co.,” Hirai said. “It is still valid and effective only because they submitted a renewal before it expired. This permit currently only authorizes the burning of coal and fuel oil. So this new company, if they want to pursue the burning of wood chips or biomass, they would have to submit a revised application to modify the permit, which they have not submitted yet. The only application we have right now is a renewal application for that permit that allowed coal and fuel oil. That was submitted way back when.”
The permit was owned by Pacific Rim Energy Partners before transferring to ERH on Nov. 30, 2007.
Hirai explained that even if Hu Honua were to file a modification that added biomass and biofuel, it still would be permitted to burn coal.
“Right now the options are just coal and fuel oil,” he said. “So, if you just burn fuel oil and comply with the permit, that’s fine. It’s the additional biofuel and biomass that has to be assessed before we allow it.”
Besides biodiesel, the plant will require a predicted 180,000 to 200,000 tons of biomass per year in order to produce the intended 22 megawatts of power. According to Hu Honua, it intends to burn unusable wood from the Big Island’s budding forest products industry, green waste before it reaches the landfill, construction waste and invasive species. KenKnight declined to comment on where this vast amount of biomass will come from without actually having a contract for harvested trees, though he did volunteer that Hu Honua is in negotiations for its biomass source.
“Right now we’re pleased with how the negotiations are going and we feel . . . very good about where we are and the ability to get the wood that’s needed,” said KenKnight.
As it stands, the plant will operate 24 hours a day. Pepe’ekeo residents are particularly concerned about possible emissions, especially those called PM2, emissions particulates no larger than 2 microns in size. When the plant is running at full load, emissions can be relatively low. However, when it is curtailed to half load, PM2 emissions are two to six times greater.
KenKnight would not comment on projected frequency of half-load operations. “The curtailment is a point of negotiation with HELCO,” he said. “As soon as those negotiations are completed, we’ll come to a mutually agreeable curtailment plan.”
But HELCO President Jay Ignacio said the utility is not in negotiations with Hu Honua at this time.
“We need to follow the competitive bidding framework required by the Public Utilities Commission,” Ignacio said. “We filed a request for a waiver from that competitive bidding framework on July 16. Unless the PUC grants that waiver, we’re not going to be negotiating with Hu Honua. We do not have the waiver granted as of yet.”
Ignacio would not elaborate on HELCO’s position regarding coal being a permissible fuel in Hu Honua’s permit. “We signed a nondisclosure agreement with Hu Honua, so I really can’t tell you about the particulars of the project,” he said. “In general, though, we are looking to add more renewable resources to our system. We do have adequate fossil fuel generation, so any new source we would like in the form of renewables.”
So who is Hu Honua? According to Tim Lasocki, MMA Renewable’s vice president of wind and bioenergy business development and project finance, Hu Honua is co-owned by ERH and MMA, with ERH being the technical side and MMA being the financial backer.
This is another thing Pepe’ekeo residents are concerned about.
Between June 8 and July 16, Muni Mae’s stock plummeted from $25.55 per share to $1.25, allegedly due to claims of filing false earnings reports and insider trading. The company has been de-listed from the stock exchange, and is now being sold over the counter with pink slips. According to Business Week magazine, Muni Mae is embroiled in nine different class-action lawsuits based on claims of Securities and Exchange Commission fraud and insider trading.
Additionally, the asphyxiating lender has retained the services of Bermuda-based Lazard Ltd., a specialist in mergers and acquisitions, to “consider strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value, including but not limited to the raising of capital through the sale or recapitalization of business units and additional asset sales.” (“Municipal Mortgage Mulls Options,” press release, 6/26/08).
In short, Muni Mae is having a fire sale.
Judi Frost Mackey, Lazard’s senior vice president and director of Global Communications, declined comment on the liquidation, stating in an e-mail that she could only share the Muni Mae press release quoted above.
Asked for comment on the lawsuits and stock exchange de-listing, Lasocki read this prepared statement: “It is not our practice to comment on ongoing lawsuits. We note, however, that the suits being referenced are against the parent company, not MMA Renewable Ventures. These suits have no impact on, and are unrelated to, MMA Renewable Ventures’ ability to be a viable financial partner with respect to the Hu Honua project. These types of lawsuits can take years to resolve, and we expect the Hu Honua project to be completed, financed and operating long before the litigation is concluded. We have a very successful track record and we’re confident that this project will go through consistent with all of our other recently financed, well-managed projects, including Nellis Air Force Base [in Las Vegas] and Denver International Airport.”
Lasocki declined to comment on the fact that MMA Renewable is a wholly owned and financed subsidiary of Muni Mae. “Why I’m personally constrained is that we are a publicly traded company and there are things that I personally cannot speak to,” he said.
Though air quality, noise, invasive species and safety seem to be the main concerns of Pepe’ekeo residents, another Pepe’ekeo resident who wished to remain anonymous says she just wants honesty.
“My No. 1 concern is being lied to by outsiders, being betrayed,” she said. “Pacific Rim Energy Partners — everything they told us was a lie. We want a petition, and we want a public hearing. We want the mayor to authorize a public hearing with the department of health.”
This is not the new biomass gasification technology. This is basically burning woodto heat steam to turn a turbine. The process is less than 20% efficient versus a new biomass gasification process which is 70% efficient. That means 50% of the energy is wasted.
Also Hu Honua is fighting not to install new clean air technology. The plant used to produce a black smoke cloud that made it difficult for residence to breathe. There are houses within 100 feet of the plant gate. Currently the plant is shutdown and would not run on coal, so claiming they are converting it is just a lie. They are trying to start a 40 year old plant without upgrading it to new source standards.
Every single community group within 5 miles of the plant is against it not because they don’t want to see progress but because the technology is old, the stack is dirty, and Hu Honua can’t be trusted. If we want to see real biomass technology, then we need to install a gasification plant, not a wood burning stove!
[...] smaller one than coal and it boasts a number of advantages that coal cannot claim. For example, a coal-to-biomass conversion in Hawaii will help reduce energy-churning shipments of coal to the islands, while relieving a solid waste [...]