In order to get just five percent of its energy from biomass the 600 megawatt power plant planned by Wolverine Power Cooperative in Rogers City will burn 255,000 tons of freshly cut Northern Michigan trees each year.

This is among the issues that will be considered at a public hearing on a draft permit for the plant in Rogers City tonight.

Wolverine’s power generating plans and the regulatory environment in which they play out have shifted drastically since the company first proposed building a coal-fired power plant in a limestone quarry along the shore of Lake Huron in 2007.

In 2009 Gov. Jennifer Granholm issued an executive order requiring that coal plants demonstrate that they are the best way to meet the state’s power needs. Last year, after the Public Service Commission found that the plant was not needed, the DEQ denied the project a permit. Wolverine sued in Missaukee County court and in January the court ordered DEQ to reconsider the permit. Now the state has issued a draft permit and is in the process of taking public input before finalizing the air permit for the plant.

Federal rules for coal plant permitting have also changed since Wolverine first applied for a permit. Since January the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has required that major new stationary sources of pollution demonstrate how they will use “Best Available Control Technology” to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Wolverine’s project is the first test of how Michigan will interpret EPA’s new requirements.

Coal plants are the leading emitters of greenhouse gases and there aren’t many ways around that.

“EPA acknowledges in their guidance documents that the standard right now is going to be energy efficiency,“ Dept. of Environmental Quality Permit Engineer Rob Lemrouex said. “Most [carbon control] technologies are in demonstration mode and not cost effective.”

The DEQ’s draft permit for the plant has it burning 70 percent petroleum coke (the carbon-rich leftovers of the oil refining process), 25 percent Powder River Basin coal, and 5 percent local green wood. The plant is expected to release 6,050,090 tons of greenhouse gases each year.

Lemrouex said that the draft permit allows Wolverine to meet its greenhouse gas requirements with efficiencies such as using variable speed motors on equipment inside the plant and by burning 5 percent biomass, 255,000 tons of green wood sourced from within a 75 mile radius of the plant.

Michigan Technical University study of biomass availability in the area commissioned by Wolverine found that the company could get 20 percent of its fuel stock by using all of the biomass available within a 75 mile radius, he said.

Michigan’s 2008 renewable portfolio standards require power companies to use get 10 percent of their energy from renewable source by 2015 and biomass, including wood, is considered a renewable energy source.

The permit requires the company to come up with a biomass procurement plan, Lemrouex said, but it’s not clear whether the plan will involve specifications as to the moisture content of the biomass. Moisture affects burn efficiency.

Anne Woiwode, director of the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club, said that her group is planning to formally object to Wolverine’s biomass plan and argue that the permit should not be approved.

“The amount of wood is massive and one of the things that they have not accounted for is that there are already multiple other facilities that will be using wood in the Northern Lower peninsula and Eastern Upper peninsula.”

The Mascoma biomass facility in Kinross, a wood to ethanol project that has been heavily subsidized by the state, plans to use the wood from a 150 mile radius of its plant, and this area includes Rogers City. Woiwode said.

Woiwode also challenged the idea that biomass is a renewable, carbon neutral fuel.

Last year, in a study commissioned by the state of Massachusetts, the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences found that wood burning releases more carbon dioxide than coal and that it can take generations for forests to reabsorb carbon from the atmosphere.

“This is a whole new area for all of us,” Lemrouex said about the greenhouse gas considerations. “Any comments are valuable.”

The DEQ will take comments on this aspect of the project at a public hearing on May 19th at 7 p.m. in the Rogers City High School Gymnasium, 1033 West Huron Avenue, Rogers City.

Comments will also be accepted via the DEQ website until 5pm May 19.

Rep. Darwin Booher (R-Evart) , Rep. Mike Lahti (D-Hancock), Rep. Andy Coulouris(D-Saginaw), Sen. Michelle McManus (R-Lake Leelanau), Sen. Judson Gilbert (R-Algonac) and Sen. Raymond Bashman (D-Taylor) are the legislators slated to participate in the pre-dawn meeting.

In a memo today the Michigan Environmental Council called the legislation a “bizarre assault on ratepayers and good public policy” and urged legislators to reject it.

In a e-mail alert tonight, Michigan Sierra Club director, Anne Woiwode, urged people to contact lawmakers.

You can point out that the language in the Senate passed version of HB 5220 does the following:

- Violates the Clean Air Act by prohibiting the DEQ from considering YOUR comments on need and alternatives to coal plants
- That it violates Michigan’s own Environmental Protection Act by preventing consideration of alternatives to coal plants
- That it leaves open the door to you as a ratepayer being forced under state laws passed last year to pay huge increases in rates for coal plants that are unneeded and for which cheaper, cleaner and better job producing alternatives exist
- That this puts Michigan squarely back in the middle of the LAST century, putting a big red bow on this Christmas gift to the Coal Industry (We’re Blowing Up Mountains So We Can Keep Polluting the Planet!), and the power companies that are trying to keep Michigan in the energy dark ages by building 19th Century coal plants.

Conference committee chair Rep. Mike Lahti (D-Hancock), reached by phone at 10:35 pm, expressed confidence that the lawmakers will be able to stay awake until the 3:55 am meeting.

Lahti declined to share his opinion on whether the Senate bill violates the Clean Air Act.

“We are here,” he said. “We are continuing to look at it.”

Consumers Energy's Karn-Weadock complex, photo courtesy Hampton Township

In a vote of 21-16 yesterday the Senate-approved legislation that would forbid the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality from considering whether a proposed power plant is needed and whether there are alternative ways of meeting the state’s energy needs.

The bill is tied to measures that would ban state agencies from creating regulations that are more strict than federal regulations, and privatize some aspects of permit review.

The move comes as the Legislature is scheduled to go into winter break and as the DEQ prepares to announce decisions on long-pending and controversial bids to build new power plants — a 600megawatt petroleum coke fired plant by Wolverine Power Cooperative in Rogers City and an 800 megawatt coal-fired power plant planned by Consumers Energy for its Karn-Weadock generating complex at the mouth of the Saginaw River near Essexville.

A spokeswoman for the House Democrats, Abby Rubley, said that it is unclear whether the House will take up this legislation before it adjourns for winter break until Jan. 13.

House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Township) has been an outspoken advocate of the proposed new power plants. In July he told The Saginaw News that by taking time to review air permit applications by coal plants the Department of Environmental Quality creates a perception that Michigan is not a friendly place to do business.

The DEQ’s authority to consider whether new power plants are necessary comes from an executive order issued by the governor in February.

In the order Granholm stated that because coal-fired power plants are major emitters of pollution, and need for energy in Michigan is declining, the DEQ should consider whether coal plants are the best way to meet the state’s power needs.

“If the Department determines that a feasible and prudent alternative to the construction of a new proposed coal-fired electricity generating plant exists consistent with the reasonable requirements of the public health, safety, and welfare that would better protect the air, water, and other natural resources of this state than the proposed coal-fired electricity generating plant, the Department shall not issue a permit to install.”

Granholm directed the Michigan Public Service Commission to conduct reviews of whether new plants are needed and whether there are better alternatives.

This additional criteria led to another round of public hearings on the pending coal plant permit applications.

In September, the Michigan Public Service Commission announced that neither of the proposed plants are needed, and the state Clean Water Action, the Sierra Club, the Ecology Center and the Michigan Environmental Council all urged the House to reject the Senate’s bill.

“The Senate is heaving a ‘hail Mary’ pass to the House on behalf of the state’s big utilities and it smacks of dangerous desperation,” said Anne Woiwode, the Sierra Club’s Michigan director.

Mike Shriberg, policy director for the Ecology Center, pointed out that residents of the western Upper Peninsula have been hit with a 33-percent rate increase because of the costs associated with construction of a new coal power plant in Wisconsin.

“On the same day that Northern Michigan residents got socked with a huge utility increase, the state Senate saw it wise to pass a bill that will stick even more of us with higher energy costs by forcing us to pay billions of dollars for a new coal plant,” Shriberg stated. “We urge the state House to let common sense to prevail and immediately reject the Senate’s dangerous and costly plan.”

Woiwode said in a phone interview that the bill may change before it is picked up by the House and that lawyers are now reviewing the language of the Senate bill to determine whether it is legal.

Photo courtesy of davipt: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davipt/299545533/

“We want to make sure that it is clear that there is a trade off between choosing clean energy and the jobs that come with it or choosing coal,” Anne Woiwode of the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club said in an interview. “If we choose coal, we will be sending money out of state to buy coal for generations.”

In February, with five new coal projects seeking permits from the state, Gov. Jennifer Granholm slowed the coal rush by ordering the Department of Environmental Quality and the Michigan Public Service Commission to evaluate whether the proposed coal plants are the most feasible and prudent way to meet the states power needs.

Some called this move a “moratorium on coal“, and within months the developers of two proposed plants — the one at Northern Michigan University in Marquette and the LS Power plant in Midland — withdrew their permit applications. Two other projects — Wolverine Power’s proposed 600 megawatt plant in Rogers City and Consumers Energy’s 930 megawatt plant in Essexville — have submitted analysis reports as to why they are prudent and feasible. The public comment periods on these submissions are nearing their ends and thousands of pages of comments have been submitted.

At today’s rally, energy activists will urge the public to tell the governor and state agencies to block new coal projects.

“The last thing we need is for another of our major corporations to go into a death spiral,” said Peter Sinclair of Midland who produces Climate Denial Crock of the Week.

Yet this could happen, he said in an interview, because rising construction costs and expected new penalties for carbon emissions make coal power plants expensive, risky investments. “In this climate energy efficiency is the most stable intelligent investment.”

“I think that the fact that Consumers has delayed the project for two years is an indication that they are thinking it over,” Sinclair said, “They would be blind if they were not aware that there are overwhelming, significant changes taking place in the coal industry and whether or not we are even going to have a coal industry in 20 years.”

Top Democrats remain divided on the wisdom of pursuing coal. In an interview with The Saginaw News this week, Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon, slammed the Department of Environmental Quality for taking time to consider permits for new coal plants. Dillon told The News that that DEQ needs to know that it cannot take “months and months” to approve permits and that DEQ’s deliberation on air permits gives a “perception that we’re not a friendly place to business.”

The Michigan House has rejected a Senate bill that Anne Woiwode of the Michigan Sierra Club called the “worst energy legislation passed by any house in any state in the country.” It would have set a very low requirement of only 7 percent renewable energy usage.

The House voted against it, 86-21, and took steps to raise the requirement to 10 percent.

In effect the House is trying to reinstate its original version of an energy package that has bounced back and forth between the two chambers.

Back in April the Democrat-led House passed an energy bill package that called for 10 percent of the state’s electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2015.

Then, in a late night session before the 4th of July holiday weekend, the Republican-controlled Senate amended the House bill to require only 7 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources or from what the Senate bill called “cleaner technologies” — which would actually include a type of coal-fired power plant.

Now the House has rejected that Senate version.

Continued -Democratic Rep. Frank Accavetti Jr. sponsored one of today’s House amendments to the Senate bill.

Accavetti spokesman Tim Sneller said that though he doesn’t have the exact language of the bill, he believes that today`s House action “changes the bill back to the House version, strips out all the language added by the Senate.”

Once again the package is headed for the Senate, and once again it seems headed for defeat.

Sneller said that he expects the Senate to reject the House bill Thursday and that a compromise will be negotiated by a conference committee after the House returns to session on Aug. 13.

“We strengthened the Senate’s plan,” said Greg Bird, spokesman for House Speaker Andy Dillon, a Democrat. “We believe [renewables need] to be at least 10 percent, and that will allow us to be very aggressive in growing the renewable energy industry here in Michigan.”

Twenty-four states have already passed renewable energy standards, and critics say even the strengthened Michigan House goal of 10 percent is weak. California is currently on track to generate 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has called for a nationwide standard of 25 percent renewable by 2025. In a speech last week former Vice President Al Gore called for 100 percent renewable-sourced electricity by 2018.
]]> http://michiganmessenger.com/1602/michigan-house-rejects-senate-bill-seen-by-sierra-club-as-worst-energy-legislation/feed 2 http://michiganmessenger.com/1569/national-sierra-club-sold-its-soul-to-highest-bidder-say-protesters http://michiganmessenger.com/1569/national-sierra-club-sold-its-soul-to-highest-bidder-say-protesters#comments Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:13:40 +0000 Eartha Jane Melzer http://www.michiganmessenger.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=1569 Leaders of Traverse unit resign after Clorox profit-sharing deal

The leadership of the 800 member Traverse City-based Traverse Group of the Sierra Club has resigned in protest over a partnership between the national Sierra Club and Clorox that allows “eco-friendly” cleaning products to be sold with a Sierra Club logo in exchange for a cut of the profits.

According to a spokesman for the national Sierra Club, the Traverse Group is the first to take such action in response to the “cause-oriented marketing” arrangement, which has put the club logo on Clorox’s Green Works cleaning products sold in major retail outlets since April.

In a letter published in the Northern Express Weekly, former chair of the Traverse Group, Monica Evans, wrote that group leaders felt that the Sierra Club has “sold its soul to the highest bidder.”

Continued -

The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) cited Clorox as one of the top three most dangerous companies in America, with nine facilities nationwide, including one in Michigan, which puts nearly 14,500,000 Michiganders at risk due to the use and storage of dangerous chemicals.

Chlorine manufacturing plants also use and discharge mercury, a potent brain toxin that is released into the air, rains down, and ultimately contaminates our soil, plants, lakes, wildlife, aquatic organisms, waterfowl and fish. The Sierra Club has, in the past, joined lawsuits seeking to clean up chlorine plants for this reason.

Evans also wrote that some of the ingredients in the Clorox Green Works products are actually not environmentally sound, and that there are other similarly priced environmentally-friendly cleaning products from companies that are more worthy of endorsing.

Dave Willett, national press secretary for the Sierra Club, told Michigan Messenger that the club chose to endorse Green Works products because it felt that with its large market share, Clorox could popularize ecologically sound cleaning products.

“The fact that Clorox is a company that sells bleach is definitely an issue that was looked into,” he said.

Willett said that the Sierra Club is comfortable in dealing with Clorox, in part because Clorox has looked to the Sierra Club “for input on how they can be a better company overall.”

When asked for examples of any company practices that have been improved as a result of Clorox’s relationship with the Sierra Club, Willet did not have any specifics.

“I know they do endangered species stuff …” he said. “Our CEO and Clorox’s CEO have had conversations about that. I don’t know specifics.”

He said that so far the products seem to be selling well, though there are not yet any estimates as to how much revenue the sales will generate for the club.

Director of the Michigan chapter of the Sierra Club, Anne Woiwode, told Michigan Messenger that the state chapter objects to the decision to partner with Clorox and sent a resolution to that effect to the national board in April.
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