Wood-burning power plant in the works

A defunct Ione-area coal-fire power plant could be converted into a cleaner-burning wood-fired plant by mid next year.

The Buena Vista Biomass Power Plant would generate enough electricity to light 16,000 homes, while providing a place for the Stanislaus National Forest and other area forests to bring wood waste from thinning projects, said Jesus Arredondo, spokesman for the project.

After years of searching for an appropriate site for the project, the idle coal-fired plant was chosen because of its proximity to wood waste and equipment that’s in working shape, Arredondo said. The plant will need quite a bit of wood — 210,000 tons a day.
   

About a quarter of the wood for the plant will come from area forests, while the other wood will be gathered from landfills, carcasses of valley nut trees and yard waste, Arredondo said.

The plant will be similar to the Pacific-Ultrapower Chinese Camp burner outside of Jamestown, which produces enough electricity to power Tuolumne County, said Ross Ohlott, plant production manager for Constellation Energy.

The Ione-area project is being backed by a small group of investors with experience in renewable-energy plants.

Mark Thompson, managing partner of Buena Vista Biomass Power, a company formed for the project, has experience in starting similar projects in the state, including two natural gas-fueled power plants, Arredondo said. Other partners have experience in renewable-energy plants, like solar and wind.

“It’s not a huge out-of-state group,” Arredondo said.

The coal plant was refurbished about a dozen years ago to utilize lignite coal, also known as brown coal, which the area is rich with. But the project never got off the ground because of environmental complications, Arredondo said. Before that, the site had been used for an assortment of industrial purposes, including making vinyl records, which is a byproduct of lignite.

“It’s a sea change,”Arredondo said of switching the plant to wood burning. “The equipment is still working and looks good enough to bring back to life.”

The project still has hurdles to clear, including costly upgrades for the switchover, but Arredondo expects it to be running by mid-summer next year. The project recently crossed one of the biggest challenges when it was issued an air pollution permit by the Amador County Air Pollution Control District.

“It’ll almost have zero emissions,” he said.

If the project does come to fruition, it’ll be good timing for area forests. With the closure of a log mill in El Dorado County and the impending closure of Sierra Pacific Industries’ Standard Mill in Sonora later this month, many have questioned if there is the infrastructure to thin the area’s forest to prevent catastrophic wildfires.

“We’re already looking into it,” Teresa McClung, Calaveras District ranger for the Stanislaus National Forest, said of providing wood to the plant.

“We definitely need places to take our biomass to,” she said.

McClung said she has been in talks with the Calaveras Consensus Group, which was formed to target projects that could help reduce fire risks, create jobs, protect watersheds and reduce waste of forest material. The plant’s conversion has been one of the group’s focuses, McClung said.  

Not only will the plant give the forest a place for its biomass, but when the plant is in use, about 90 jobs will be created — approximately 20 on-site jobs and 70 more created from support areas, like transporting the wood debris to the plant, Arredondo said.