USC’s biomass plant debacle
How the university’s green dream went bust after three ‘potentially lethal accidents’ and a host of other problems
By WAYNE WASHINGTON (The State Newspaper)
On June 28, 2009, an explosion rocked the biomass-fueled power plant on the campus of the University of South Carolina.
The force of the blast sent a metal panel some 60 feet toward the control office of the plant at Whaley and Sumter streets, according to documents obtained from USC by The State newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act request.
No one was hurt, but USC officials were concerned enough about the “potentially lethal accident” that they ordered an independent safety review and, in a strongly worded letter to the company that had built the plant, made it clear that university staff would not be allowed back into the building until the review was completed.
The blast underscored what some USC officials privately grumbled about for years: That the plant has been a $20 million disaster, a money pit that was poorly planned and built by a company that had never constructed such a cutting-edge “green energy” power plant before.
Interviews with USC officials and a spokeswoman for the company as well as a review of more than 1,800 pages of documents show that:
• USC, whose officials touted the plant “as the cat’s meow” before its startup in December 2007, closed it in March of this year after it had been shut down more than three dozen times. In one two-year period, the plant only provided steam – its purpose – on 98 out of 534 days, according to a USC review.
• There was no separate bidding process for the construction of the plant. The firm that built it, Johnson Controls Inc. of Wisconsin, was the only firm that included the construction of a biomass plant as part of its effort to win a competitively bid energy services contract. JCI won that $33.6 million energy services contract, then alone negotiated with USC the added cost of the biomass plant.
• USC paid JCI an additional $19.6 million for the plant. The university was to get its money back in energy savings or payments from JCI. So far, JCI has paid USC $4.3 million because the plant did not perform as promised. As things stand now, USC will recoup its $19.6 million investment by 2020 from payments by JCI.
• Despite a relationship that was, at one point, so acrimonious that USC hired outside legal counsel, the university continues to work with JCI. One option that USC now is considering is putting natural gas-fired turbines in the closed biomass plant to produce power, and JCI may be involved, a USC official says.
• Most substantively, however, the biomass experience led USC to change its structure of governance, giving a reformulated committee of its board of trustees responsibility for overseeing and vetting projects.
Now sitting idle, with spider webs and a thin film of dust replacing a plant’s hard-hat hustle and bustle, the biomass plant stands as a monument to the university’s failed push toward new, “green” technology, inadequate oversight and naïveté, some of its own officials acknowledge in internal documents.
The plant blemishes the legacy of the late Andrew Sorensen, the beloved, bow-tied president who was in charge of USC when the plant was conceived and constructed. And it also raises questions about whether USC’s revised system of oversight will be able to prevent future instances of idealism gone wrong that marred the biomass project from the beginning.
“A (expletive) mess with many layers,” is how William “Ted” Moore, a former USC vice president of finance and planning, described the plant in an email to Ed Walton, USC’s chief financial officer.
In another email, this one to USC president Harris Pastides, who succeeded Sorensen, Moore said: “The value of this thing may be scrap metal.”
That’s not the way JCI sees the project.
“We remain committed to the long-term success of the USC project, and the university has been supportive and appreciative of Johnson Controls’ efforts to fulfill its commitment,” said Karen Conrad, the company’s director of marketing communications.
Full story: http://www.thestate.com/2011/10/09/2001993/uscs-biomass-plant-debacle.html#ixzz1aKeVXkUU
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At least they finally (weeks late) complied with FOIA requests, unlike some public agencies we know:
About this story
More than 1,800 pages of records obtained by The State show the biomass project collapsed into delays, recriminations and frustration.
Click here to read excerpts of those documents
State senior reporter Wayne Washington requested documents, via the S.C. Freedom of Information Act, concerning USC’s biomass plant on June 29 from the University of South Carolina. That law allows public agencies 15 working days to respond to a request for public information.
University officials responded they would need additional time to fulfill the request. They also said, because USC is getting an increasing number of requests for public information, the university would exercise its legal right to charge for document production and copying.
USC supplied 1,816 pages of documents concerning the $20 million facility to The State Sept. 22, charging $255.80 to provide the information.
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h/t to WUWT reader Mike Whaley
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Some observations:
“JCI and USC sign a contract for the construction of a $20 million biomass plant. ”
“Plant needs 5.4 million in repairs, etc.”
On the other hand they report that replacement boilers cost about $1.6 million for 2 conventional boilers. I hope they are not teaching economics at that school. Remember they shut down clean natural gas fired boilers because the price of natural gas, which has fallen like a rock.
Maybe they should have hired some outside engineers with industry experience to oversee the job and avoid poor design decisions and reported engineering errors. Anone who spends $20 Million without expert engineering oversight is not doing their job especially for “cutting edge” technology. You can’t just trust any Contractor on such a large job unless you are spending taxpayers $$$.
Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/10/09/2002026/the-value-of-this-thing-may-be.html#ixzz1aLjFH0zv
“The wood feedstock is heated in chambers to 1,500 degrees. Heating the wood fiber produces syngas – the process is called gasification – that is siphoned off and burned to generate steam and electricity. The steam is used for heating, hot water conversion or for domestic hot water uses.”
Gasifiers require a refractory lined containment vessel due to the high temperature which must be designed properly and maintained. Corrosion is an important consideration. At this temperature the steel will not last long if there is a hotspot due to refractory maalfunction and expert monitoring is required using infrared equipment. Does it make sense to locate such critical equipment close to the quarters where the students sleep?
“The plant can accept about 10 truck-loads of chips per day. Outside, where the trucks are unloaded, the chips are fed into a hopper, and a conveyor carries the material to a storage area inside the plant. The interior storage area can hold enough wood to run the plant for four to six days.”
Imagine the noise and carbon footprint of 10 trucks/day running through the campus. But this is green?
“By-products of the gasification process are ash and water vapor, which exits through a smoke stack. “Carbon dioxide leaves the stack at the same time,” said Quinton. “But since this is a carbon-neutral process, no more carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere than the trees have absorbed during their life cycle. For this reason the operation can be considered completely ‘green.’ ” Ash is sent to a landfill, but the university is looking for outlets for ash, such as using it as a soil amendment or in construction material.
“He says fly ash from the plant has contaminated the soil and a creek near the plant. “Someone needs to remove the contaminate (sic) soil and replant grass, shrubs, and possibly one tree.”
Anone who has ever burned wood knows that there is a lot of ash left that needs to be disposed. This is green? And they shut down clean gas fied boilers to fire up this polluting mess? Also keep in mind that wood like coal can have all kinds of nasty chemicals like mercury, etc. that are difficult to remove.
The emissions control equipment and monitoring would likely be expensive to meet todays EPA requirements.
Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/10/09/2002026/the-value-of-this-thing-may-be.html#ixzz1aLkpZkSq
“The firm that built it, Johnson Controls Inc. of Wisconsin…”
They should have been hired during the Clinton administration.
I don’t think there are any companies that have built plants exactly like this before. Also, I think it is most likely that Johnson Controls simply built the plant to someone’s specifications. They were basically an assembly agent. I would be extremely surprised of these problems were the fault of Johnson Controls and not the fault of a faulty design which probably wasn’t theirs.
In other words, I believe Johnson Controls was most likely contracted to build a plant according to a design the university came up with.
Y’know — it’s perfectly possible to burn the wood waste and use steam to drive a conventional power plant. There aren’t a whole lot large wood powered power stations in the world, but Vermont’s Burlington Electric Company has been running a multiple fuel 50MW wood/natural gas powered plant for a couple of decades without incident. Yes, it’s reasonably environmentally friendly. Burlington is every bit as liberal as Berkley. A polluting power plant within walking distance of downtown would probably be subject to unending demonstrations.
Cost of power generated — Competitive with nuclear from Vermont Yankee or hydro from Hydro-Quebec
https://www.burlingtonelectric.com/page.php?pid=75&name=mcneil
http://www.biomassmagazine.com/articles/1229/harnessing-the-power-of-biomass/
Drewski says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:20 pm
Google industrial accidents and you will see this is EXTREMELY common across scores of industries. I can’t believe the crap that accounts for “news” on this web site.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Then why do they take so long to fulfil simple FOIA requests….. Why not make the information available on the public record before anyone has to ask…..
… and why are you so hostile to people asking questions about Green schemes that don’t work?….. I’ll give you another one if you want…
In Cairns, in the good state of Queensland, Australia…. The Cairns city council got carpetbagged into building a you beaut, state of the green art rubbish recycling plant…. The Bedminster Composting Plant…. It has never worked from the outset. It broke down not long after it was built and stayed broken for years. All the rubbish had to be trucked up the Atherton range and dumped up there at ratepayers expense….When it does work, it stinks….. and because it is to the south of Cairns the prevailing wind carries the stink across the city for 9 months of the year… on calm winter nights with a gentle Southerly breeze…. suburbs like Portsmith, Westcourt, Manunda, are unbearable… Even the CBD, fer cryin’ out loud. Bluddy stinks mate.
…. Just like Green ideology stinks. One giant expensive dangerous bluddy stinking mess after another, and usually subsidized by the taxpayer or the ratepayer….. .or both.
Lew Skannen says: “When I read it I could not imagine how society could become so nutty…”
It’s a normal feature of leftist organizations.
Anone who has ever burned wood knows that there is a lot of ash left that needs to be disposed. This is green? And they shut down clean gas fied boilers to fire up this polluting mess? Also keep in mind that wood like coal can have all kinds of nasty chemicals like mercury, etc. that are difficult to remove.
————
So according to this theory everytime there is a brushfire the state has to strip the contaminated and mercury polluted ash from thousands of acres and bury it in landfill.
And I thought ash was plant food. Silly me.
To put things into perspective this kind of technology falls into the same ball park as the victorian’s use of coal gas, the lurgi process for producing gas from brown coal, and the production of liquid fuels from coal and burning logs in your lounge room.
No big deal.
I wonder if the USC School of Engineering had any input on the project?
All the people talking seem to be from other, unrelated, fields.
Well WUWT never misses a chance make a mountain out of a mole his and print a headline with the word FAIL in it.
Was there anywhere else in the world this week where there was an unimportant explosion that did not hurt anyone ?
The same editorial staff seem less keen to decry Fukupshima having three of it’s six reactors go into meltdown and evacuation of thousands of sq km around the plant being necessary.
That was due to mature technology by substantial, long established corporations. FAIL???
It’s not a case of “green” or not , just the money corrupts and where there’s money to be made the unscrupulous will takes risks and cut corners.
So unless you’re going to start publishing every time some hurts their finger in a nuclear power plant maybe we can stop this rather childish series of FAIL articles every a windmill kills a seagull.
[REPLY: You really don’t seem to grasp that the USC explosion, collapsed wind turbines and minced endangered birds did not require an earthquake or tsunami to fail. The technologies are not as effective, environmentally friendly, or safe as they are touted to be. You would prefer to wait until lives are lost. People are soon going to be asking why they weren’t warned about any of this, but the truth is that they were, here at WUWT. What is really juvenile is attempting to suppress this kind of information. WUWT will do as it sees fit. Sorry you don’t approve of the policy. –REP]
“But since this is a carbon-neutral process, no more carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere than the trees have absorbed during their life cycle. For this reason the operation can be considered completely ‘green'”
Say what? Astounding. While ignoring all the emissions required to service this juggernaut…
But: Let’s try rewording this a bit:
But since this is a carbon-neutral process, no more carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere than the [insert carbon-based organism] have absorbed during their life cycle. For this reason the operation can be considered completely ‘green’.
So I guess the “Tar” sands are just as green? Nice try. Carbon neutral when it suits ya.
Craig in Oshkosh, WI says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“I don’t think it is a problem with the biomass fuel. Biomass is not as explosive as Natural Gas or even oil. Don’t let the term biomass fool you; biomass = wood, corn cobs, rice hulls, charcoal, dried cow patties, etc. There are differences between how you fire different fuels but the commonality of the different technigues is the goal of a even temp across the boiler bed and adequate air flow”.
Craig:
To your list of possible biomasses I would add “organic residues from households and gardens”, which work pretty well in Switzerland.
This is a good review on safety issues with biogas units:
http://www.hdi-gerling.de/docs/fachinformationen/sifis/hdi-gerling_biogasanlage_04.2009.pdf?NM_
(It’s written in German and English).
There you can see that saftey issues are much more complex as comparing with gas burners; multiple hazards need to be considered as combustible gases (a mixture of many) can appear in the most unexpected places along the process, even in the discharged residues. Not to forget the omnipresence of highly toxic CO.The nature and properties of biomasses can change and lead to a dangerous process-stops, especially if the plant is not designed for diversities in organic materials and the plant management/supervision lacks expertise to cope with the unexpected or emergencies. Your are right, corrosion, leaking pipes, etc are also big challenges for material selection (cost issue!) and installation. It is surprising though that JCI, as a company with broad international experience in facility management, failed in this project. I guess that being already in charge of facility management at USC they saw the opportunity to expand in a non-core business (plant construction): “Hey, we can do it!”. Now they are learning by experience. The next plant will be better (but more expensive).
Whenever a project involving a “new” technology (new as such or “new” because of lack of experience) has to be done in a hurry and with budget constraints, the tendency is to neglect all what “slows down” the process and what add costs, e.g. thorough safety reviews and risk analyses by real specialists (who may ask for costly safety add-ons). It is a frequent misconception that being in full regulatory EHS compliance (tremendous beurocracy) all hazards (and consequential risks) are automatically adressed. In addition, being in an University setting, I would be surprised if they (at USC) have in place adequate EHS policies asking for thorough Safety Reviews by specialists in projects and during start-ups, which is common practice in most good industries.
LazyTeenager:
There are niche uses for biomass that save fuel and money; e.g. burning scrap wood chippings as fuel for a saw mill. All such uses consist of burning (n.b. NOT gasifying) the biomass to produce heat. But there are no viable uses of biomass for large scale energy use because the .
Biomass is solar energy collected by photosynthesis over short time and provided as wet, uncompressed material. It is physically impossible for biomass to be economically competitive with fossil fuels that are solar energy collected by photosynthesis over long time (i.e. geological ages) and provided as dry, compressed material.
At October 10, 2011 at 12:03 am you make the silly assertions when you write:
“To put things into perspective this kind of technology falls into the same ball park as the victorian’s use of coal gas, the lurgi process for producing gas from brown coal, and the production of liquid fuels from coal and burning logs in your lounge room.
No big deal.”
No!
The “victorian’s use of coal gas” required heating coal in a ‘saucepan’ with the lid on, collecting the volatile gases released and piping them to where required for burning, and using the residual coke as a solid fuel for heating or as metalurgical coke.
The Lurgi process is a fixed-bed coal gasifier that processes coal of known and controlled quality and rank so behaves in a known and, therefore, controlable manner. Similarly, Lurgi, Sasol and LSE each produce liquid products by processing from coal of known and controlled quality and rank.
And it is not like “burning logs in your lounge room”; when did your burning logs provide an explosion hazard?
Biomass is variable and its gasification will vary in unknowable – so uncontrolable – ways. It is both silly and dangerous.
Richard
[peasant mode]
So, after 20+ years of burning ‘biomass’ and the local soils are entirely devoid of organic matter, trace elements and and all else vital for actually growing biomass, what are these people going to do? Will they blame the duststorms, sweltering daytime heat, freezing nights and torrents of mud whenever it rains on ‘CAGW’? How dumb can you get?
Removing biomass and burning it is the same madness as turning corn into petrol/gas, but much much worse because after 20 odd years, no more corn or biomass will grow. None. Nil. Zilch. Nada.
That a ‘university’ (seat of learning) doesn’t realise that and sanctions such lunacy is simply mindblowing.
The bow-tie should have been enough warning. Never take advice from a bow-tie man.
20 million dollars for 1Mw.
Nuff said
Anyone who has sat, produced, and pondered the nature of BioMass (aka – “BM”) knows all too well that proper venting is critical and that no one will live very long without it.
Drewski says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:20 pm
Google industrial accidents and you will see this is EXTREMELY common across scores of industries. I can’t believe the crap that accounts for “news” on this web site.
____________________________________________________________
Industrial accidents are often due to Quality and Safety Engineering as well as Maintenance taking a backseat to profit. I have certainly seen enough examples first hand during my life time working as an QO lab manager. HOWEVER Universities who should be teaching decent business ethics – human safety before profit – should be held to a higher standard.
This project by the school was because of a feel good, green, save the planet motive, it AGAIN shows that Quality and Safety Engineering as well as Maintenance taking a backseat to pushing an agenda.
That is the point that WUWT is trying to make. PROFIT – bilking the tax payer by fly by night industries and pushing a political agenda by the “left” are much more important than human safety and well being. None of the green energy movement has anything to do with “saving the planet” or “saving Humanity” It is all about greed, profit and power the rest is just hype to sell it to the rubes.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” ~ H.L. Mencken.
The gasification basically works. Most of the issues they have had at this plant are related to stuff that should work, like chip handling (solids conveyors) and steam production (bad boilers). They can turn chips into syn gas and burn that cleanly in a furnace, they could not get the whole thing to work consistently.
The key in any “green” enterprise is ” leap before you look”.
I would like to point a few items of interest. I run a wood boiler nearby to USC. Lost a couple of boiler operators to USC. The unit is for biomass. Wood was used in startup due to the ease of proving the technology. USC used several of the same suppliers I do.
Due to the drop in allowable PM emissions, new biomass boilers have a severe challenge in meeting them. In fact only one manufacturer has claimed to be able to meet them. Converting to Coal gas has some advantages; it also has its disadvantages. For WUWT readers, this means that you do not get something for nothing. A theme often shown on this blog. It should also be pointed out that this unit was set up as an experimental unit, in that with new emission standards, an ultra-clean system train had to be produced. It is in the middle of a major city metropolitan area. This was the challenge that was faced. It is a good argument that the unit at this time has failed. However, the reason of the failure needs to be considered.
Since I know from professional experience that we have wood simply rotting in the wood farms from culling and trimming that could fuel a significant amount of energy, why waste it by natural decomposition? It was requested by the SC Agriculture and Natural Resources that such technology be considered for a number of projects. It would take what is now a waste and make it profitable to use as an energy source.
Readers here should know by now, that being on the cutting edge, is on the bleeding edge. It is unfortunate, but I would claim that it is worse if we don’t even try. At least this is a technology that reduces the cost per decatherm of energy production, where as wind and solar are about 3 times more expensive than the bulk cost of energy now available. Wood is generally as low as coal without many of the emission and flyash problems of coal.
© Copyright 2011, Industrial Reporting, Inc.
10244 Timber Ridge Dr.
Ashland, VA 23005
“The university weighed many options as it looked for ways to as it looked for ways to reduce costs for steam and electricity. Jeff Morehouse, a U.S.C. mechanical engineering professor, and other U.S.C. faculty and staff who were tackling the problem learned through Johnson Controls Inc. of Nexterra, a Canadian company. Nexterra could supply the components for a plant that could process wood waste material into syngas, a gas mixture that contains varying amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Jeff was sold on the technology and became an advocate.”
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The simplest approach for dealing with “reduce costs for steam and electricity” is to not use any!! After many years of studying this problem, my solution is to remove all people from the Earth. This implements the ultimate of EPA mandates: complete environment protection. As a first step, I would propose closing the university thereby eliminating steam and electricity use…
The race to the moon. Soviets built some daring rockets.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa one of the largest Nuke power plant assembly facilities. Too bad the paltry entry into nuke power at Arco, Butte County, ID was not of this size. Root Hog the village name when Post Office application was submitted. The new name app the village submitted ‘Junction’ was changed by the authority of postal business to Arco- after the then resident of Washington DC Georg von Arco. ??
Green is a religion. As with all of such, a high priest dominates the utilization of the collection plate. Green has a place within science, but not in the church.
At least the USC seems to have a solid contract to cover the failures. Johnson Controls is on the hook and they’ll have to make good somehow, or reimburse USC. All energy contracts, green or otherwise should be this comprehensive.
Amazing “contorsions” of the mind involved here. This “fuel” reduces the “carbon footprint”.
I guess I’d be concerned of the QUALITY of “education” at this institute of lower learning. Do I have to go through very basic stuff here? If you grow a tree, yes you removed CO2. If it dies naturally, it falls to the ground and rots, in general a LOT of that Carbon goes back into the soil, not into the air.
If you cut it down and BURN it, the Carbon content all goes out as CO2.
SO HOW DOES THIS REDUCE THE CARBON FOOTPRINT????
Sorry, I’m at a loss to figure out this “logic”. Falls into the same realm as using sewage to generate CH4, is a “green” technology. Only in this case, the logic matches the input to the technology.