![](\"http:\/\/si.wsj.net\/public\/resources\/images\/EV-AA293_BIOMAS_D_20101014124117.jpg\")
<\/a>\nJim Carlton points out in the Wall Street Journal\n<\/a>\nJim Carlton points out in the Wall Street Journal\n\nsome of the problems of biomass plants.<\/a>\n\nWith all the plants and trees in the world, biomass energy would appear\nto have boundless potential.\n<\/blockquote>\nOr as Georgia politicians are fond of saying,\n“Georgia is the Saudi Arabia of forest energy.”\n\nYet in the U.S., biomass power—generated mainly by burning wood and\nother plant debris—has run into roadblocks that have stymied its growth.\n\nHere at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, officials in 2007\nbuilt a $7.7 million biomass plant to meet all the power needs of the\nmedium-security prison. But last month, two years after the plant opened,\nprison officials closed it, citing excessive costs.\n
\n“This was a project that was well intentioned, but not well implemented,”\nsays Jeff Mohlenkamp, deputy director of support services for the Nevada\nDepartment of Corrections.\n<\/blockquote>\nEven with a captive market (pun intended), biomass was not economically\nfeasible.\n
\nMaybe it was an isolated case?\n\n\n
\nAcross the U.S., other biomass projects have met similar fates.\n\nIn Loyalton, Calif., Sierra Pacific Industries Inc. on Aug. 20 announced\nit would close a 16-megawatt plant, citing federal logging restrictions\nthat made it more difficult to get wood from surrounding forests.\n
\nIn Gunnison, Colo., Western State College of Colorado in July shelved\nplans to install a biomass boiler on its campus amid high costs for\nsupply and operation. And in Snowflake, Ariz., a local utility, the\nSalt River Project, canceled a long-term power-buying contract with\na 24-megawatt plant after the plant’s operator filed for Chapter 11\nbankruptcy protection in July. Another operator has since taken over\nthe facility. Is It ‘Green?’\n
\nBiomass power costs more to produce than power derived from fossil fuels,\nlargely because it requires more labor to chip up wood and truck it to\nplants, industry executives say.\n<\/blockquote>\nHm, not just fugitive emissions from equipment outside the plant,\nalso fugitive costs.\n
\nCosts that the rest of us will be left to deal with after\nthe plant proponents get their subsidies, flip it, and leave.\n
\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Carlton points out in the Wall Street Journal some of the problems of biomass plants. With all the plants and trees in the world, biomass energy would appear to have boundless potential. Or as Georgia politicians are fond of saying, “Georgia is the Saudi Arabia of forest energy.” Yet in the U.S., biomass power—generated […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[120,141,216,14,16,740,2,21,32,23],"tags":[1124,8738,1994,8704,767,165,5257,5256,8701,5253,5252,7,5250,5255,5251,5254,6,5249,4974],"class_list":["post-2583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biomass","category-co2","category-coal","category-economy","category-environment","category-forestry","category-government","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","tag-arizona","tag-biomass","tag-colorado","tag-economy","tag-forest","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-fugitive-costs","tag-fugitive-emissions","tag-georgia","tag-gunnison","tag-logging","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nevada-department-of-corrections","tag-salt-river-project","tag-sierra-pacific-industries","tag-snowflake","tag-valdosta","tag-wall-street-journal","tag-wood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-FF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}