{"id":279,"date":"2012-12-08T13:32:39","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T18:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/new-biomass-plant-near-dublin-ga-what-its-really-about.html"},"modified":"2012-12-08T13:32:39","modified_gmt":"2012-12-08T18:32:39","slug":"new-biomass-plant-near-dublin-ga-what-its-really-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/new-biomass-plant-near-dublin-ga-what-its-really-about.html","title":{"rendered":"New biomass plant near Dublin, GA: what it’s really about"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nNot really about jobs, and not about feeding electricity into the grid:\nthe new biomass plant near Dublin, GA is about saving that company money on electricity: but at what cost to the state and to local residents?\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nMike Stucka wrote for Macon.com 6 December 2012,\n\nDeal announces $95 million biomass power plant for Laurens County<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nA new biomass power plant announced Thursday is expected to bring\nhundreds of related jobs and a direct $95 million investment.\n<\/p>\n

\nA statement from the office of Gov. Nathan Deal said the plant\nitself will bring 35 permanent jobs to Laurens County.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nCompare 35 permanent jobs for $95 million to\n\nMAGE SOLAR’s 350 jobs for $30 million<\/a>.\nThat’s about $2,700,000 per job for this deal,\nvs. $85,714 per job for MAGE SOLAR.\nWhich would make MAGE SOLAR’s facility more than 30 times more effective\nat producing permanent jobs.\n<\/p>\n

\nOK, but what’s this one supposed to do?\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

The new\nbiomass power plant, which will be built at an existing paper mill,\nwill provide steam to the mill and also generate 56 megawatts of\nelectricity for the electrical grid, according to the statement.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe investment is being made by Dublin-based Green Power Solutions,\nwhich has been working more than 18 months with Beasley Forestry\nProducts and Land Care Services, Deal’s statement said.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe power plant is expected to be the largest renewable energy\nqualifying facility developed so far in Georgia.\n<\/p>\n

\nCal Wray, president of the Dublin-Laurens County Development\nAuthority, told The Telegraph that the power plant will be placed at\nthe SP Fiber Technologies paper mill just outside East Dublin off\nGa. 199.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAccording to Georgia Facts,\n\nSp Newsprint Co LLC<\/a>\nis located at 709 Papermill Rd, Dublin, GA 31027-2494. Their own\n\nwebsite registration<\/a> says 709 PaperMill Road Suite 1800.\nThat’s the same address as\n\nNewark Paperboard Products<\/a>,\n709 Papermill Rd, Dublin, GA 31027-2494. Parent company: Newark\nGroup Inc., Cranford, NJ.\n<\/p>\n

\nAccording to\n\nundated SP FiberTech PR<\/a> (carried\n11 September 2012\n\nby Atlanta Business Chronicle<\/a>\nand by\n\nSP Recycycling’s About web page<\/a>),\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nDublin, GA\u2014September XX, 2012 \u2014 SP Fiber Technologies\nLLC (SPFT) has announced today that it has successfully acquired\nsubstantially all of the assets and certain liabilities of SP\nNewsprint and its subsidiaries in a court-approved sale.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSPFT will relocate its corporate headquarters to its facility in\nDublin, Georgia. The company will operate its mills in Newberg,\nOregon and Dublin, Georgia as well as its wholly-owned subsidiaries\nSP Recycling Southeast LLC (SPRS) and SP Recycling Northwest LLC\n(SPRN). Based in Atlanta, Georgia, SPRS and SPRN are leading\nrecyclers of recovered paper and other recovered commodities in the\nSoutheast and the Pacific Northwest. The two recycling companies\ncollect, process, and ship high quality material from 21 processing\nfacilities in 9 states.\n<\/p>\n

\n\nJay Gurandiano<\/a> will serve as Chairman of the Board, President and\nChief Executive Officer. He has held senior management positions at\nSmurfit-Stone Container Corporation and founded St. Laurent\nPaperboard, a major specialty packaging paperboard and converting\ncompany. Mr. Gurandiano will also oversee SPFT’s recycling\nbusinesses. Mr. Gurandiano has put together a senior management team\nmade up of seasoned industry managers to lead the new company.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThere’s a bit more information in\na blog post by SP Recycling Southeast LLC 17 September 2012,\n\nSP Fiber Technologies debuts in Pulp & Paper Week<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nGuarandiano[sic] also said energy will figure in SPFT’s development\nplans, but declined to give details other than saying the company is\nbringing in consultants. The Dublin mill has 75 MW of co-generation\ncapacity but still relies on coal for 45% of its fuel demands and\nneeds to purchase almost 60% of its electrical power. In contrast,\nNewberg installed a $70 million 130 MW co-gen facility in 2003 that\nis fueled 80% by bark\/biofuel, 15% by sludge, and 5% by natural gas,\nmaking the mill more than self-sufficient in electrical\nrequirements.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThose articles provide quite a few leads on Guarandiano’s past history,\nif anybody wants to dig in and find out for example, just how efficient\nis this Newberg co-gen facility at keeping pollutants out of the atmosphere.\nThat would be very interesting to know.\n<\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, if the existing 75 MW is 55% of the plant’s electrical needs,\nthe total needs must be about 136.35 MW,\nand the remaining 45% must be about 61 MW.\nAccording to this month’s PR, the new biomass facility will generate\n56 MW.\nSo what SP Fiber is really doing is\ngenerating almost enough local electricity to take it off the grid.\nWhich has the benefit to the state of stopping using coal.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs long as it really does use only locally-generated tree limbs, tops,\netc. that would otherwise be discarded in existing operations,\nthis biomass plant could be a minor benefit\nfor reducing Georgia coal use and producing a few jobs.\nIf it’s not at least better at producing less CO2 and small particulates\nthan Plant Scherer, the country’s dirtiest coal plant, near Macon,\nthen it’s a net detriment to the state.\nAnd Dublin and Laurens County locals might want it to be much<\/em>\nbetter at that than Plant Scherer, because it moves the source of\nsuch pollution to their neighborhood.\nAs a job generator, it’s not terribly effective,\ncompared to for example MAGE SOLAR.\n<\/p>\n

\nYou know, if Gov. Deal spent as much time promoting solar and wind\nenergy in Georgia as he does promoting biomass, we might get somewhere.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not really about jobs, and not about feeding electricity into the grid: the new biomass plant near Dublin, GA is about saving that company money on electricity: but at what cost to the state and to local residents? Mike Stucka wrote for Macon.com 6 December 2012, Deal announces $95 million biomass power plant for Laurens […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[556,120,141,216,263,14,264,265,16,8,19,267,21,22,32,23,53,3],"tags":[8779,8738,8745,8753,271,8704,8754,8755,8706,272,8701,8709,1194,847,8702,12,7,8757,1193,46,1198,1197,8711,975,8712,8715,8713,1196,1195,8725,8700,6],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air","category-biomass","category-co2","category-coal","category-dublin-ga","category-economy","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-environment","category-georgia","category-history","category-mage-solar","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-sustainability","category-transparency","tag-air","tag-biomass","tag-co2","tag-coal","tag-dublin","tag-economy","tag-energy-conservation","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-environment","tag-ga","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-jay-gurandiano","tag-jobs","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mage-solar","tag-mike-stucka","tag-nathan-deal","tag-newberg","tag-paper-mill","tag-planning","tag-plant-scherer","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sp-fiber-technologies","tag-sp-recycling","tag-sustainability","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-4v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","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=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}