Report from energy consultant due for public soon, City releases preliminary findings

The City of Jasper re­leased more de­tails re­gard­ing their re­search in­to the pro­posed bio­mass power plant.

May­or Schmitt stated that in the city’s ef­forts for gen­er­al due di­li­gence they have con­tac­ted a spe­cial­ist in the field of com­bus­tion re­search and bio­mass fuels. The city felt this was ne­ces­sary to ad­dress con­cerns of emis­sions and the use of mis­canthus as a re­new­able en­ergy source.

Dr. Chris­toph­er Shad­dix is a highly re­spec­ted au­thor­ity in the field of com­bus­tion re­search. He was con­tac­ted by the city to re­view the pro­posed bio­mass power plant and render an opin­ion on emis­sions and feas­ib­il­ity of the pro­pos­al. He re­leased a re­port con­cern­ing his find­ings that was not made avail­able at the press con­fer­ence but will be re­leased with­in the day.

Ac­cord­ing to May­or Schmitt, Dr. Shad­dix did speak pos­it­ively about the use of mis­canthus as an en­ergy crop due to its good mass and en­ergy yields, its ease of growth, and simple har­vest­ing tech­niques. Shad­dix also re­por­ted that burn­ing mis­canthus has a lower emis­sion of NOx, CO, and dust than oth­er types of bio­mass.

Shad­dix ad­dressed the con­cerns about di­ox­ins be­ing pro­duced. He noted that it is very low in com­par­is­on to tra­di­tion­al sources of di­ox­in pro­duc­tion such as the burn­ing of mu­ni­cip­al waste, pre­ser­vat­ives in treated wood, and open air com­bus­tion. May­or Schmitt em­phas­ized that these ma­ter­i­als were not be­ing con­sidered as a fuel source for Jasper Clean En­ergy.

After re­view of the pro­pos­al Dr. Shad­dix con­cluded that it “ap­pears to be well con­sidered and a prom­ising ap­proach for re­vital­iz­ing the city’s power plant and the pro­posed air pol­lu­tion con­trol equip­ment are the state of the art in pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and should ad­equately pro­tect the cit­izens of Jasper”.

Dr. Shad­dix is an em­ploy­ee of the Com­bus­tion Re­search Fa­cil­ity of San­dia Na­tion­al Labor­at­or­ies in Liv­er­more, CA. He has been the au­thor, co-au­thor, or con­trib­ut­or of over 100 art­icles and text books.

San­dia is a gov­ern­ment-owned/con­tract­or op­er­ated (GOCO) fa­cil­ity. San­dia Cor­por­a­tion, a Lock­heed Mar­tin com­pany, man­ages San­dia for the U.S. De­part­ment of En­ergy’s Na­tion­al Nuc­le­ar Se­cur­ity Ad­min­is­tra­tion. San­dia act­ively seeks col­lab­or­at­ive part­ner­ships on emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies that sup­port their mis­sion.

One such part­ner­ship is with Monsanto in what is termed as a Co­oper­at­ive Re­search & De­vel­op­ment Agree­ment between the two en­tit­ies in which they col­lab­or­ate and share the res­ults of a jointly con­duc­ted re­search and de­vel­op­ment project. Monsanto is a lead­ing pro­vider of seeds in the ag­ri­cul­tur­al in­dustry.

Monsanto is also partnered with Mendel Re­search in the re­search of bet­ter vari­et­ies of bio­mass crops. Mendel is the lead­ing de­veloper of pro­pri­et­ary mis­canthus vari­et­ies for the bio­mass in­dustry.