Big new biomass-to-energy plant coming to Florida

Biomass Gas & Electric Co., an Atlanta-based alternative energy producer, confirmed Wednesday that it will partner with Progress Energy Florida to build one of the state's first, and possibly the largest, power plant that will convert wood waste into electricity, the St. Petersburg Times reported today.

A spokeswoman for Progress Energy would not comment Wednesday on the wood-waste deal, which is expected to be announced by Gov. Charlie Crist today in Tallahassee, Times reporter Tom Zucco wrote. Neither company would say where the plant would be built - most likely in north Florida near an existing paper mill or waste wood plant - or at what cost.

BG&E officials said the Florida plant will generate about 75 megawatts of electricity a day, or enough to power about 75,000 homes, by 2011. The process takes untreated wood waste, untreated sawmill residue, municipal solid waste (including animal waste) and energy crops - collectively called biomass - and superheats the material. What's left is a synthetic natural gas that can be used as a direct substitute for fossil fuels used to produce energy.

St. Petersburg-based Progress Energy has 14 power plants that produce about 9,000 megawatts of electricity for nearly 1.7-million customers. Most of those plants are fueled by oil, coal, gas and nuclear power. But faced with rising costs for fossil fuels and environmental concerns, the company has begun to look elsewhere for power sources.

They're not the only ones trying to break from fossil fuels. The Wall Street Journal reported today that plans for a new generation of coal-fired power plants are falling by the wayside as states conclude that conventional coal plants are too dirty to build and the cost of cleaner plants is too high.

As recently as May, U.S. power companies had announced intentions to build as many as 150 new generating plants fueled by coal, the Journal reported. But an increasing number are being canceled or development slowed, it reported. "Coal plants have come under fire because coal is a big source of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming, in a time when climate change has become a hot-button political issue," the Journal noted.

Two of the coal plants that were canceled were in Florida: the FPL plant near the Everglades, voted down by the Public Service Commission, and then a consortium planning to build one in Taylor County withdrew their permit application.

To read the St. Petersburg Times story on the new power plant, click here.

To read the WSJ story, click here.

--Craig Pittman