UM hopes to build biomass plant

Students are facing the loss of parking spaces to accommodate a new building that could reduce the University's carbon footprint by 20 percent.

The University of Montana is studying the feasibility of building a "biomass plant" to superheat wood chips into a low-emissions fuel that would be burned to produce steam for the campus' heating systems.

"The plant we are planning to build will use 60 percent less natural gas," said Vice President of finance and administration Bob Duringer.

The University spent $2.8 million last year to buy 23,500 decotherms of natural gas, said Tom Javins, UM's associate director for engineering.  That's the energy equivalent of lighting 70 million 100-watt lightbulbs for an hour.

The project is currently proposed as a 3,600 square-foot addition to the east side of the heating plant near Aber Hall, which would cut into some student parking.

Duringer also said the economic and green benefits of the plant, if built, would be worth a few lost parking spaces.

Construction of the plant alone would reduce UM's carbon dioxide emissions by 15,000 tons.

Sustainability Coordinator Cherie Peacock is hopeful that the project's influence will achieve the goals set in UM's Climate Action Plan to reduce emissions by 10 percent by 2015 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2020.

"If we do the biomass plant we would be going above our first goal," Peacock said.

The state of Montana granted UM $7 million in Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds for the $13 million project. Duringer said the school would seek to sell its own bonds to fill the funding gap. Bonds are a form of long-term loan with capital purchased by individuals in exchange for the bond's interest.

Duringer said UM could pay off the bonds within 7–10 years using the plant's expected energy savings.

He and other University officials are finalizing a feasibility study of the idea after researching the plant at UM-Western in Dillon, visiting British Columbia for a tour and chatting with manufacturer NexTerra Energy in addition to working with performance contractor McKinstry.

McKinstry will submit a project proposal later this month, which would tentatively outline the specific costs and construction plans.

The building design could include a classroom where students from the College of Technology's energy technology program would learn to operate the system.

Meanwhile, Duringer said his office has been studying where UM would find the 17,000 tons of small wood chips it would need each year to power the gasification system. He said this translates into a daily delivery of two full chip trucks each day.

One solution could be to purchase beetle kill from the College of Conservation and Forestry's Lubrecht Experimental Forest and the Bandy Experimental Ranch.

Beth Dodson, professor of natural resource planning, conservatively estimated that the experimental forests could provide 5,000 tons of biomass each year.

Dodson said the idea is hindered, but not ruled out, by the difficulty of driving wide chip trucks on the forests' narrow roads, the cost of storing slash during bad weather and competitiveness with other private contractors.

No doubt the material is available from some source for a reasonable price, Dodson said.

"It's certainly an opportunity to fill some of the gaps that Smurfit-Stone left," she said. "There's a lot of material out there that just gets burned for a lack of something better to do with it."

Duringer said UM would seek to sign 10-year contracts with Lubrecht or private timber companies for the fuel supply.

 Quality — both of fuel and construction — will be key to the plant's success, Duringer said.

The plant at UM-Western regularly faces difficulties because the filters on the light commercial system fill with "junk" that's mixed into the chips.

Duringer said Missoula's proposed plant would avoid the same difficulties by building a higher-quality system and paying for better-quality wood chips.

He said UM hopes to propose the project to the Board of Regents at their November meeting if McKinstry's September proposal seems feasible.

Construction could begin as early as this spring, he said.

jayme.fraser@umontana.edu