Alternative Energy: 0cean Tidal Power: Can a Small Maine Town’s Innovation Turn the Tides on Sustainable Energy?

The sun rises early in Eastport, Maine – it’s the Eastern most city in the United States – and while the streets are quiet, fishing boats set out for the day. And reliably, these massive tides are flowing in and out, just as they have twice a day, every day for millions of years.

And it’s that fact, that predictability that people in this corner of Maine believe could change the face of America’s energy future over the next couple of decades.

Read more: Can a Small Maine Town’s Innovation Turn the Tides on Sustainable Energy? | PBS NewsHour | Sept. 15, 2013 | PBS

Alternative Energy: First US tidal power project headed for next stage-by Tim Cox

About two hours is all one needs to witness the dramatic difference in the tidal waters surrounding Eastport, and like other coastal Maine communities, the difference between high tide and low tide can be sweeping.

At about 12:30 p.m. Monday, vast mudflats lay uncovered by the ebb tide. A family was gathered on the mudflats near the entrance to the town, apparently digging for clams.

Barely two hours later, those acres upon acres of mudflats were submerged by the incoming tide.

It is the energy behind the flowing tidal waters that Portland-based Ocean Renewable Power Co. seeks to harness and convert into electricity.

The company’s pilot project to accomplish that task has been underway about a year with a deployed a turbine generator in Cobscook Bay, to the west of Eastport, producing electricity as the incoming and outgoing tide pushed the foils of a device.

The company removed the turbine generator — resembling a rotary lawnmower with a generator in the middle — last month for a yearly inspection, maintenance and service. It sits at the facilities of The Boat School in Eastport, a wooden scaffold erected around it to make it accessible to workers.

It is the first commercial pilot project in North America that converts the power of the tides into electricity and connects to the energy grid. When operating, it generates enough electricity to provide power to about 25 homes.

The company has been learning from the yearlong project and is moving forward to phase two — the deployment of two more devices in 2014.

Read more: Tidal power project headed for next stage — Down East — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine

Europe's new climate policies creating a wood pellet business boom in the US and Canada

US wood pellets reducing EU greenhouse gas emissions

The wood pellet industry is enjoying a speedy, zero-to-80 growth surge across the United States and Canada.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in factories – some of them converted from old lumber mills – in coastal plain forests from Virginia to Louisiana and Maine.

They are serving a market created, almost overnight, by new environmental policies that are driving European electric utilities to burn imported wood in their boilers instead of coal.

This came about as the European Union adopted aggressive targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. They created incentives for electric utilities to cut back on their use of coal and will require renewable sources to provide 20 percent of all energy by 2020. Wind and solar power are also a part of this equation. 

European power companies are looking to close the gap with biomass – primarily with imported wood pellets. Biomass use in Great Britain, 3 million tons last year, is expected to grow tenfold over the next five years.

Britain’s biggest carbon emitter is the Drax Group, a Yorkshire utility that operates the largest power plant in western Europe. Drax is converting half its plant from coal to wood pellets. Coal is one-third the price of pellets, but Drax CEO Dorothy Thompson said her company is responding to renewable-energy credits and a British carbon tax, introduced this year at $7 a ton, that will grow by 2020 to more than $60 a ton.

In Europe, the United Kingdom is the No. 1, importer bringing in 855,000 metric tons (mt) from Canada last year and another 475,000 mt from the U.S. While Canadian pellets dominate the U.K. market, the U.S. is the biggest supplier to the Netherlands and Belgium. Denmark and Sweden receive the most pellets from Russia.

While the EU power market has gotten much attention, the heating market comprises 40 percent of the EU pellet market, with no subsidy required, because Pellets are 30 percent cheaper than heating oil. Currently, 90 percent of Canadian exports are being shipped from western ports and going through the Panama Canal, but an effort is underway to organize the smaller pellet producers in eastern Canada to pool resources and product to develop export facilities in the east.

The bottom-line is that the consumer marketfor pellets  in the EU has grown into a very stable market, It is no longer seasonal and some people even prefer to buy pellets in the summer months.

The annual increase each year in the EU has hovered around 700,000 tons of pellets for the past few years, but is projected to exceed 1 million tons in 2013, based on the sales of boilers and stoves. Italy is showing the most rapid growth currently, having added over 1 million pellet stoves in recent years. Consumption is expected to exceed production in both Austria and Germany this year, which will add to import demand.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/08/17/4244134/european-climate-policy-drives.html#storylink=cpy

In the foreseeable future the US and Canada seem to be well poised to meet these European demands.

Maryland-based Enviva LP the US’s biggest pellet maker, opened its Ahoskie mill in 2011 and a second one in Northampton County this year. Together, they produce 865,000 tons of pellets annually to be shipped out of the port at Chesapeake, Va.

In 2015, Enviva expects to start exporting an additional million tons from a planned $40 million terminal at the Wilmington port. The company is scouting sites for two new pellet mills in southeastern North Carolina, one of them in Sampson County.

At the same time, California-based International Woodfuels has said it will produce 285,000 tons a year from a planned pellet mill in Wilson County and a new export terminal at the Morehead City port.

Eastport in Washington County, Maine, near the Canadian border, which is planning a $120m wood-pellet factory, is one of the areas which seems especially well positioned to benefit from this European "craving" for wood pellets.

Chris Gardner, the director of the Eastport Port Authority says, "Eastport is the closest port on the US East-Coast to the European heartland. We can get European consumers their wood pellets before anyone else in the US".

The pellet industry is a "green industry" and not harmful to the environment as it is founded on a climate-friendly, carbon-neutral rationale.

All forests use photosynthesis to soak up carbon dioxide. This stored-up carbon is released into the air when wood pellets are burned, but wood is called a renewable fuel because that carbon eventually is recaptured by new trees that grow in place of the old ones.

The wood pellet industry can certainly become a win-win proposition for everyone.

EU-Digest

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/08/17/4244134/european-climate-policy-drives.html#storylink=cpy

Wood Pellets - Demand for wood pellets in Europe a boon for southeast ( and northeast) U.S. - by Wayne Faulkner

Wood Pellets

The Port of Wilmington in North Carolina may reap the benefits of environmental regulations in Europe that have spurred a huge increase in demand for forest byproducts from the southeastern United States.

Wood pellets, often used in wood-burning stoves, are taking the place of coal in many European power plants with the aim of reducing their carbon footprint.

“Without a doubt the demand for this product is being driven by clean energy requirements in the U.K. and Europe, and the Atlantic Seaboard is economically advantaged in supplying the pellets,” said Jeff Miles, acting executive director of the N.C. State Ports Authority.

European demand will continue growing for many reasons, from business to policies and regulations, said Daniel Saloni of the Department of Forest Biomaterials at N.C. State University.

Note EU-Digest: A subsidiary of Cate Street Capital released a statement recently confirming that it has plans to construct a multimillion-dollar wood pellet plant near the Port of Eastport marine cargo terminal. Thermogen Industries indicated in the release that it signed a letter of intent with the port authority’s board on Feb. 19. The plan calls for construction of a $120 million plant that can produce between 200,000 and 300,000 tons of torrefied wood pellets each year. 

Depending on the size and capacity of the plant, the facility could create approximately 75 jobs in Eastport and more than 300 additional forestry-related jobs in the Maine woods, the company indicated.

Read more: Demand for wood pellets in Europe a boon in southeast U.S. | StarNewsOnline.com

Eastport Maine A Profitable US East Coast Sea Link To Europe - by RM

Eastport a pittoresque Maine coastal town

What first started as a small experimental shipment of 500 pregnant cows from Maine to Turkey has now grown into an important source of income for Eastport, a pittoresque New England coastal town just across from the Canadian Province of New Brunswick.

On of the reason's for this success is that Eastport's location makes it the closest port on the US East Coast to Europe.

Initial facility expansions in 1998 allowed the Eastport Port Authority to enter into a series of record breaking years for its cargo operations. Recently the Port completed a further $8 million modernization and expansion program. Today the Port of Eastport is seen as one of the fastest growing cargo ports in all of New England.

Eastport's modern automated Port facilities

Following years of handling largely pulp and pulp-related products from local mills, livestock exports have emerged as a major growth market not only as a result of its proximity to Europe, but  importantly, Maine’s clean bill of health with regard to certain livestock diseases.

The Cattle for export via Eastport comes from Maine and other New England and US states,

Animal friendly, ventilated, climate-controlled livestock containers

The port’s dominant livestock customer has been a Texas company called Sexing Technologies that uses technology to sort bull semen for farmers that specifically want either male or female calves.

Following their arrival in Eastport Heifers (young cows) impregnated with semen from Sexing Technologies’ system are then loaded onto the ship in animal friendly, ventilated, climate-controlled livestock containers for their trip overseas. Usually to the port of Izmir in Turkey.

Izmir Port, Turkey

The positive results of this niche market are quite evident.

Since the beginning of the year some 17,000 cattle have passed through this Washington County community (also known for its commercial fisheries) on their way to Europe.

Chris Gardner, executive director of the Eastport Port Authority, who is also a Maine Washington County commissioner, says the livestock exports have opened a huge new international market for local and US farmers and has had a significant economic impact on the Port and the town of Eastport in the form of new businesses and jobs.

EU-Digest