Our neighbors have big biomass plans

Tallahassee.com
By Dave Hodges
DEMOCRAT BUSINESS EDITOR• November 22, 2008

With biomass becoming a household word — or a fightin' word, depending on your viewpoint — it might be instructive to look at what our neighbors to the north are doing.

Georgia could well be the biomass capital of the South. It ranks second nationally in pine acreage and there's a huge amount of available wood supply, both scrap and by-products, from the pulp and paper industry.

"Looking around Georgia and the opportunities for a renewable resource, we really don't have a lot of options," said Bill Ussery, executive vice president for member and external relations for Oglethorpe Power Corp., the nation's largest power supply cooperative.

Oglethorpe has plans to build up to three 100-megawatt biomass electric generating facilities in Georgia. Designed to be carbon-neutral and to utilize woody biomass, the plants will provide power to Oglethorpe's 38 member cooperatives, which supply electricity to nearly half of Georgia's population. The closest facility to Tallahassee could be in Echols County, just east of Valdosta.

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