The stack at Rollcast Energy’s Piedmont Green Power was completed last week.
Stack erected at Piedmont Green Power site
Construction of Rollcast Energy’s Piedmont Green Power project reached a milestone last week when the stack at the plant was erected. The plant, located off the MLK Bypass, will burn wood waste products to generate 53 megawatts of energy - enough to power over 50,000 homes.
The plant is 53 megawatts. The average USA home, in 2001 (ten years ago) used 10.66 kilowatts average power. (Averaged over a year.)
That means if we use average demand from 2001, the plant could supply 5,000 homes....not 50,000.
If we use corrected figures for the south, because of air conditioning, it would be considerably fewer than 5,000. If we correct for unevenness in the loads over season and time, it could be less than 2500 homes during some times of the year and day.
Let's give them the 2001 figures and pretend like the load has no power factor and is constant, and pretend like it is 5,000 homes.
It certainly is not 50,000 homes, because even 5,000 is a real stretch.
If you had 160 million dollars, would you invest it in a plant that only supplies power to 5,000 homes? Tom Rauch does math about like George Bush.
Hope the numbers work.
The math is pretty simple.
The plant is 53,000,000 watts peak capacity.
The USA average demand (for a one year period, so peak demands are higher and low demands are lower) for a single family home in 2001 was 10.66 kilowatts.
If the plant ran at maximum possible capacity for a year, and the houses steady at the average yearly power, the result would be:
53,000,0000 over 10660 = 4971.86 homes.
In reality it is less than that, because the average use figures were from 2001 and this is the South where air conditioning runs the average up. Plus there are uneven demand periods.
If this plant had a coal license of the same class, they would be limited to 100 tons of the two primary classes of pollutants. Because it is "renewable", lobbyists have convinced the Government to relax the allowable emissions to anything under 250 tons each per year.
It is renewable only if enough new wood is planted to replace what is burned. Of course that still robs the soil of nutrients that the decaying wood would have released.
This is a classic example why were are in the mess we are in with the Government. It's all about short term views, and telling us half the story. We couldn't build or fuel enough wood plants to run Atlanta, let alone the USA. Even if we did, we would be no better off than with coal. We would have about 2.5 times the pollution for the same power from coal, if the EPA allows the same loose regulations.
ALL of this is documented for anyone to look up.
The heat that comes out depends on how much carbon we bond to oxygen. If that plant burned coal with the same small system license class, the EPA would limit it to less than 100 tons of toxic nitrogen-oxygen compounds and less than 100 tons of toxic carbon monoxide.
Since waste wood is considered "renewable", our legislators pressured the EPA into cutting renewable plants slack and allowing less filtering.
1 lb coal aprox 13000 BTU or 3.8 KWH
1 lb wood aprox 6400 BTU or 1.9 KWH
There isn't much energy in wood, so if it was coal there not only would be tighter pollution control, there would be a whole lot less material being trucked in to burn.
This is just another one of those "feel good" environmental hoaxes. Taxpayers will just waste money on this stuff. We need to be moving forward, not back to what Thomas Newcomen invented.
Other places are getting solar and wind, and we are back to what cavemen used.
The "fuel" will be coming from plants that already make this fuel as a byproduct of their work.
Will all the "fuel" they will need why were they not located in the Industrial Park where this fuel could have been brought in by train--far more efficient. Oh, and two fuel sources were right there too.
This is such a good deal for Lamar Co. What, it will create a handful of jobs, if that. The construction jobs are short term and money flows to a Texas? company. Wonder how many locals are even employed for construction 2 or 3?
The problems will far outweigh any benefits. Too bad our industrial recruiters don't understand not all jobs are good jobs. Remember the compost facility--that really paid off big for Lamar Co.
Of course our Industrial Authority got their accolades and higher pay (over 75K for a job in Lamar Co is outrageous amount to pay Industrial Recruiter--we could easily get someone for 50K or less). So at least someone won, it just wasn't the people of Lamar County.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour
A watt is a watt of instantaneous power without time.
The plant is 53 million watts capacity. If we assume this capacity is 24 hours a day, it is 53 megawatts per hour
A typical home in 2001 averaged 10.66 kilowatt hours. That is exactly the same as 10.66 kilowatts for any period of time if demand is even. In one hour at average use, the home would consume an energy total of 10.66 kWh. In one day, it would be 10.66 kilowatt days.
The plant has a peak capacity of 53 million watts. If the house runs an hour and the plant runs an hour the energy supplied is 53,000,000 over 10,660 required, or 4971.85 homes worth of energy.
Let's look at it another way. Let's assume the plant supplies 250 volts, a typical residential mains supply voltage. A house, on 2001 average, would draw 10,660/250 = 42.64 amperes average. If it drew that same level 24 hours a day 7 days a week, we could quantify that 10.66 kilowatt hours.
The plant would generate 53,000,000/250 = 212,000 amperes if it was 250 volts.
212,000 amperes is enough for 212,000/42.64 = 4971.86 homes if they drew a steady load.
If you walk to your breaker panel, you will find the mains now are 200 amperes.
If you try to run a typical whole house on a generator, it better be at least a 25 kW generator.
To run 50,000 homes, there would be 212,000/50,000 = 4.25 amps at 250 volts available for each home.
Common sense would tell us if the plant could run 50,000 homes at 250 volts, we would only need dual 10 amp breakers on the mains.
If energy sells for 10 cents a kilowatt hour (I have no idea what it sells for wholesale) the plant would gross $5300 per hour at that supply rate. That would be $127,200 dollars a day, and $43.6 million dollars a year.
Off that gross we take the entire operating and equipment overhead.
So you see, it is possible to operate a tiny plant like this at a profit if:
1.) They get enough Federal incentives
2.) They can run at fairly high capacity
3.) Fuel and equipment is not too expensive
There isn't any reason for anyone to exaggerate things like this. 5,000 homes is enough to make money with cheap fuel, but let's not pretend this is environmentally clean or going to solve our long term energy needs.
I don't know or care whose mistake the 50,000 is. But rest assured it is off by more than ten times.
Wood is renewable, local and smells better.
Its not perfect but its better than coal.