Biofuels: Alaska's new power plants?
Growing research may offer alternatives to fossil fuels in Alaska.
By Todd Paris
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What's good for the Garber-Slaghts might soon be good for others in the area as well. Reports estimate as many as 10,000 gallons of WVO are generated by commercial kitchens around Fairbanks every month. Since WVO is considered a toxic waste, vendors are prohibited from using drains or the landfill to dispose of their leftover oil. The borough maintains a collection site where businesses can dump their waste veggie oil at a cost of around $15 per gallon, but a fledgling industry has sprouted to collect waste oil from local businesses and turn it into biofuel.
Francis Collins is a local landlord who got the idea a couple years ago to collect waste oil and use it to heat her apartment buildings. She started Arctic Biofuels, a two-person business that collects waste oil from local restaurants for free, processes the waste into both biodiesel and SVO, and uses it to heat apartment buildings. She's generating enough biofuel to supply a few clients with oil for their home-heating needs at prices well below commercial heating oil. "I want it [waste oil] and the restaurants don't, so it works out well for both of us," Collins said. "And it keeps it out of the landfill."
Firewood -- the original biofuel
The cost of energy in the Fairbanks area was termed a "crisis of generational proportions" by Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker in May 2008, when rising fuel costs around the globe showed no signs of stabilizing. High energy costs spurred Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and state lawmakers to pass emergency legislation for a $1,200 "energy rebate" added to every resident's 2008 permanent fund dividend to help Alaskans deal with unprecedented fuel costs.
The spiraling cost of conventional heating sources and an influx of cash into residents' pockets has led to a surge in the use of the most traditional biofuel -- wood. Reports indicate almost 2,000 wood heat appliances were sold in the Fairbanks area in summer 2008. The rush on wood stoves and wood furnaces has resulted in a shortage of dry firewood, which is crucial to reducing the amount of pollution.
Experts who monitor air quality warned that the added smoke from hundreds of new wood-burning stoves and outdoor furnaces -- some burning green fuel -- would cause a serious spike in Fairbanks' air pollution problem during the winter.
Mark Wiebold sells wood and pellet stoves at The Woodway in Fairbanks. He fears the rush on wood energy could carry a serious unintended consequence.
"I'm afraid what we have now is a bunch of people who are all of a sudden burning wood as an alternative to more-expensive fossil fuels. Even though we're selling state-of-the-art wood stoves that exceed [Environmental Protection Agency] standards when used properly, it's up to the individual to make a personal commitment to learn how to use it and maintain an adequate supply of dry firewood. The air quality in Fairbanks is a real issue and I'm not sure how it'll be addressed."
Barley -- not just for beer anymore
Barley is another source of locally grown biofuel making an impact this winter in the Interior. Gary Sonnichsen, a farmer in Delta Junction, has been growing barley for the past 12 years. He's one of dozens of area farmers looking for a market for their grain now that the state-supported dairy industry has just about dried up. He thinks he may have found a market in the energy-hungry homes of Fairbanks.
"It's hard to predict precisely, but I expect to sell about 250 tons of barley for fuel this year," Sonnichsen said in November. "That's up from zero tons last year."
At a price of about $200 a ton, which delivers the BTU equivalent of 125 gallons of home-heating oil, Sonnichsen says he can grow and sell enough barley to make a profit. He's excited about the prospects for future growth.
"I absolutely think it's feasible for Delta-area farmers to grow barley to sell for home-heating fuel. We've been growing barley here for 50 years, through all kinds of weather and tough conditions. We've pretty much got the economics of it figured out."
Sonnichsen is partnering with Don Trometter of North Pole Pipe and Supply, who's acting as a local supplier for the North Pole/Fairbanks area. Trometter makes the drive to Delta each week, bringing back 12 to 15 tons of the dried, easily combustible grain that burns in specific models of stoves and furnaces (see sidebar about pellets). He sells the grain to area homeowners in bags of 50 or 1,500 pounds.
According to Wiebold at The Woodway, local barley is a clean-burning, affordable, easy-to-handle alternative to wood pellets, and he likes the idea of buying fuel from a local supplier.
"When you spend a hundred bucks on fuel from a local source, that money turns right around and gets spent in other local businesses," Wiebold said. "I kind of like the idea of my energy dollar staying in the local economy."
Sonnichsen sees a future in developing barley to be used specifically for fuel.
"What we've been growing here for decades is aimed as a livestock feed. If we get a variety better suited for fuel it would make barley an even more viable long-term energy solution."
Rich Seifert is one local expert who disagrees with that assessment. Seifert, an energy specialist with UAF's Cooperative Extension Service, is convinced that the idea of burning grain as fuel makes no sense.
"I think that's just a bad path for us to take," Seifert said. "The amount of fossil fuel needed to produce a crop through modern agricultural techniques throws the whole idea of using grain as a fuel out of balance. Why would you use fossil fuels to run the tractors and combines and trucks to get the grain to market, when you could be growing native species of trees instead, and then burning the trees for heat? The farmers may be able to make a profit in the short term, but sooner or later a market correction will have to occur and the idea will have to fizzle out."
It's the same problem with growing corn for ethanol Outside, Seifert said. "You can't violate the physics of it. It's the basic law of thermodynamics."