Perryville school installs biomass thermal energy system

PERRYVILLE, MO (KRCU) - Six schools in Southern Missouri will soon operate new biomass thermal energy heating systems.

The Missouri Department of Conservation provides the grants for the Missouri Fuels for Schools project.

Perry County 32 School District received one of the systems. Superintendent Kevin Dunn expects savings between $25 to $30 dollars per year, starting this winter.

"It’s great for the economy for the jobs, but also great for our local school district to have this nice new furnace that’s going to save us money long term but also each year by saving on natural gas and it’s very little expense to the local district almost the entire project was paid by federal grants," Dunn said.

The grant is funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) and administrated by the U.S Forest Service.

Missouri Fuels for Schools Project Coordinator Peter Maki says the system’s technology gives the ability to burn wood at efficiencies that are equal to or succeed natural gas efficiencies.

"You have an auger that pulls the wood chips from a chip room onto conveyor and then onto other conveyors and otters that automatically as you call for heat, all this is computer controlled so the chips are then augered into the combuster," Maki said.

This program plans to find funding and continue a Fuel for Schools program throughout Missouri.

Lauren Campbell, KRCU

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Mineral Area College to host Ag Energy Conference

PARK HILLS, MO (KRCU) - Mineral Area College will host a free Agriculture Energy Day on Thursday, August 4.

The field day will focus on energy production, opportunity and savings.

Topics will include energy efficiency on livestock farms, grant and loan opportunities, and sustainable wood energy using cottonwood and willow.

Conference organizer Van Ayers from the University of Missouri Extention in Bloomfield says the conference should appeal to a wide variety of interests.

“Farmers, entrepreneurs, people that are interested in policy I think should attend, especially those that are interested in energy policy would have an interest in attending this field day. Definitely people such as myself, you know, that are involved in education. I think it would be a good place to pick up some additional information,” Ayers said.

Mineral Area College’s facilities for its new Renewable Energy Technology program will also be on display. These include biomass production plots, a wind turbine, a solar power array and an ethanol production system.

Registration is available at the Mineral Area College website.

Jacob McCleland, KRCU

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Biomass conference held in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS, MO (ST. LOUIS PUBLIC RADIO) - Representatives of the biomass energy industry have gathered in St. Louis this week.

They're here to discuss technologies for turning everything from crop residues to municipal trash into liquid fuels, heat, and electricity.

Tim Portz is the program director for BBI international, the company organizing the international biomass conference.

He says it's not going to be easy for the biomass industry to gain a foothold in the marketplace of already established U.S. energy producers.

"So if we really want to get serious about energy independence, creating local jobs, and reducing the carbon emissions component of producing this energy, then we have to get together and we have to push for policy in Washington, DC, and at our state level," Portz said.

Participants toured some of those local biomass facilities.

One is at Anheuser-Busch. The company puts organic-rich wastewater from the beer-making process into a big, air-tight vessel, where microbes turn the organic matter into methane gas.

"The methane is piped to boilers at the facility, and the boilers are presumably boiling the mash as part of their cooking process and their beer-making process," Portz said. "So their waste streams power their beer-making process."

Participants also visited a biomass gas production company and a landfill that captures methane to heat a nearby school and power an asphalt plant.

The conference runs through this Thursday at America's Center.

Véronique LaCapra, St. Louis Public Radio

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Advancing Renewables in the Midwest conference held in Columbia

COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - Around 160 policy makers, business leaders and scholars came to Columbia for the sixth annual Advancing Renewables in the Midwest conference.

This annual one-day conference usually focuses on the use of wind, solar and biomass energy. But this year, conference leaders also sought out speakers who could describe the business side of renewable energy.

Frank Cunningham of Columbia’s Water and Light Department helped organize this year’s conference. He says they decided to focus on the economy after the topic resonated with participants last year.

“How can renewables help our economy? Because as everybody knows our economy has its problems, but in energy efficiency and renewables, there are jobs being developed, and there are new jobs out there in these markets, so we wanted to highlight some of those activities,” Cunningham said.

Speakers represented companies like Nordic WindPower, a wind turbine producer that is relocating to Kansas City, and Hubble Power Systems in Centralia, whose business making foundations for solar panels has created 60 jobs in the past year.

Doug Kirk, an engineer at Hubble, was part of a panel that discussed how companies are creating jobs in Missouri.

“Basically what we did was expand into a new market, expanded our customer base and just used the factory, the marketing and salespeople we already had and just chased a different customer base. And when we landed that business it was more than we could handle so we had to hire people,” Kirk said.

Other conference topics were how to attract renewable energy companies to Missouri, and measuring Missouri’s energy efficiency.

Lydia Mulvany, KBIA news

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