Sludge Watch ==> Arizona - Abitibi Paper site of new 24 MW paper sludge biomass power plant

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

As Abitibi Thorold Ontario sits mired with expenses and public outrage from 
its massive, leaching, stinking, polluting paper sludge mountain in Pelham 
Ontario, it need only look at its sister plant in Arizona for modern methods 
to get rid of sludge by using it to generate energy.  (see also the 'Modern 
Marvels' show about energy from papermill waste that aired Wed Jan 24, 2007)



...........................................


AZ: Snowflake White Mountain Power Plant
Monday, 15 January 2007


NZ Legacy, LLC is currently building a 24MW electrical generation biomass 
plant, Snowflake White Mountain Power (SWMP) near Snowflake, Arizona. The 
$53 million plant is expected to be completed by late 2007 when it will 
begin full production to meet the power obligations under its 20-year Power 
Purchase Agreements with Arizona Public Services (APS) and Salt River 
Project (SRP).
The plant is being built at the Abitibi Paper Mill 12 miles west of 
Snowflake, AZ.

Plant Facts and History:

On September 27, 2004, SRP notified SWMP that SWMP’s bid was selected as the 
result of their RFP to purchase 10MW of biomass produced power. Negotiations 
with SRP were quickly completed and a 20-year PPA was signed. SRP will take 
10MW of the power for the first 15 years of the contract and the full 20MW 
of production for the following five years.

APS has also agreed to take another 10 MW of biomass generated power from 
this plant and has signed a PPA to purchase this power for 15 years.

Both PPAs have price escalators in place for the life of the agreements.

The plant will be built with a new Babcock and Wilcox bubbling fluidized bed 
boiler being built specifically to meet the fuel makeup at SWMP. The plant’s 
economics are also improved by taking advantage of an idled paper facility 
in Houston, Texas from where much of the SWMP plant’s other components 
(conveyors, screw presses, etc.) are being acquired.

Fuel for the biomass plant will come from two main sources. First will be 
woody waste material from the surrounding National Forests. This work is 
being undertaken by another NZ Legacy owned company, Renegy, LLC, which will 
harvest and provide fuel from green forest thinning activities, forest 
rehabilitation work on the burn area of the Rodeo-Chediski fire area and 
waste material from the region’s existing saw mills. Secondly, the Abitibi 
paper mill, where SWMP is located, produces 250 bone dry tons of waste 
recycled paper fibers each day which are currently sent to an adjoining 
landfill. These paper fibers will now be sent through an additional pressing 
facility to lower their moisture content and will become additional fuel for 
the SWMP boiler.

Other significant benefits of locating the biomass facility at Abitibi 
include:

•
Our ability to use Abitibi’s new 40+ MW state of the art digital substation 
with only 3-4 MW used by existing plant requirements. Interconnections, 
relays and switches are all less than 4 years old. Our interconnection 
agreement with APS, the local provider, is already in place.

•
69KV dedicated line to APS’s Cholla Power Plant…the preferred delivery point 
for SRP’s power. Without further upgrades the line can take at least 25 MW 
of additional electricity to Cholla. The transmission agreement is already 
in place.

•
APS has confirmed that the White Mountain communities of Showlow, Pinetop, 
Lakeside, Heber, Snowflake, etc. all use this feeder line and it is 
overloaded from Cholla to the White Mountain area. By placing a generating 
source at Abitibi, this bottleneck is relieved for about 5 years and APS is 
greatly benefited. It is conceivable that much more power could be generated 
and delivered from this site due to the growth in the local market.

•
Enough paper sludge to power a 6 MW power plant annually with no other 
feedstock on a go forward basis without touching the 720,000 tons in a 
landfill today. The landfill will also serve as a place to dump ash from the 
biomass boilers.

•
Natural Gas is already available to the site for startup and if needed for 
drying feedstock, etc.

•  Abitibi’s 75-person dedicated and experienced power plant team will also 
run our power plant.

•  State-of-the-art control room and monitoring equipment allows the Mill to 
more closely monitor power quality.

•  Up-time guarantee will exceed the SRP and APS PPA levels of compliance of 
90%.

•  Land is available with plenty of space to work including a fire protected 
chip yard that was previously used for 35 years as the location to store 
chips.

•  ADEQ certified engineers at Abitibi will test air quality for compliance 
24X7.

-  Boiler feed water supply is available with treatment for the highest 
pressure boilers.

•  Abitibi has company-owned rail service (Apache Railway), trucking 
contracts with Swift Trucking, truck traffic control, scaling facilities and 
personnel, security, maintenance (certified power plant mechanics, welders, 
etc.), spare parts warehousing, fire suppression teams, human resources, 
accounting, office space, management, abandoned chip yard and associated 
assets, etc.


http://www.forestnewswatch.com/content/view/1858/