NY Biomass Energy Alliance supports willow growers for sustainable energy

GEDDES — The New York Biomass Energy Alliance (NYBEA) is a coalition of individuals, businesses, and organizations that are working to “enhance support, understanding and use of sustainably produced farm and forest biomass as a source of renewable energy,” according to its website.

Members of the pellet-manufacturing industry, along with consultants and professors at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) formed NYBEA in 2009, says Alice Brumbach, executive administrator for the nonprofit organization.

They wanted an organization that would support the communication and networking ability of the industry in New York, especially in the Upstate region, Brumbach says.

“It was so spread out and the industry was so small that they felt that if they helped to facilitate coming together that there would be more opportunities for education and events and outreach to the general public,” she says.

NYBEA wanted the public to be aware of its belief that pellets are a “viable, renewable energy source” and has economic benefits for the state economy, Brumbach says.

The coalition has offices in Rensselaer and Syracuse, with the local office at the New York Farm Viability Institute, which is located at 159 Dwight Park Circle in the town of Geddes.

NYBEA is an unincorporated, coalition engaged in sponsorship agreements with two New York State non-profit corporations, which include the New York Farm Viability Institute and the Rensselaer–based Empire State Forest Products Association, according to the NYBEA website. 

The organization began with about 10 “core people,” Brumbach says, including Daniel Conival, a consultant for Cato Analytics, LLC, who primarily “kept things going over the first couple years.”

Matthew McArdle, president of Mesa Reduction Engineering & Process, Inc. of Auburn, serves as president of NYBEA, according to Brumbach.

Charles Niebling, a consultant for Jaffrey, N.H.–based New England Wood Pellet, LLC, chairs the NYBEA board of directors, she adds.

New England Wood Pellet operates two New York manufacturing facilities, which are located in Deposit and in Schuyler (near Frankfort).

NYBEA currently has a membership of more than 40 individuals and organizations.

“Until the calendar year is over, we don’t really have a full count for the year, but it’s 45 to 50 at this point because we have been successful in recruiting seven new members this year,” Brumbach says.

Its membership includes Syracuse engineering firm O’Brien & Gere; Cato Analytics, LLC in Cato; and Latham–based ReEnergy Holdings, LLC.

NYBEA on Aug. 8 led a tour of the ReEnergy Black River generation facility at the U.S. Army’s Fort Drum installation near Watertown.

The tour allowed willow growers and others involved in the sustainable-energy industry to see the facility, which ReEnergy Holdings reopened in early June.

The plant burns woody biomass to generate energy.

 

Supporting the crop

SUNY ESF and Cornell University have been harvesting woody crops for energy production for the past 30 years, she says.

Brumbach says those crops are “a good alternative for farmers when they’re looking to diversify because they can grow these crops on land that isn’t ideal for food production,” she adds.

NYBEA members, including Celtic Energy Farm, LLC of Cape Vincent, SUNY ESF, and the ReEnergy Facility at Black River, submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) for a Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) project.

The BCAP program requires a site project, and the Celtic Energy Farm is one of the biggest willow suppliers for the Black River facility, Brumbach says.

ReEnergy Holdings sponsors BCAP Project Area 10 with a feedstock of shrub willow that includes Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, Herkimer, Oswego, St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton, and Essex counties, according to the USDA website.

FSA is allocating up to $4.3 million for implementation of this project area in this current fiscal year, the USDA website says.

Calling it a “a really great collaboration,” Brumbach says Celtic Energy Farm and Cape Vincent farmer Marty Mason have the largest planting of willow biomass crops in North America, and ESF is conducting research on and keeping track of the willow yields that are grown commercially for use at ReEnergy’s Black River facility.

NYBEA contends that using bioenergy leads to jobs in rural economies because the feedstock for bioenergy is either agricultural or comes from a forest.

When the industry develops a new project, it’s normally developed in a rural location for better access to the necessary feedstock, willow or another material, Brumbach says. Those projects also create jobs at the power-generation facility or in the effort of gathering the feedstock for conversion, she adds.

The organization also contends the bioenergy generates more jobs per BTU produced than wind, solar, or geothermal because of an ongoing harvesting of the feedstock.

BTU is short for British-thermal unit, a unit of energy that needed to cool or heat one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit.

“It’s not just building one project and then leaving,” she says.

 

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com