Green Energy at Project Clover?

There was breaking news on the prospect of developing Page County’s controversial Project Clover site this week. In essence, there is a proposal to build a “green energy” plant on the site, as reported in NV Daily (link below).

Delegate Todd Gilbert is quoted at length in the article:

"The ag industry benefits from having this waste product taken off their hands," Gilbert said.

"And [Fibrowatt tells] us it's a clean process. The smokestacks are mostly steam. And you would be removing thousands of tons of poultry litter from the ground that might otherwise have found its way into the Chesapeake Bay."

As a renewable-energy producer that would sell the power to utilities, electric cooperatives and large industrial users, there are certain economic impediments to Fibrowatt's operations that require incentives to make the process affordable for everyone, Gilbert said.

"What the company does is highly specialized and expensive," he said, adding that its costs are only marginally above the wholesale value of the product.

Given the history of Project Clover, this is sure to be controversial. I hope there will be a lot of additional due diligence done on the prospect. I have a feeling that this Gilbert quote doesn’t tell the whole story: "The ag industry benefits from having this waste product taken off their hands, and [Fibrowatt tells] us it's a clean process.”

I started to do some additional research on this after reading the article last night. I was impressed with the assessment of potential economic impact…but I could see a number of environmental concerns about an industrial site like this that I would like to understand better.

After thinking about it some more, my first impressions returned to the matter of how the site selection for Project Clover was done in the first place, especially after I read about how the plant would need to source the chicken litter from a wide geographic area. They need a sustainable supply, and their Minnesota operation gets it from at least five counties. A Page County plant would source the whole Northern Valley area.

The question then becomes one related to truck access to the Clover site. I imagine there would be at least one truck per hour delivering raw materials to the plant, and they would have to use that two-lane bypass to get there…rolling through the little town of Stanley since through traffic in the other direction isn’t allowed. My conclusion on this a few months ago was that other sites with better proximity to existing highways were better candidates, and I still think that way.

In any case, seems like we’re on the front end of an exciting development. The prospect of 300 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs operating that plant is nothing to sneeze at, but the reality is that Page County has a hard time sealing the deal on prospects like this. The best way to move forward is an open, trusting, intelligent dialog involving all County stakeholders, now that this opportunity is public.

Thoughts?

http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2010/01/gilberts-bill-aims-for-pick-of-the-litter.php