Wood chips, grasses to be burned in coal plant test

JSOnline.com (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
By Thomas Content of the Journal Sentinel
Nov. 10, 2009

A Madison electric utility last week launched tests to burn wood chips, native grasses and other forms of biomass in coal boilers at its 50-year-old power plant in Cassville on the Mississippi River.
The tests by Wisconsin Power & Light Co. are designed to help the company explore cost-effective strategies to reduce its carbon footprint and prepare for a national system to reduce emissions linked to global warming, utility spokesman Steve Schultz said Tuesday. Coal-fired power plants are a leading contributor of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The tests are taking place in southwestern Wisconsin, at a site where the utility had proposed to build a $1.3 billion new power plant fueled by coal and biomass. State regulators rejected that proposal a year ago.

The state Department of Natural Resources granted a one-year research and testing exemption to the utility to conduct test burns of a variety of biomass fuels over the next 12 months. Testing began Thursday and Friday with burning of wood chips.

Read the full story