Creating local, sustainable, domestic sources of energy and combating large-scale concerns, such as global warming, requires innovative thinking and collaboration. Alternative energy technologies continue to improve and promote the reduction of carbon emissions. Rather than investing in biodiesel or corn-based ethanol production, which would be difficult to sustain in Pennsylvania, the proposed project will exploit the adaptive characteristics of hybrid poplar trees to produce wood biomass for utilization in pellet production or energy production, while at the same time eliminating significant amounts of nutrients from the Chesapeake Bay watershed. This initiative is being built upon the existing foundation of the current Somerset Conservation District’s nutrient trading grant that will demonstrate the utilization of poultry litter on test plots of land already identified in Somerset County. In addition, this initiative will create the opportunity to build not only a local capacity, but a regional capacity for sustainable renewable energy generation and proactively securing the energy required to maintain and increase the economic vitality of future generations of Pennsylvania’s citizens. Three million dollars is being requested to plant 1 million hybrid poplar trees in Somerset County at roughly $3 per tree. The per tree cost includes the tree itself, planting costs, and nutrients and exportation costs from the Chesapeake Bay watershed in the form of poultry litter. Over the ten year project, 750,000 to 2.5 million tons of poultry litter will be transported and removed from the Chesapeake Bay watershed and applied to nutrient deficient reclaimed mine lands in Somerset County as a soil amendment where hybrid poplar trees will be planted. Each year 100,000 trees will be planted to create a rotational sustaining crop harvest. Funds will be used to establish a revolving account to create a loan program necessary for program infrastructure development. Additionally, nutrient exportation will create or sustain numerous jobs, including those of nutrient balance sheet writers, truck drivers, brokers, and nutrient applicators.
A market for the mature trees will be supplied by at least one of two proposed projects. Sithe Global has plans to build a 300 megawatt power plant in Central City, Somerset County, which will take approximately three years to construct. The plant will use approximately one million tons of waste coal per year and is considering supplementing coal with at least 10% wood chips, equaling approximately 100,000 tons of wood chips per year. The power plant in Central City could potentially utilize water for power generation from the large mine pool in the Shade Creek watershed and release the water back into the watershed as unpolluted water. A second potential market for the mature hybrid poplar trees is a wood chip plant near Frankstown in Cambria County that is being proposed by Investar Redevelopment. The wood chip plant would be built on a brownfield site and would require a supply of approximately 50,000 tons of wood chips per year. Cooperative agreements would be made with at least one of the proposed projects in order to secure a market for the hybrid poplar trees. Timber and logging residue low value trees from participating landowners will be used to supply the initial wood needs of the two proposed projects, and hybrid poplar trees will supplement the low value trees once they are ready for harvest. Local foresters will be engaged to ensure proper forestry management techniques are employed and trees will be cut by prescription.
Because of the need for large amounts of wood and cooperation of numerous entities and landowners, a co-op will be established. The co-op will be responsible for facilitating relations between tree owners and the power or wood chip plant. The co-op will also aid in the harvest and transport of chipped trees to their buyer. Five teams consisting of five people each will make up the co-op, generating roughly 25 new jobs in the area. Somerset County is uniquely positioned through its long history of industrial and extractive industrial development to utilize its existing resources in concert with supplemental additions to create the essential components required for future alternative and renewable energy production.
Projected Benefits
- Support additional employment to local residents through high-quality direct power plant jobs
- Create potential for secondary employment opportunities to local residents through transportation, fuel, maintenance, and procurement of local supplies and services
- Generate revenues through the sale of carbon credits or renewable energy credits
- Protect local air quality through burning of wood chips and co-combustion, thus reducing emissions of toxic contaminants
- Support the generation of electricity through the area’s abundant source of renewable wood biomass
- Provide an avenue for public/private investment opportunities
- Partner with industry to improve affected mine drainage problems, as well as previously impacted mine lands
- Remove nutrients from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including a reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus
- Improve nutrient deficient lands by addition of poultry litter
- Partner with local and regional government officials to benefit many partners and stakeholders
- Will sequester carbon and collect carbon credits to generate further revenue
- Will give local power plant opportunity to gain emissions and renewable fuel credits
- Provide additional income for local landowners from sale of trees
- Remove dormant waste coal sites
- Substantially increase local tax base as a result of construction and operation costs
- Create wildlife habitat through poplar tree lots
- Reduce soil erosion
- Build organic humus on unproductive lands
- Improve water quality of the Chesapeake Bay
- Reduce excessive transportation and importation costs through local energy production.