Robbin Garber-Slaght (pictuerd at left) won’t object at all if her research goes up in smoke. Garber-Slaght, a recent UAF graduate, spent the summer of 2008 working on an EPSCoR-funded project to study the potential of various quick-growing Alaska plants to serve as replenishable fuels for a planned biomass power plant. The work was done in partnership with Chena Hot Springs Resort, which has plans to follow up the construction of a geothermal power plant at the resort with a pilot biomass plant.
“To demonstrate the same (geothermal plant) technology using biomass, that’s the concept,” said Gwen Holdmann, who until recently worked as vice-president of new development for the Fairbanks-area thermal resort. “The idea is that it should be a demonstration for potential rural Alaskan applications.” Garber-Slaght, who majored in mechanical engineering, used a combination of library research and fieldwork in an attempt to gauge the growth rates of fast-growing Interior Alaskan trees and shrubs, such as alders and willows. Her labor was funded by a $5,000 EPSCoR undergraduate research grant and overseen by Holdmann – who now runs UAF’s Alaska Center for Energy and Power – as well as UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences Professor Steve Sparrow.
Though research took up the bulk of her time, Garber-Slaght said that useful material was often hard to come by. “Actually there was very little information on the growth rates of willows and alders,” she said. “There’s a limited amount of knowledge out there on how to grow willows.” She was still able to cull information out of a variety of sources, from experiments in Sweden and New York state to data used in reforestation projects after the building of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. The remainder of her work was spent surveying farmland, mostly in the Delta Junction area, which had been left fallow for a three-year period as conservation reserves and has since sprouted willows and alders. Garber-Slaght reached several noteworthy conclusions: first, the felt-leaf willow – “which everyone (in Alaska) uses to revegetate everything,” she noted – is a potential candidate for a biomass crop in Interior Alaska. Second, she conjectures that, based on natural growth rates measured in the field, it may require more than the hoped-for three-year crop cycle to feed a biomass plant. “I’m leaning towards the idea that a three-year cycle is too short,” she said, noting that fueling the plant with three-year-old willows would likely require an untenable amount of acreage. On the other hand, Garber-Slaght said the jury’s still out on the issue because of the uncontrolled conditions in the Delta fields. She noted that Sparrow has planted a crop at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm that should provide more specific information about the crops and their potential growth rates, which can be augmented considerably through the use of fertilizer and other techniques. Holdmann agreed that the results for growth in the wild were less than had been hoped for based on growth rates measured elsewhere, and chalked up the discrepancy tothe harsh local conditions. “It indicates we need to be careful in Interior Alaska about making assumptions about how much biomass can grow as a fuel crop.”
Garber-Slaght’s thesis will be published by the AFES publications department. One major beneficiary is likely to be the hot springs resort, which built a $2.2 million geothermal power plant in 2006 and continues to promote and support alternative energy. The resort’s biomass plant is expected to cost $5 million, funded through private and grant funds. Current plans call for the plant to be sited on the Richardson Highway outside of Fairbanks; pending state grant funding, Holdmann said the resort plans to break ground on the project next spring. The plant initially would be fueled by burning brush and paper from the Fairbanks North Star Borough landfill, then later by fast-growing wood crops, and is projected to produce about 400 kilowatts of power - enough for a medium-sized bush village.
(article and photograph by Tom Moran, Alaska EPSCoR)
See also:
• "Researcher seeks energy answer in biofuels", SNRAS Science & News, Oct. 30, 2008
• "Alaska woody biomass", SNRAS Science & News, July 23, 2008
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