District Energy - 2006 First Quarter

strategy. The European Union is already developing a market for CO₂reduction allowances. Currently, prices are about 20 euros ($24) per metric ton of CO₂. This economic credit would reduce the effective prices of biomass fuel by $2 per MMBtu.

Green Power

In addition, power from biomass can be certified as Green Power and sold at a premium in the market and can be used to meet Renewable Portfolio Standards being set by an increasing number of states. From a power-dispatching standpoint, biomass can provide a constant, stable energy supply, unlike wind and solar, and price stability, unlike oil and natural gas.

Economic Development

From a local economic development perspective, biomass energy provides jobs in fuel procurement and processing as well as plant operation. Direct increases in local employment also result in spin-off jobs and economic development.

In my next column I will suggest federal and state policies for encouraging use of biomass energy. One current program that could help accelerate use of biomass combined heat and power (CHP) is described in the Industry News section (“IRS Seeks Applications for Clean Energy Bonds”).

Mark Spurr is legislative
director of IDEA. He also
is vice president of FVB
Energy Inc., a consulting
firm specializing in district
energy and CHP business
development, engineer-
ing and marketing, with
offices in the United States, Canada and
Sweden and extensive experience in the
Middle East. Spurr represents the United
States on the Executive Committee of the
International Energy Agency Implementing
Agreement on District Heating and
Cooling, including Implementation of
CHP. He may be reached at mspurr@
fvbenergy.com.

Column also available at
www.districtenergy.org/de_magazine.htm

State-of-the-Art
Newspaper Plant Taps
District Energy

Minneapolis’ morning newspaper traces its roots back to 1867, when the first edition of the Minneapolis Tribune rolled off the presses. At that time, the entire state of Minnesota had only 250,000 residents – less than the city of Minneapolis alone has today. A few mergers, name changes and 138 years later, the Star Tribune, Newspaper of the Twin Cities, puts out more than 380,000 papers every weekday morning and 675,000 on Sundays for customers from throughout the metropolitan area. The papers are printed at the Star Tribune Heritage Center, an NRG Energy Center Minneapolis customer.

The Heritage Center takes up the equivalent of nine football fields and is directly connected to the rail line, with six rail cars full of paper shipped right into the plant every other day. The paper is 30 percent recycled stock arriving in 2,500-lb rolls containing up to 11 miles of paper each. Once unloaded, the paper is stored in a controlled environment, waiting to adjust to proper conditions. In the winter it can takes several days for the core of the frozen roll to come to room temperature. NRG Energy Center Minneapolis LLC has a big role in this process: It has provided hot water, chilled water, and steam for space heating, cooling, humidification and domestic hot water at the facility since it began operation in 1987.

a speed of nearly 60 miles an hour, an entire section of the paper is printed on one press and comes out completely folded and ready to go. About 3,000 gallons of black ink and 600 gallons of colored ink are used at the plant each day. All inks are soy-based.

Conscientious about the environment, the Star Tribune plant generates little waste; nearly everything gets recycled. Only 2 percent of the waste ends up in a landfill, compared to 8 percent tossed out by some newspapers.

The Energy Center distributes steam, hot water and chilled water to the Heritage Center from a satellite plant near downtown Minneapolis. The Energy Center has seven plants in the area housing a total of eight boilers and 18 chillers. The system serves more than 100 customer buildings in a 130-square-block area of the city center, heating more than 43 million sq ft of space and cooling more than 22 million sq ft. Other Energy Center customers include the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, the U.S. Courthouse, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the IDS Center.

For a list of other buildings throughout North America using district energy service, see the District Energy Space section of IDEA’s Web site at www.districtenergy.org/de_space.htm.

Throughout the production process, the paper is touched only twice by human hands before it hits the dock for delivery. Within the plant, the paper rolls are automatically moved and loaded on the five 300-ton, 100-ft-long printing presses by robotic forklifts using laser technology – all without stopping production. At One of five Star Tribune Heritage Center printing presses.