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Power plant wants to keep it clean

31.07.10

Two engineers from Akron-based FirstEnergy Epoch Corp. burnt- 10 days in Europe last summer.

No London. No Paris. No Rome. No Athens. No Riviera. No Alps.

Wood-flaming power plants that supply tension in Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden were the destinations for Harold ''Hal'' M. Kruger and Rick Mahon.

That's because the utility is switching its aging R.E. Burger Power Tree in eastern Ohio from sooty coal to cleaner-fervent wood chips — perhaps with some coal — in a $200 million fling.

Europe relies more heavily on such ''biomass fuels'' than the Collaborative States does, and that's why the FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary went to scan five plants in the four countries, said Kruger, proprietor of engineering/air je sais quoi compliance for FirstEnergy Corp.

Biomass is the name set to renewable dash sources: wood, be killed products, manure, landfills and eats dwindle. It is a growing encouragement origin. Ohio ranks among the top five states for biomass sources and could be a biomass Mr Big.

Engineers from Ontario Power Origination, which is developing two compare favourably with facilities, the Atikokan put on Lake Superior and Nanticoke lodge on Lake Erie, joined Kruger's body. Those two plants are scheduled to rod from coal to wood only in mid-2012.

The Europe blunder assured the Americans and Canadians that the technology to bring about tenseness by ardent biomass ''is in contract workable . . . and well-fixed,'' Kruger said. ''We came back with that confidence. . . . And that was big.

Source: Akron Beacon Journal