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President, Catalyst Renewables
Developer, Lyonsdale, New York
Renewable electricity standards are requirements placed on electric power providers to gradually increase their use of renewable energy resources to a specific percentage over time. New York’s requirement is set at 24 percent by 2013. More than half of the states have renewable electricity standards. For more information, visit the UCS Renewable Electricity Standard Toolkit. More »
When Eric Spomer became president of the biomass company Catalyst Renewables seven years ago, he never thought he'd spend a large chunk of his time lobbying legislators.
"I find myself in D.C. or in Albany or in Sacramento quite often advocating for our industry," he said. "It's not an easy thing. There are some biases against biomass, even though it's renewable and clean. I have to be able to tell that story so people understand it."
Spomer's Dallas-based company owns a 19-megawatt biomass plant in upstate New York, not far from Utica. In addition to providing clean, renewable electricity for the Burrows Paper factory across the street, Catalyst's Lyonsdale plant supplies electricity to the New York state grid. It also sells renewable energy credits—a tradable certificate equal to one megawatt hour of renewable energy generation—to help meet the state's renewable electricity standard.
Twenty-two people work at the Lyonsdale plant, but the facility also relies on 50 local loggers to furnish the biomass fuel. When loggers cut trees for high-quality lumber, Spomer's company pays them for the leftover, low-quality tree parts, which the plant burns to generate electricity. That low-quality tree mass—sometimes 40 to 50 percent of a tree, according to Spomer—would otherwise be left to rot on the forest floor.
Burning coal for electricity contributes to global warming, but burning wood does not. Burning wood from a tree puts carbon—in the form of carbon dioxide—back into the atmosphere, which is where that tree obtained carbon to build its trunk and leaves. As part of the carbon cycle, other plants will absorb that released carbon dioxide to grow. By contrast, coal is a fossilized plant whose carbon was removed from the atmosphere millions of years ago. When it is burned, it releases ancient carbon that boosts carbon levels in the atmosphere. The excess carbon dioxide emitted from burning coal traps heat and causes the planet to warm.
Burning wood does generate particulate matter and nitrous oxides that can cause serious health problems when inhaled. Particulate matter, a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air, is what makes smoke visible. Nitrous oxides, or NOx, are harmful gases made up of oxygen and nitrogen. Today's combustion technology, however, emits virtually no particulate emissions and very low amounts of NOx.
In addition to running Lyonsdale, Spomer, 47, saw an opportunity to connect small, mom-and-pop logging operations with large companies looking to burn biomass for electricity. In 2007, Spomer founded Tree Source Solutions, which buys supplies from local loggers to provide a steady stream of biomass so large facilities can avoid having to negotiate numerous contracts.
Spomer would like to eventually expand Catalyst Renewables to Southern states, where biomass resources are even more plentiful, but for now he says the company is in the right place.
"You look at a place like New York where the natural resources are wood and water," he said. "If state policymakers want energy independence, they want to clean up the environment, and help out against climate change, it's going to have to include biomass. That said, New York only has two wholesale generating biomass plants and 18 million acres of forest. There's opportunity there and it's going to have to happen. We're well-positioned to be there when it happens. We're trying to cause it to happen."