Longview Fibre plans Northwest's largest biomass plant

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A Longview, Wash.-based paper company plans to build a $100 million plant that would be the largest waste wood-fueled power plant in the Pacific Northwest.

Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging Inc., a manufacturer of craft paper, corrugated boxes and container board, filed paperwork last week with Washington’s Department of Ecology to seek a permit for the plant, said Sarah Taydas, a company spokeswoman.

The combined heat and power plant would replace an existing 25-megawatt wood-fueled biomass plant that now generates 30 percent of the electricity for the company’s Longview pulp and paper mill.

Taydas said the company has yet to determine whether the electricity generated by the new plant, which could be in operation by the third quarter of 2011 if approved, would be used to power its operations or whether it will sell the power into an energy market thirsty for renewable fuel sources.

At 65 megawatts of capacity, it would be the largest wood-fueled biomass plant proposed in the Pacific Northwest and about the 14th largest in North America, according to William Perritt, executive editor of the Wood Biomass Market Report, a publication of Bedford, Mass.-based RISI Inc.

The project is the latest in a growing list of wood-fired biomass electricity plants either proposed or in development in Washington.

The state has six combined heat and power plants in operation, another eight in some stage of active development, and another 19 proposed, according to data from the Washington Department of Commerce.

The Longview Fibre project is now the third biomass project proposed in Longview, alongside two 25-megawatt projects from Northwest Renewables Inc. and Rappaport Energy Consulting LLC, whose plant will also produce ethanol, said Peter Moulson, a senior energy policy specialist with the Washington commerce department.

The state of Washington, like Oregon, has an abundance of biomass feedstock, much of it relatively cheap. But Moulson said the challenge for independent energy developers has been managing the cost of transporting it to a plant.

“That’s why you’re getting a lot of attention at mills,” he said. “They have it available at known volumes and known prices and it’s a consistent material.”

Meanwhile, the possibility of selling in-demand renewable energy on the market could offer a new line of revenue for companies struggling with the weak pulp and paper market.

Taydas said Longview Fibre’s proposal isn’t designed to offset a weak pulp and paper market. She declined to offer revenue for the company, which was sold in April 2007 to Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management Inc. for $2.15 billion.

Instead, the plant is considered a long-term investment in the company’s Longview mill.

The company employs 1,700 at its Longview manufacturing plant and seven other plants across the Western U.S. that produce corrugated boxes.

She said the company is still studying various options to finance the plant.

“It’s a complex facility and the strategy is to use more biomass-based energy and improve our efficiency at the mill,” Taydas said.

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