GENERATING ELECTRICITY FROM COMMON SENSE

ASHLAND'S ELECTRICAL GENERATING PLANT...

...POWERED BY MULTIPLE  FUEL SOURCES, INCLUDING COAL...

...AND HUGE AMOUNTS OF WOOD SAWDUST

Tuesday, 8:00 AM.  29 degrees F at the ferry dock, 27 on the back porch.  Wind variable and calm, the sky mostly clear, but with heavy fog engulfing the channel.  The humidity is  93%.  The barometer is on a long free-fall from it's current 29.96" of mercury, predicting mixed skies and warmer temperatures in the 30's and 40's, with a chance of rain showers as the weekend draws near.

    Excel Energy's Ashland Bayfront Generating Station uses multiple sources of fuel for power, including huge amounts of wood sawdust mixed with powdered coal.  The sawdust comes from area companies that make doors, window frames, strand board and other manufactured wood products, important local businesses dependent on the forests of the region.  It can also burn logging debris, old railroad ties and tires.  It recently underwent extensive retrofitting to meet all current air quality standards.  The plant accepts waste from facilities within a 75 mile radius, at current trucking costs.

   Without this unique facility an enormous amount of sawdust  that currently produces income would go to landfills, at great expense and waste of natural resources.  The coal is shipped to Ashland by huge lake cargo boats.

   I gauge the health of the regional wood products industry in part by watching the constant delivery of sawdust by tractor trailer trucks, and the size of the sawdust pile.  By my observations, at least, the wood products industry is booming.

   This power plant is an important part of the local economy and represents an intelligent use of natural resources and economic opportunities.  Rather than taking it off-line because it used coal as a fuel, it was years ago converted to using mainly a waste product, sawdust. 

   This plant should serve as a model for the industry, not only  in the conservation of natural resources, but in thinking outside the box to extend the life and usefulness of facilities that are enormously expensive to build and difficult to amortize.
   Our society too often goes to extremes in how it interprets science and technology, and uses ideology and dogma to make political and economic decisions, instead of facts and common sense.
    This plant is truly generating electricity from common sense.