Could the Wallkill Valley have its own local utility?
By Shawn Dell Joyce
One of the biggest import leaks in our county is energy. We bring energy into our region in the form of Appalachian coal and nuclear energy. But we also produce energy through hydropower dams on the Wallkill. Now imagine for a second what it would be like if we actually met all our electric needs through local, cleaner sources? We would eliminate the cost of delivery, and environmental destruction.
Now imagine if we all owned that local company as shareholders. Like a public utility that we all invested our savings in. Our bills would be lower, and we would regulate the company for the benefit of the community.
Taylor Biomass is a proposed waste recovery center that will convert 500 tons of waste into approximately 25 Megawatts of electric power, daily. That’s enough to power 25,000 homes. The primary product is a synthesis gas that is used to generate electricity. Byproducts from this process include silica ash that could be used for concrete, and a small amount of emissions, less than 100 tons per year. This is the same amount of emissions generated by the electric and heating use of 10 average houses.
Taylor points out that “the waste generated locally could be used to produce electricity to use locally.” This would eliminate the emission created by trucking the waste to Pennsylvania landfills, and lengthy power lines cutting through towns to meet power needs. Taylor could become our new local power utility company.
The electricity generated by Taylor’s Biomass plant would be cleaner and greener than coal-fired or nuclear energy. It would be a boon to the local economy in that a huge chunk of each household’s monthly energy bills would stay local. Right now, promised Federal funding is evaporating for this project, putting its future in jeopardy. It would be a shame for our region to lose this valuable resource due to short-sighted politics.
The Taylor Biomass facility will not only create electricity, but also jobs. High tech jobs in particular, which is something sorely needed in Montgomery. Taylor intends to build a corporate headquarters and training center that would be used to train delegates from other areas in how to operate their own gasifiers and recycling facilities.
“I’ll be creating 24 jobs for the gasifier, 50 new jobs in processing and 40 high tech jobs in the corporate headquarters,” explains Taylor. “Orange County College graduates will be given first consideration.” Taylor is firmly committed to using local labor and materials to construct his facility, and hiring local graduates to run it. That’s a lot of money flowing into the local economy.
I’m not a wealthy woman, but I’d be willing to invest in Taylor to see it happen. I’m sure there are plenty of you who would, too. If only 5,000 people that live in the region potentially powered by Taylor (1/5th of the households) were willing to invest just $500, we could raise more than $2,500,000 to make Taylor’s vision a reality. Considering the risks of the stock market, and the pounding most of our investments have taken over the past few years, this one sounds like a much surer bet.
Taylor has thrown his lot in with us every step of the way. He’s worked to keep this project in our region, and the benefits local. Now it’s our turn to help him get his project started, then become our community-owned electric company.
Shawn Dell Joyce is a nationally syndicated newspaper journalist and director of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery. Shawn@zestoforange.com
March 16th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
I’d invest if I could get power in ulster county.
March 19th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
I love your posts, and signed up the whole of Orange Environment (OE) to Zest because I knew everyone would like them. I am an OE member, and the organization has been very enthusiastic about Taylor… that is, until the Environmental Impact Statement came out. I’d rather that somebody from OE who was more technologically sophisticated than I responded, but as I understand it, the problem is that his project is operating essentially like an incineration plant. He says that there will be less pollutants than in other incinerators because he has a special process, but he can’t reveal some of the characteristics of that process.
The other issue is that a system like his discourages recycling and separation of the waste stream because it needs high volume of materials to maintain the heat needed to run cleanly.
I know I have not done justice to the arguments on either side, but anyway, before you invest all your hard-earned money do look into what’s actually happening at the plant more carefully.