Center Planning To Build Biomass Electricity Plant in Mississippi

The Center for Environment, Commerce & Energy (Center) is working to build a biomass-to-electricity plant that will primarily utilize wood chips as the feedstock.  The plant will be located in Port Gibson, Mississippi.   The Center is working in cooperation with National Clean Fuels (NACF) to implement its Port Gibson Biomass-To-Electricity (BTE) Project.

The Center and NACF have a Letter of Commitment from the Town of Port Gibson to proceed with the project.  Center President Norris McDonald and NACF President Maurice Stone recently met at the Center K Street office in Washington, DC to finalize preparations for initiating the scoping process for the project.  McDonald has been to Port Gibson many times and the last trip included a tour of the Mississippi River and Lake Yucatan in Northcentral Louisiana. 

BTE Project engineering will be provided by General Vortex Energy, Inc (GVE) with supplemental engineering and technical services provided by Dyson Engineering and Technical Services (DET Services) .  GVE is a development company founded in 2002.  GVE’s latest technology innovation is its “Vortex Combustor,” which is capable of burning virtually any gaseous, liquid, or bio-mass fuels.  DET Services is a consulting engineering firm that specializes in engineering projects, environmental services, hazardous materials management, technical training, technical support tasks, project management and planning.

We envision a ten megawatt, wood chip/sawdust syngas turbine power plant that will operate as a base load unit.  We expect a capacity factor of at least 90 percent.  It is anticipated that the plant will consume approximately one ton of wood chips per hour.  The power plant will couple a wood gasifier to a turbine, which will more than match the efficiency (30-35%) of conventional coal-fired power stations in converting fuel to electricity. Wood gas is a syngas that is produced by thermal gasification of biomass. It is the result of two high-temperature reactions (1,292 °F): an exothermic reaction where carbon burns to CO₂ but is then reduced partially back to CO where carbon reacts with steam, producing carbon monoxide (CO), molecular hydrogen (H₂), and carbon dioxide (CO₂). In several gasifiers, the actual gasification process is preceded by pyrolysis, where the biomass or coal turns into char, releasing methane (CH₄).
 Scoping Visit 1

 Scoping Visit 2

 Scoping Visit 3