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Willows could be third crop... Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Agri News staff writer
WASECA, Minn. -- Farmers within 50 miles of Waseca could soon be growing trees as a third crop.
NGP Power wants to build a 35-megawatt closed loop biomass power plant in Waseca. The plant would burn willows, hybrid poplars, urban wood waste, corn stover and other annuals.
Construction could start this fall on the $85 million plant that would employ 25 to 30 people, said Rus Miller, NGP operations vice president. Another 50 to 70 people would be hired to harvest hybrid poplars and willows. The power plant is expected to be operating by late 2006.
The company is looking for land to lease or for farmers who want to grow trees to fuel the plant.
Miller and Duaine Flanders, plantation coordinator, spoke last week to more than 30 people gathered at the University of Minnesota Southern Research and Outreach Center in Waseca.
Miller said the company is looking for 20,000 acres of trees over four years to five years. But not just any tree will qualify. NGP proposes to plant willows and hybrid poplars and harvest them every three years to five years.
He'd like to stick to parcels of 40 acres or more but is open to talking to owners of smaller parcels. He'd also like to grow the trees within 50 miles of the plant but is open to talking to those who have land farther away.
Miller said the company would sign 20-year leases with landowners. Lease rates would generally start at the land's crop equivalence rating multiplied by 100 percent or 110 percent, he said.
He doesn't want to get in a bidding war for the most productive land or for land targeted for commercial or residential development.
"We want all the marginal land," Flanders said.
"We would like to play 1,000 acres this spring," Miller said.
Liz Stahl, marketing and program assistant for the Blue Earth River Basin Initiative, said biomass crops might help the watershed improve its water quality.
The basin initiative has spent $3 million on projects aimed at improving water quality since 1993 but has failed to reach its water quality goals. The next step may be a cropping system change, Stahl said, and biomass crops such as willows and hybrid poplars fit the bill.
The trees might also help clean up the soil by taking pollutants from the ground. In Sweden, willows are planted around lakes to control phosphate runoff, Miller said. The trees can be used in riparian buffers, living snow fences and brownfield restoration. They also provide phytoremediation.
NGP's project grew out of a 1994 law allowing Excel Energy to store more spent nuclear fuel at its Prairie Island plant. The Public Utilities Commission has yet to rule on the project. |
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