Associated Electric partners in 'green' research project

The Springfield-based co-op, which serves more than 850,000 customers in rural Missouri, southeast Iowa and northeast Oklahoma, has partnered with two professors at Lincoln University and Missouri University of Science and Technology on the empirical endeavor.

The research will take place at the Chamois Power Plant, a small coal-fired facility situated on the Missouri River east of the capital. Flue gas emitted by the plant will be piped into the 2,000-gallon pools, or algae cultivation ponds, to grow algal biomass that could be used to make biodiesel, ethanol and livestock feed.

“The big problem is that there really isn’t any technology currently available to handle CO2, so all of these research projects are important,” said AECI spokeswoman Nancy Southworth. “We’re trying to find the best way to capture that CO2 and then what we are going to do with it.”

Alternative fuel options

The chance to divert CO2 emissions from the atmosphere appealed to the member-owned co-op, said Southworth, who noted that the project’s scope goes one step further by growing algae for alternative fuels. Algae yield oil is the main ingredient for biodiesel, and carbohydrates can be used to make ethanol.

“It might not be useful directly to us for (power) generation, but if you produce a product that has value then you can offset some of your cost,” she said.

Southworth said AECI has committed $50,000 in engineering and in-kind services to the research project, which will be led by Lincoln University associate biology professor Keesoo Lee and husband Paul Nam, an assistant chemistry professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla.

Lee said her students would first add seed culture to the pools to initiate the growth of two different algae strains. Flue gas will eventually be funneled to the pools from the plant with piping that has yet to be designed and installed by plant engineers, she added.

Lee said flue gas entering the pools would be mixed with air, or aerated, but she was unsure how the algae would respond to other chemicals contained in the gas. CO2 could be removed from the flue gas, but Lee said the process would be costly.

One year of research

Although a timeline for beginning the project hasn’t been created, Lee said that after a year of monitoring algae growth and making necessary modifications, the research team hopes to implement a large-scale version of the project at a power plant in either Thomasville near West Plains or the Bootheel town of New Madrid.

Southworth said the Chamois plant – operated by AECI affiliate Central Electric Power Cooperative – is the perfect fit for the algae research project. The plant previously has experimented with a range of biomass waste products, including shelled corn, walnut hulls, railroad ties and now turkey processing sludge, to generate electricity. Walnut hulls recovered from the Stockton area after the May 2003 tornadoes were crushed and blended with coal that was burned to produce 4,825 megawatt hours at the plant, according to Central Electric’s Web site.

Southworth said AECI and its affiliates would continue to explore ways to reduce carbon emissions and keep customer costs under control.

AECI provides wholesale power to six regional and 51 local electric co-ops.

“As we watch Congress work on global-warming legislation, we know that some of the early things they’ve considered are going to be very expensive for our owner-members,” she said. “We are interested in developing technology that will control carbon dioxide the way society wants it controlled but will not overburden the consumer.”[[In-content Ad]]