The city of Austin considers a multi-billion dollar investment in a "biomass" power plant, burning wood waste in East Texas as a carbon-neutral, renewable energy source.
"The city-run utility is on the verge of going forward with a $2.3 billion, 20-year contract for the power that includes paying for the construction of the plant, which will be fueled by wood waste.
Officials with Austin Energy say the contract could lower the average residential customer's bill as much as $1.50 or raise it as much as $2.50 per month once the plant comes online in 2012, depending on future regulation, government incentives and fluctuations in the price of traditional fuels. They did not provide rate estimates beyond 2012.
Also lingering are questions about the plant's effect on air and water quality and whether there is enough wood waste near the plant near Sacul, north of Nacogdoches, to fuel it.
Austin Energy is interested in biomass power because the plants are considered carbon-neutral. The contract would also be a hedge on traditional fuel prices, officials said: They say the price of biomass fuel, once transportation to the plant is factored in, is comparable to that of natural gas. But having a 20-year contract would make that price more stable than natural gas prices, officials said."
FULL STORY: Austin's biomass power plans raise questions

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Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

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More than a century ago, San Francisco mobilized to house thousands of residents displaced by the 1906 earthquake. Could their strategy offer a model for the present?

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Without reform, restrictive zoning codes will limit the impact of the city’s planned transit expansion and could exclude some of the residents who depend on transit the most.

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