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Savannah Company Wins Nova Scotia Mining Rights, Develops "Green" Energy Park

Posted on: Saturday, 7 January 2006, 00:00 CST

By Eric Curl, Savannah Morning News, Ga.

Jan. 5--In recent years the privately run fixed-base marine facility expanded outside logistics and distribution into a number of different capital ventures, including the energy market.

"As a small company I knew we had to diversify," said President E. Gay Mayfield.

Peeples has four Georgia power plants under development. Mayfield said the company's newly formed energy ambition is to "combine efficiently and effectively fossil fuels with renewables."

The company was recently awarded part of the mineral rights to the Donkin coal mine near Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, which contains an estimated 200 million tons of coal.

Peeples's affiliate, American Transbridge Technologies LLC, will have about a 14 percent stake in an alliance that includes Xstrata Coal of Sydney, Australia, the world's largest producer of thermal coal, and Kaoclay Resources Inc. of Halifax.

The alliance will soon begin a two-year, $10 million to $15 million feasibility study at the site. Once the project is determined to be viable, the mine is expected to have a 20-year life expectancy.

"This is much bigger than anything we've ever done before," Mayfield said.

Peeples' role in the project is to maximize the commercial value of the resource by developing a multitude of coal products, develop coal markets in the U.S. East Coast power industry, and design distribution systems to access these markets.

In addition, Peeples will work with Atlanta-based Biomass, Gas & Electric to develop a "Green Energy Park" at the site. The 650-megawatt park will combine "clean coal" gasification technologies with biomass gasification and wind energy as well as power generation from methane capture.

The biomass gasification power plant converts organic materials such as wood chips or agricultural waste into a gas that can substitute natural gas.

BG&E president Glenn Farris said there are many advantages to using biomass fuels over traditional energy sources.

Biomass has high chemical reactivity so it takes less energy to complete the gasification process. The plants are also smaller because the fuel requires less machinery to combust.

Farris said the biomass plant in Cape Breton would be between 50 and 60 megawatts -- enough to power approximately 50,000 to 60,000 homes on a daily basis -- and would fit relatively easily on a site of about ten acres.

Biomass is considered a "carbon neutral" energy source, in that the carbon dioxide released is absorbed by the trees or plant life that in turn can be used to fuel the facility. Farris said biomass power has also become less expensive than typical forms of power generation.

Mayfield hopes biomass's benefits eventually lead to the energy source meeting 15 to 20 percent of energy production in the future, but doesn't foresee it replacing traditional sources entirely.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Savannah Morning News, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Savannah Morning News

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