In the biggest step forward towards fulfilling Fairfield’s Go-Green Strategic Plan; the City Council voted unanimously last week to support matching funding for a $485,000 project to improve the energy efficiency of city owned buildings, including City Hall, Public Works, the Library, the Recreational Center, Waterworks, Fire Department and Wastewater.

“We’re excited,” reports Mayor Ed Malloy. “This project puts our Sustainability Plan in action and sets the city in a position to lead by example. The grant funds will save our budget nearly $90,000 year in energy costs by improving energy efficiency and reducing energy waste.”

Councilperson Martha Norbeck lead the project by working with Alliant Energy to perform energy audits for the city buildings.  You can read the details of the energy audits here.  Note, the Law Center is excluded from the project since it is a County facility.

A breakdown of the costs:

• $485,000 – Total estimated cost of making improvements to facilities.
• $200,000 – Approximate contribution from City of Fairfield towards project costs.
• $118,000 – Estimated rebates for improvements according to Alliant Energy.
• $162000 – Federal Stimulus funding approved by The Iowa Office of Energy Independence.

A breakdown of the savings:

• $387,000 – Approximate annual energy costs of Electric and Natural Gas for facilities receiving improvements as part of the program.
• $179,623 – Annual energy costs for the biggest spender, Waterworks.
• $64,288 – Annual energy costs for Rec Center.
• $85,300 – Projected annual savings in energy costs after improvements are completed.
• 22% – Reduction in total annual energy costs for all facilities after improvements are completed.
• 43% – Biggest single reduction in annual energy costs, the Rec Center.
• 7 – Number of years to payback project costs based on projected savings.

According to a new study from Purdue University, future expansion of ethanol production from corn would mean higher loadings of fertilizers and pesticides to water resources. The study found that water sources near fields of continuous corn had higher levels of nitrogen, phosphorous and fungicides than corn-soybean rotations. The study did not compare perennial crops, but no doubt they would be even more protective of water resources because perennial crops better protect the soil from erosion and nitrate leaching, and require less pesticide use.

More information about the study can be found at Lab News

This study calls attention to the urgent need to accelerate development of technology to produce biofuels from perennial crops, which protect the soil and require fewer inputs of fertilizers and pesticides than corn. Technologies under development that would fill this need include cellulosic ethanol production and pyrolysis, both of which could use biomass from perennial crops.

Pyrolysis is a process of heating biomass in the absence of oxygen to produce gaseous and liquid fuels that can be converted to gasoline and diesel fuel. Another byproduct of pyrolysis is biochar, a charcoal material that can serve as a carbon-sequestering soil amendment that improves soil fertility.

The future for biofuels production from perennial crops through pyrolysis looks promising, though more research is needed to fully develop the technology. Pyrolysis produces a higher energy yield per unit of biomass and has a smaller carbon footprint than ethanol production.

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