Burning Wood.
This entry was posted on 1/5/2007 3:50 PM and is filed under Photo Trips, RSS 2.0.
Public Service of New Hampshire's Schiller Station Power Plant as seen from Elliot, Maine.
Yesterday, I completed an "ecophotography" assignment that was different from our normal work for several reasons. First, the job was only a few miles from home here in Portsmouth, New Hamphire. Second, it was for a major utility company (in this case Public Service of New Hampshire) instead of our typical conservation organization clientele. Third, I completed about half the shoot harnessed into the back seat of a helicopter with the doors removed - now that's having some fun in January in New Hampshire! Actually, we lucked out with the temperature as it was in the upper 30's when we took off at 8:30 a.m.
About 3 1/2 years ago PSNH began the process to replace one of their 50 megawatt coal-fired boilers at their Schiller Station electric generation plant in Newington, New Hampshire, with a wood chip-fired boiler. I photographed the old plant in 2003 to document how it looked before new construction began. The new wood-fired boiler recently went on-line and is one of the largest renewable energy projects to be completed in the U.S. this decade and it is the only one to replace an existing fossil fuel plant. The new boiler reduces the amount of coal burned at the Schiller plant by 130,000 tons a year and significantly reduces emmissions (Nitrogen by 70%, Mercury by 90%, and Sulfur Dioxide by 95%.) It is also CO2 neutral. All this made it a project I was happy to get on board with. You can read more about the project at: http://www.psnh.com/Energy/ENERGYPROJECT/NWPP/overview.html.
Schiller from the air.
I had some nice light to shoot the plant on Wednesday morning. I shot from across the Piscataqua River in Elliot, Maine. The new wood-fired boiler's smokestack is the one on the far left. The light was supposed to be good yesterday for the helicopter shoot as well, but clouds moved in pretty much as we boarded the helicopter at 8:30. Even though it was pretty warm for January in New Hampshire, I was glad to be wearing long underwear, flannel lined Carhart jeans, a down jacket, a wool hat, and polypro glove liners. This was my third time shooting from a helicopter and I must say it is a joy compared to shooting from a small plane. The ability to hover and fine tune compositions at will is spectacular. With the cloud cover, the photographs lacked the drama some nice shadows would have provided, but it was stil an interesting ride and it was cool to see Portsmouth again from the air.
The wood shed.
Once on the ground, I drove to the plant and photographed some details of the wood chip operation - mainly piles of chips and conveyer belt systems. The chips are delivered by tractor trailers which are driven onto these lifts that basically tilt the trucks up to an almost vertical position so the wood chips can fall out the back. That was pretty cool to see in action.
A tractor trailer unloading wood ships.
All in all it was quite an unusual day for a photographer who is used to spending his time alone in the woods or in a canoe!
