In response to a Drew Thornley post yesterday:

Hmm, let’s see . . . 2.7 Gigawatts for about $6 billion ($2.2 million per megawatt) or 100 megawatts for about $2.3 billion ($23 million per megawatt). For the “Berkeley-of-Texas” the answer is easy – take the path that allows everyone to feel real good about themselves — well then, biomass it is!
Moral vanity will always trump cost in Austin. Those people are loons and deserve the money pit they’re about to build.

And then there’s this:

I work at a coal powerplant. We are considering co-firing biomass with coal. Generating 18 MW from biomass is our plan, and it is going to take a LOT of biomass (luckily, we are located in a heavily forested area). I just happen to have a handy dandy spreadsheet that tells me how much biomass will be needed by the folks in Austin, TX to generate 100 MW of power. They will need 2,756 tons per day, every day, for the next 20 years. Another way of looking at it: about six tractor trailers loaded with 20 tons of wood chips every hour, 24/7, for the next 20 years. Is it really that heavily forested around Austin? If it is, it won’t be for long!