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Tapping into the market: Local firms profit by taking
a risk, helping environment
By BECKY W. EVANS
Standard-Times staff writer
 It
is said that New Bedford once "lit the world" with whale
oil and spermaceti candles procured and produced by the
city's whaling industry, which thrived in the first-half
of the 19th century only to collapse in the second half
with the discovery of petroleum products.
More than 100 years later, the world's dependence on oil
for energy is being blamed for global warming as well as
conflict in the Middle East. Escalating oil prices feed
the public's disillusionment with so-called dirty oil
and drive demand for cleaner energy derived from the
sun, wind, waves, tides, soybeans and other renewable
sources.
By tapping into the growing market for alternative
energy sources that emit few, if any, global warming
gases, New Bedford officials hope to stimulate the
city's stagnant economy and create much-needed jobs.
"We want to be the key source of alternative energy
research and production," Mayor Scott W. Lang said
during a global warming rally this spring at the New
Bedford Whaling Museum.
With its deep-water port, rail access, cheap housing and
skilled labor force, New Bedford has the potential to
attract manufacturers of wind turbine parts, solar
panels and a variety of other alternative energy
products, said Matthew Morrissey, executive director of
the New Bedford Economic Development Council.
"The Northeast has massive opportunities for offshore
wind," Mr. Morrissey said. "Turbines and wind blades
have to be made somewhere."
The city appears to have the support of the
administration of Gov. Deval Patrick, which is seeking
to expand the state's burgeoning alternative energy
sector for the same reasons as New Bedford: economic
development and job creation.
"It might actually work in New Bedford €¦ and we want to
help with that," said Ian Bowles, secretary of the state
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Massachusetts is home to 556 companies specializing in
energy efficiency, renewable energy or clean energy
consulting, state officials said. The so-called clean
energy technology cluster has created 14,400 jobs and is
the second largest in the country, after California, in
terms of venture capital investment in the industry,
which was $250 million in 2006.
At the inaugural meeting of the state's Clean Energy
Roundtable in June, Gov. Patrick told two dozen
executives about his strategy to make Massachusetts a
"world center of clean energy technology." It includes a
streamlined permitting process for sites, financial
incentives to attract companies and a reformed
regulatory environment that supports clean energy.
Since Gov. Patrick took office in January, the
administration's business development and energy and
environment officials have met with 50 clean energy
companies from inside and outside the state. Their first
victory came in April, when Evergreen Solar Inc. of
Marlborough announced plans to build its first U.S.
manufacturing plant in Westborough.
The state lured Evergreen with $23 million in grants, up
to $17.5 million in low-interest loans, and a low-cost,
30-year lease of the state-owned property in
Westborough, according to the Associated Press.
The $150 million plant is expected to create up to 375
jobs when it opens next year.
Massachusetts scored big again in June, when the U.S.
Department of Energy chose Charlestown to host a $20
million wind-turbine blade-testing facility.
The announcement was a blow to New Bedford, which had
lobbied for the facility to be located on the South
Terminal waterfront, next to the Shuster Corp. on Hassey
Street. The site was ruled out due to dredging
requirements and a study showing it lacked space to move
the 330-foot long blades.
Mayor Lang says nothing was lost in trying to compete
for the facility.
"I think it was an important exercise to show people we
can be a real strong city in regard to providing
opportunities for alternative fuels or science," he
said. "I am still very enthusiastic."
He cites two local companies, Ze-Gen and Vectrix, as
evidence that an alternative energy cluster is taking
shape in New Bedford.
Ze-Gen set up a trash-to-energy test facility at New
Bedford Waste Services, LLC on Shawmut Avenue at the
suggestion of the state Department of Environmental
Protection, which permitted the project. The
Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the state's
development agency for renewable energy, awarded
$500,000 for the facility. An additional $600,000
investment came from the Massachusetts Technology
Development Corp., a venture capital firm.
The biomass company plans to spend the next year testing
whether its gasification technology can convert
construction and demolition waste, mostly wood, into a
synthetic natural gas that would later be combusted to
create electricity. The process is expected to emit
fewer global warming gases than leaving the waste in a
landfill or generating the electricity from fossil
fuels.
If the concept proves successful, company president Bill
Davis says the next step would be building a full scale
plant, most likely in New Bedford.
"We've had enormous receptivity on the part of the city,
which is creating a cluster around clean technology," he
said. "That kind of commitment from the city makes it a
whole lot easier to move quickly, and our objective is
to move quickly €¦ There is a great local workforce
available to us and relationships have already been
built."
On the opposite side of the city, Vectrix has been
designing and testing high-performance electric scooters
for the past nine years in the old Berkshire Hathaway
mill complex in the South End. The company has 21
employees.
Peter Hughes, vice president of technology for Vectrix,
says New Bedford was chosen for the pilot testing
facility due to its cheap rent, access to good
engineering talent, and proximity to Providence, Boston
and Cape Cod. Those same features should continue to
draw alternative energy companies to the area, Mr.
Hughes said.
The company is opening a scooter manufacturing facility
in Poland to be near its target market in Italy, he
said. Electric scooters, which don't pollute the air as
much as gas-powered scooters, are in high demand in
Europe, but the market has yet to take off in the United
States.
Jim Sweeney of Sustainable New Energy, also known as CCI
Energy, calls himself an energy consultant and project
developer. He opened the New Bedford branch of his
Plymouth-based company at the Quest Center on Purchase
Street in January 2007, hoping to gain a foothold in
SouthCoast's emerging renewable energy sector. So far,
he is involved with turbine projects in Fairhaven and
Dartmouth, and has proposed an additional project to
power the New Bedford wastewater treatment plant with
three turbines.
Mr. Sweeney, who was recently appointed to the mayor's
sustainability task force, is optimistic that
alternative energy could bring economic rewards to New
Bedford, but to attract more companies the city needs to
improve its green image.
"New Bedford has got to be the leader in environmental
issues to make people want to set up shop here," he
said.
He suggests the city install "lots of renewable energy"
and push the use of biodiesel as an alternative fuel for
the fishing fleet.
Commerical fishing fleets contribute to global warming
by burning fossils such as marine diesel. The world's
fisheries account for about 1.2 percent of global oil
consumption and emit 130 million tons of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere each year, according to a 2005 study
published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. If
ranked as a country, fisheries would share the
Netherlands' position as the 18th most oil consuming
nation in the world.
Other items on Mr. Sweeney's "green wish list" for the
city include new building codes that promote energy
efficiency as well as bylaws for zoning areas for wind
turbines.
Clyde Barrow, executive director of UMass Dartmouth's
Center for Policy Analysis, doesn't think New Bedford
needs to get any greener to attract alternative energy
companies, though, he says, it could provide an added
incentive.
"One of the things governments can do with new
industries is provide an initial market for that
project," Dr. Barrow said. "It becomes a way to nurture
and incubate those firms."
Examples include using wind to power wastewater
treatment plants or solar to power schools and other
municipal buildings, he said.
To woo Evergreen to Westborough, the state set a goal of
increasing installed solar power from 2 megawatts to 250
megawatts within 10 years, according to state officials.
It also brokered a partnership between Evergreen and
NSTAR to market solar power to electricity customers.
Gestures such as that will help attract additional clean
energy companies to Massachusetts, said Warren Leon, who
directs the Renewable Energy Trust for the Massachusetts
Technology Collaborative. "Companies go to states where
they feel wanted," Mr. Leon said. "I think clean energy
companies feel wanted in Massachusetts."
The trust, which is the financial arm of the
collaborative, recently made a $300,000 loan to a small
start-up company in Fall River. Ocean Renewable Power
Company, which is setting up its headquarters at the
UMass Dartmouth Advanced Technology and Manufacturing
Center in Fall River, will build systems that generate
electricity from ocean tidal energy, Mr. Leon said.
He says the company is a good example of the type of
alternative energy businesses that will be attracted to
Massachusetts. Bigger manufacturing facilities such as
Evergreen Solar will be the exception.
"We are seeing a large number of small start-up
companies," he said. "We hope that some of these
companies will grow and prosper and that ultimately
there will be a large number of jobs."
Whether those jobs will come to New Bedford is difficult
to predict.
"We could extol the virtues of various parts of the
state, but ultimately companies have to decide based on
their business interests," he said.
Mr. Morrissey, who heads up the New Bedford Economic
Development Council, says New Bedford is well positioned
to become a center for alternative energy, but the city
isn't banking on the sector as its only economic driver.
He sees alternative energy as "a spoke on the wheel"
along with life sciences, healthcare, biotechnology and
marine science.
"New Bedford's economy must be diversified to sustain
the ups and owns," he said. "In the past, the city was
too dependent on one industry. We have to diversify."
It remains to be seen if New Bedford's alternative
energy sector will grow large enough to light the world
again—or at least, SouthCoast.
Contact Becky W. Evans at
revans@s-t.com
Published: July 29, 2007 |
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