July - September, 2012
St. Louis area firms complete biomass boiler project at the University of Missouri-Columbia
By: Robert Kelly
St. Louis Post-dispatch
Ladue-based McCarthy Building Cos. Inc., Chesterfield-based CB&E Construction Group and Fenton-based Kaiser Electric crews completed a project for the University of Missouri - Columbia that replaces a coal boiler at its Columbia campus power plant with a more efficient and cleaner biomass unit.
The new boiler, which was retrofitted to the university'sexisting heating duct system, is expected to use an estimated 100,000 tons of in-state renewable energy sources such as chipped hardwoods and wood waste.
The new unit is also expected to reduce the campus' fossil fuel use by 25 percent. Since 2007, the power plant has been using about 5,000 tons of biomass per year, plus coal, in its other boilers.
Along with wiring the new biomass boiler, Kaiser Electric crews also provided electrical service, lighting and control and instrumentation wiring on the $75 million project.
The general contractor on the project was McCarthy in partnership with CB&E Construction Group. Sega Engineering and Technical Services of Overland Park, Kansas was the project engineer.