Placer County planning commissioners in late December approved a conditional use permit and certified the environmental impact report for a proposed biomass facility between Tahoe City and Truckee.

The project includes a 2 megawatt facility that will use woody biomass from the surrounding forests to create energy.

The project will be located on county owned property at the Cabin Creek materials recycling facility off Highway 89 near the Placer/Nevada county border. The facility will use gasification technology to convert the biomass material into a synthesis gas, which would then be used as fuel for an internal combustion engine/generator that would produce electricity.

An 11,000-square foot building would be built to house the power generating and emissions control equipment and a 1-acre fuel storage area.

Biomass currently being removed from surrounding U.S. Forest Service, state and private land for wildfire fuel reduction efforts would be taken to this facility.

Instead of burning the material it would be converted into gas, which in turn will power an internal combustion engine that would turn turbines to produce electricity.

 — Lake Tahoe News staff report