Gov. Matt Blunt late last week highlighted the state’s efforts to save environmental resources by showcasing an energy project to heat the South Central Correctional Center at Licking.
“The new biomass boilers installed at the South Central Correctional Center are the latest example demonstrating our commitment to Missouri taxpayers to be wise stewards of their tax dollars and our limited natural resources while at the same time constantly exploring ways to improve our overall efficiency,” Gov. Blunt said while visiting the 1,600-bed maximum security prison on West Highway 32.
The South Central Correctional Center will use new biomass boilers for heat and hot water requirements. Wood chips will become the primary fuel, replacing propane as the primary heat source. The wood chips used to fuel the new biomass boilers will be purchased from a Missouri company at a lower cost than propane. The new biomass project will result in about $450,000 in annual energy cost savings at current prices at the Texas County site, Blunt said. The project was made possible through the cooperative efforts of the Office of Administration, the Department of Corrections and Johnson Controls.
Blunt recently signed legislation to encourage Missourians to consider environmentally responsible products and reward their choice by making them sales tax free for one week every year. Missouri is only the fourth state to enact an environmentally friendly sales tax holiday joining Connecticut, Florida and Virginia. The legislation creates the “Show-Me Green Sales Tax Holiday” April 19 – 25. All sales of Energy-Star Certified new appliances, up to $1,500, will be exempt from state sales tax.
Blunt signed into law last summer an act that is aimed at the use of
renewable energy sources such as wind, hydroelectricity, solar power, hydrogen and biomass. The law sets targets for utilities to meet: a 4 percent renewable energy target by 2012, 8 percent by 2015 and 11 percent by 2020. The law also requires the Office of Administration to ensure that at least 70 percent of the new vehicles purchased for the state fleet are flex fuel and allows municipal landfills to accept yard waste to create bio-reactors which produce methane gas for use in energy production.
In 2006, a bill was signed into law that requires all gasoline offered for sale in Missouri to contain 10 percent ethanol (E-10).