Story by Dan Shell,
Western Editor
Timber Harvesting has long promoted wood-based residuals from forests and other sources as key to developing a growing renewable fuel industry in the U.S. Yet in many cases increased woody biomass utilization not only provides green energy but also additional benefits.
This issue features an article on northwest Oregon biomass producer Biomass Harvesting, which began operations three years ago as a subsidiary of long-time successful logging company Bighorn Logging. While learning the business and gaining operational efficiency, the company completed a very interesting study of its overall work, compiling performance numbers across more than 70 jobs and cross-referencing the results.
Among the numbers detailing loads per day and net bone dry tons and more, the study found that Biomass Harvesting had reclaimed more than 300 acres that would have never been replanted at all if not for biomass removal.
Whether the tract is producing sawlogs or pulpwood, that’s more money directly in the landowner’s pocket and a big benefit for landowners to realize a future payoff through biomass utilization.
And in this specific case of biomass utilization on a large tree farm near Oregon’s coastal resort areas, the avoided costs associated with slash burning operations and the elimination of complaints when coastal wind currents move smoke from the hillsides to picturesque seaside towns are additional non-fuel biomass benefits.
The non-fuel benefits of biomass utilization also come to mind while watching coverage of the catastrophic Arizona wildfires that burned for half the summer. I exchanged emails with Henry Provencio of the Forest Service, who has the task of heading up the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, a massive national forest health project across four national forests in northern Arizona, encompassing several million acres, over 20 years.
The project is key to reducing wildfire risk and future environmental and property damage from wildfire, but implementation is difficult aside from trying to coax long-opposed interest groups into working together and approve projects and policies. Much of the material produced from restoration activities such as thinning and brush clearing is low-value, barely merchantable timber and biomass.
The biggest obstacle to the project’s full implementation, Provencia believes, is the lack of industry and market demand for such material. (Hence the idea to “go big” with the project to provide long-term consistency of raw material supply for private interests seeking to use the material.)
Here, the critical need is not the fuel; it’s the restoration of forest health. Yet biomass utilization stands to be a big part of the solution in an era of declining sawlog timber sales and lack of congressional funding that would pay for forest restoration activities. Similar forest health dynamics are in place across the U.S. West, where overstocked forests have been hit hard by drought and pest infestations, leaving large amounts of wildfire fuel. And in those situations as well, biomass utilization offers a win-win-win situation for environmentalists, industry interests and taxpayers.
Of course wood is a fully renewable and sustainable energy source, but its increased utilization also delivers benefits beyond mere fuel, providing even more reasons to make biomass a big part of the nation’s overall green energy effort.