August 2004 Newsletter

Commentary: Change Regulations to Encourage Power from Forests

Friday, July 23, 2004
By Steve Jolley, Guest Commentary

The Western United States faces potential energy shortfalls and dangerously overcrowded forests. These challenges may share a solution: biomass energy.

There’s power in trees. Power in their branches and in the fiber left over from turning trees into lumber, furniture, and everything else for which we use these renewable resources.

With non-renewable fuels providing the vast majority of our electricity, this ought to be the moment for biomass energy facilities to come into their own.

But they’re not. In California for example, more than half of the state’s biomass energy facilities – waste management operations that turn organic matter into electrical power – have closed since the industry’s peak in the 1990s.

Biomass energy is once again in vogue. It is discussed at forest health forums as a way to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire, and in governmental energy circles. Biomass is included in the Clean and Diversified Energy Initiative unanimously approved recently by the Western Governors’ Association, which set the goal of developing 30,000 megawatts of clean energy in the West by 2015. In late June, the House subcommittee on forests and forest health devoted a hearing to its potential as a use for the byproducts of forest thinning and hazardous fuel treatment programs.

There is plenty of biomass material available. In San Bernardino County, for example, the site of last year’s destructive wildfires, about 100 million dead trees still cover the mountains, and up to 3,000 tons of wood a day has been wasted in landfills or incinerators. It certainly seems logical to turn overgrown, dead and dying trees into the electricity we desperately need, and forecasts for this year’s fire season add a sense of urgency to reducing fuel loads.

But unless significant changes are made to make converting forest biomass into energy economically feasible, it is more likely to burn in wildfires than in power plants.

Though biomass energy facilities can use any forest material, it is the smaller trees that generally become fuel for energy. These low-value resources are expensive to harvest, if they can be harvested at all. Regulatory restrictions have reduced harvests from public land, where the accumulation of fuels and fire risk are greatest. In California, for example, harvesting on public land has dropped by about 90 percent since 1990.

For biomass energy to play a meaningful, long-term role in solving our forest health and energy crises, there must be regulatory relief that allows more harvesting of both small and larger trees on public lands.

There must be financial incentives to help offset the high cost of forest fuels, too. It takes about a ton of dry wood to produce one megawatt per hour – wood that is frequently trucked hundreds of miles. Wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power producers do not have to buy their fuel, and fossil fuels are relatively cheap. Biomass energy producers find themselves on an uneven playing field, paying for raw materials and transportation, and relying on other operations, such as sawmills, to survive.

Policies like the Healthy Forests Restoration Act may allow effective harvesting on public lands if activist lawsuits subside. But the act does not address the cost realities that hinder broader utilization of biomass for energy.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has taken an important step toward improving forest health by encouraging biomass energy production with a proposed tax credit for the biomass industry. If passed, the legislation would provide financial incentives to turn more forest materials into energy.

The alternative to increasing our use of biomass energy is to see thousands of tons of organic material either burned in wildfires or rotted in landfills. Aside from being wasteful uses of a renewable resource, both have detrimental environmental consequences.

Burning biomass for energy releases only five percent as much carbon monoxide and only three percent as much particulate matter into the atmosphere as burning it in the open. In fact, biomass energy dramatically reduces greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants compared to all other organic waste disposal options, including composting, spreading, and landfills. And our landfills do not have an infinite capacity.

Without a reliable fuel supply and incentives that make expanding biomass power operations financially feasible, the biomass industry faces continued economic uncertainty.

If, however, an environmentally responsible approach to tree harvesting and forest management were adopted throughout the Western United States, the increase in biomass material supply could sustain a greater energy-producing capacity and the West would have a better chance of meeting its clean energy goals. We could also gain a measure of energy independence and become less reliant on fossil fuels.

Our dense forests are full of potential: for fiery disaster or for green energy production. The question is, will we capitalize on the opportunity to harness the power of our renewable resources?

Steve Jolley is a registered professional forester and fuel manager for Wheelabrator Shasta Energy Co., a 50-megawatt, wood-fired power plant near Redding, Calif.