Biomass

[PAFaller]

so what do all you professionals think about biomass harvesting and its respective role in your management activities. I attended a meeting today in regards to a community combined heat and power facility thats scheduled to be online in northern PA in 2010. There was a lot of interesting views presented, and they ranged from the idea that it was great and we could finally market junk, to the thought that biomass will make everything on a site marketable and the next rape and pillage of the forest is getting ready to start. My logging days in NH and Maine involved lots of chipping, and it seems to work okay there, although a lot of that came from land conversion practices. I think its a useful management tool, but getting back into my issues with other pro foresters, how many of them will aid landowners in junk tree removal to assure rape and pillage doesn't occur?

[Ron Scott]

A number of states have and others are preparing management direction and standards and guidelines for harvesting biomass.

[Ron Wenrich]

To answer your question, all you have to do is look at what's happening in the woods today.  How many of the pro foresters mark out firewood or pulpwood in their jobs today?  Most don't, not because there isn't a market, but, because there isn't enough money.  They make more money marking sawtimber and that won't change.

There's an upper limit on biomass value.  When the cogen plant was put in in Northumberland county, our purchase price for wood was less than the pulp mills.  We had to mix both sawdust and chips in order to bring prices down and make the operation profitable.  That was 25 years ago, and the economic forces haven't changed.

With all this gas coming in from the Marsellis shale area, there will be lots of pressure to put in more gas plants to compete with biomass.  25 years ago it was coal.  You couldn't beat it in price.  Today they are talking carbon tax, so gas will become more attractive. 

If biomass prices do increase, there will be more costs in harvesting and trucking, thanks to the carbon tax.  It will help suppress the higher value.

[SwampDonkey]

Our government has announced a Biomass policy on crown lands.

http://www.gnb.ca/0078/policies/FMB0192008E.pdf

Talks within our woodlot organizations have been underway on establishing heating and bioenergy in small communities to heat schools, senior homes, and supplement electricity. It is my understanding that tops and fines will be left on sight. By-the-way, some towns already have their own power, hydro power, and it's cheaper than the grid. The approach to biomass for woodlot owners is to work local so transportation is a short haul. In our county most all the woodland is privately owned and we have an endless supply of low grade and undervalued wood. At this point it's just talk and there isn't a lot of private money to invest from rural communities. It remains to be seen how it all plays out. To be quite honest, I think it will fail on crown lands because the trucking will be too high. They are looking at taking tops, that's a lot more expensive than taking low grade stem wood. Taking low grade stem wood doesn't require investment of specialized equipment to gather the stuff and bundle it. You can use conventional logging equipment and separate on the yard, some sites no separating at all if it's a thinning in small wood for instance or removing over mature wood no pulpmill or sawmill will allow past the gate.

[WDH]

Harvesting biomass is much more expensive than harvesting trees for logs and pulp.  Like Ron said, it is all about economics, and the numbers (product prices for biomass) don't make harvesting biomass an attractive venture.  In many places, biomass is all talk and no action.  There is a pent up expectation that harvesting biomass will yield a better return for the landowner.  So far in these parts, that has not happened.  Time will tell.

[SwampDonkey]

I think in our case on woodlots it's not a matter of looking to get rich, that will never happen. It's a matter of there being so much low grade and what to do with it and get a little $$change against the cost of doing stand improvement work. Maybe someone can save on the heat bill and generate a few electrons.  The city of Fredericton has a heating plant that has worked for 25 years heating the Universities and the Regional Hospital. Millions saved in heating costs. The timber licenses on crown land have to use that rotten butted fir as long as it is green tree and it holds together, on the private woodlot they will absolutely not take it and send you packing. There's only so many wood peckers, owls and squirrels to house.  Balsam fir here is almost on every acre of forest, if it isn't a seedling , it might be a snag or a pretty decent 60 year old log, to a suppressed stunted pole with rotten heart and dried up bark. Kinda like the old milk cow that can't calve or give milk anymore.

[Ron Wenrich]

I think the only way you're going to get rid of low grade in the woods is to grind it up and make pellets.  It is the only product that has enough room to make it profitable for every producer, from landowner to retail sales. 

Right now there is a big surge in getting ready to use fiber, like sawdust.  The next step will have to be getting green stock from loggers, such as pulp or chips, and processing it into a material that can be used to create a uniform product. 

Using green biomass isolates a large portion of the marketplace, namely homeowners.  Its messy to store, you need to get a large amount, and burning green has its inefficiencies, making the product more of a hassle than the savings you can get.

If the next step of either making pellets, briquettes, or logs isn't taken, I think the biomass thing will die on the vine.  Using oil, gas or solar is a whole lot easier than tending a fire.  Biomass has to compete with ease of use and greater efficiencies. 

[SwampDonkey]

Pellet mills are also being setup at a couple of Associations for domestic markets, most others are mostly export and local supply is way down as a result. The pellet mills, as I understand it, are being manufactured here in Nackawick and not relying on imports, so if something breaks it can be attended to right quick.

They are talking 5 MW- 12 MW community based facilities here, not individual home owners. They are woodlot owners, but the idea is to heat and power schools, senior homes (these are like hospitals for the elderly, not individual homes) and hospitals.  As far as generating power Boralex seem to be doing it just fine in Fort Fairfield , Maine with NB wood chips coming off crown land. Boralex has been doing it for about 15 years. Also a small operator has been chipping constantly off private woodlots to send there as well for 3 years now. I believe they have a contract with our local marketing board for volume. I'm just guessing, I could easily find out though, but it's probably part of a feasibility study. That facility at the "Fort" is 45 MW I believe. Certainly the prices are not as high for fuel as they are for pulp. I think there is $10-15/tonne difference with fuel coming in around $36/tonne as I recall. It's a lot more attractive if the haul distance in local. Trucking up here eats a lot of the profit so if your hauling 20 miles instead of 80, it makes a difference. Remains to be seen how it plays out, could remain as pipe dreams. Up here ideas move like molasses, will go dormant a while, then come to life some time down the road.

[Riles]

I think the fines need to stay in the forest. I've seen the machinery that bundles slash up into "logs" for transport, and I think that's a long term mistake for forest soils.

[WDH]

Good point, Riles.

The nutrients in a tree are tied up in the foliage and twigs; very little of the nutrients are stored in the wood.  If the soil loses those nutrients that would otherwise be recycled, then nutrients will have to be added via fertilizer or the site productivity will suffer in the long run.  There is no instant pudding (to quote Deming).

[PAFaller]

PA has established guidelines, but they are like speed limits in my opinion. You only half pay attention until you get in trouble. There is a group of loggers here, myself included, that see biomass markets as a means of improving stand health by creating markets for low grade wood. Done properly I dont see any reason why removing low value trees and chipping them is all bad, and part of the guidelines here suggest leaving a minimum 25% of the woody debris. Most Scandinavian countries have the same protocols in regards to the slash bundling mentioned above. I do understand the fear of repeated clear cutting and reverse diameter limit harvests though, and think that the effort to make biomass markets a useful tool and not a disaster is everyones responsibility. Its a shame that so many people, particularly in this state, care only about the profits involved with a job.

[9shooter]

As far as I'm concerned the only place for a biomass plant is in D.C. to get some use out of all the horse manure generated there. This whole carbon credit thing is a prime example. They should tax the feds and states for the carbon generated by the decaying bio matter in their respective forests. Natural carbon emissions have got to be huge. I bet we humans don't account for a tenth of a percent of the total. I'm not down on the technology nor the idea of biomass plants. I just don't like the so-called logic being used to push the idea at the expense of current energy generation practices. What ever happened to the idea of building more nuclear plants?

[Gary_C]

Just last week I visited a site where another logger was clearcutting a plantation pine stand and took a few pictures. The cutting is all done and about 60 semi loads of wood has been hauled away and about 40 loads of wood remains on the site. The logger that cut the job estimated there was 1300 cords cut.

 



Most of those trees in the piles are 12+ inches in diameter, not like the one in the foreground in the first picture.

 



 



The rest of the story is the site is MN state owned land that is controlled by what is called the Scientific and Natural group and they wanted rid of those DanG trees in favor of grass (prairie) lands. The DNR Foresters have been resisting because the markets for pine were so poor. So what they now ended up doing was to let the job to fell and whole tree skid all the trees to this area shown where another contractor is chipping the whole trees and sending the chips to the Energy Plant in St. Paul for burning in the boilers.

It sure seems a shame to chip all those nice logs, but it's still better than just burning them on site just to get rid of them. Then there is still the question of the grassland people that seem to hate trees as much as the tree huggers hate loggers. 

As far as economics, I don't believe this is a paying proposition for the landowner. From what I know, the Energy Plant is not paying much of anything more than the cost of cutting, chipping, and hauling. I think that most of these people that want biomass are thinking that it will cost very little if not free. There are a few chipping operations that are buying low quality hardwood sales just to chip for this market, but I hear conflicting reports about how much the buyers of the biomass will pay. One large logger was heard to say that the energy plant was not offering enough to cover the trucking costs and told them where to go, and then two weeks later the same logger was hauling to the plant.

So there is still a lot of issues up in the air on this biomass thing besides the amount of residue that needs to be left on the site. 

And what's really ironic is that both the logger that cut this and I had to sign an agreement in order to supply certified wood to one large pulp plant that among other stipulations says that we will not clearcut any plantations that are being converted to other uses. I guess that does not apply if the state is calling for the clearcutting. 

[Ron Wenrich]

PAFaller

I don't think anyone in PA thinks that removing low grade is a bad idea.  But, if you can't make any money at it, it just ain't gonna happen. 

Right now there is no market.  I haven't heard of any biomass plants going in.  There isn't any investment money, and until the electric companies hike their rates and can give a good return, there won't be any.  Heating at the large building levels like Swamp is talking about also means higher investments.  I just don't see the market.

You also seem to have an aversion to shelterwood cutting.  I would rather see more shelterwood cutting than the so-called thinnings and uneven-aged clutter that's being pushed as proper forestry methods.  A lot of those trees in the understory just aren't worthwhile to take forward.

[SwampDonkey]

A lot of those trees in the understory just aren't worthwhile to take forward.

That's for sure.

I think the fines need to stay in the forest. I've seen the machinery that bundles slash up into "logs" for transport, and I think that's a long term mistake for forest soils.

I agree, that's why the government approach will never fly, on top of investment in none traditional harvesting equip. to bundle and gather the stuff. I have said I would never send tops and limbs off my woodlot. But their Biomass policy is on Crown, the land is further away from towns, volume is very low, just won't pay. They are not allowing them to use stem wood unless it's dry stubs. It's dead in the water from the start. Not all sites are to be harvested for biomass, soils tests and drainage considerations are to be employed. I am also interested in how it plays out when they wake up one day and discover they are destroying the advanced regen in those over mature stands.

[Dana]

Quote from Gary_C "It sure seems a shame to chip all those nice logs, but it's still better than just burning them on site just to get rid of them. Then there is still the question of the grassland people that seem to hate trees as much as the tree huggers hate loggers. "

Gary maybe they are going to plant switchgrass on that newly cleared land. It makes a great ethanol product.

[PAFaller]

I dont have any aversion to shelterwood cutting, and I think there is a time and a place for it, and some landowners understand how it works and are okay with it. Its sometimes hard to do though if the past harvest took all the good stuff and left minimal numbers of seed trees.  Clearcutting and starting over is a possible solution to many of the states forests, but not an easy sell to most people. In my area a lot of management work revolves around deer hunting and promoting wildlife qualities, so the few guys that cut low grade do crop tree release on any oak that hasnt been plucked out through repeated diameter limit cuts. Shelterwoods are a great tool, as is group selection harvests, but some landowners prefer the park like atmosphere of an overall thinning. To each their own in that regard.
As for outlets, fuels for schools has quite a few slated projects within the next couple years, New York is building a few rather large co-generation plants, pellet mills are coming online that will be buying and processing roundwood which may folks consider biomass, and a cellulosic ethanol test project is under way in Clearfield County. Add in the fact that some coal plants may start co-firing with wood to meet the new emissions standards and biomass may be a bigger market than one would suspect in the next few years. There was also a task force that went to Austria to study the combined heat and power facilities they operate over there, and Smethport is installing one just outside of town. It will generate power as well as pump hot water through the town for residential use, saving the townspeople a large sum of money normally spent on fossil fuels for home heating. Google Smethport biomass demonstration project, they have some stuff about it there.

[SwampDonkey]

All I know is it's not so hard to make the investments when you have had successful heating plants that have saved millions in fuel costs and have generated power from non marketable fibre. For some reason there seems to be a conception that wood is going to replace coal or oil, therefore it gets taken one step further to say it isn't viable. I have never viewed it as a replacement and I don't recall anyone suggesting it. Almost seems at times it's a control thing, we have it and don't want to give up any share of it.

[Gary_C]

Gary maybe they are going to plant switchgrass on that newly cleared land. It makes a great ethanol product.

Not even a remote chance they will plant anything useful. That cleared site will be converted to native prairie grasses.

[WDH]

Wait now, prairie grasses are useful.  What if the buffalo make a comeback?

The native prairie grasses are rare now.  Most all the tall grass prairies have been converted.  The plant community on the native prairies are unique.  I am working on a project to restore native tall grass prairie in East Texas.  However, on these sites, trees grow poorly.  That does not look like the same case as in your pics, Gary.