Biomass Extraction...

[Woodhog]

I am hearing more and more talk regarding Biomass....using it for power generation, heat etc...

I saw one ad where John Deere or some big outfit had a machine for gathering and bundling it up in the woods...

We were always told to cut everything up as small a possible , run over it if possible to stomp it down so it would rot up quicker and then it would add  nutrients to the soil in the woods and provide cover for small animals etc...and eventually dissappear.

Do you think this is good forestry practice to remove this stuff??

It reminds me of how they fished out all the cod/pollack/ haddock and other top level species around here and then along came the bright idea to start in on the so called under utilized species and plunder that level of the ocean "biomass"..

I dont really know much about the science involved and welcome some opinions...

[Gary_C]

I can't help with the science, but I know the removal of all the biomass is becoming standard practice with these larger logging companies to make the most of each sale.

There is one company that has a machine at the landing of all their jobs that debarks and chips all trees so they produce "clean chips." The bark and tops (limbs) is left for later where they bring in a grinder and make boiler fuel of the residue.

Yes, John Deere has a slash bundler they have held demos at various locations.

One group of loggers that have joined together in a coop for marketing in larger volumes has one logger that goes around to the guys with grapple skidder/ slasher operations and chips all the tops. Does not make a lot of money, but it's better financially than leaving it to rot.

I see where the MN DNR is asking loggers to state if they intend to remove biomass on some jobs. Would not be surprised to see some charge in the future for biomass removal.

[Tillaway]

There is quite a bit of biomass harvesting in California.  It is usually do for stand improvement since biomass does not pay.  In fact a landowner usually has to subsidise the operation.  Lucky ones break even.  It is done there to reduce fuel loading since it takes quite a while for slash to break down in most areas.

Where I am now, pulp is pretty much a break even.  Biomass would be way too costly haul out of the woods.  We are quite happy to find an operator that will take our pulp logs.   

[SwampDonkey]

They did the full tree, debarker, chipper scene here in the 80's and it got too expensive. I believe they also concluded it was degrading the sites, not to mention the fact that alot of good sawlogs were chipped and they were mainly targeting and converting hardwood ridges to softwoods (tree plantations and advanced balsam fir thickets). What they didn't cut and extract was simply squished into the ground. I saw alot of pole sized birch pushed over and tramped. Looked like an ice storm passed through.

[Ron Wenrich]

I don't think its a good move.  Most of the nutrients that get returned to the soil is in the fines.  If I remember correctly, 90% is in the fines.  Take them out, and you deplete the soil.

When biomass harvesting started back in the '80s, it was considered the future would be to grow it on decent sites using fast growing poplar.  The thoughts were to grow it like a crop, adding nutrients and mechanized harvesting.  That didn't work out, because oil or coal prices can make the whole process unprofitable at times. 

I wonder what the cost/benifit ratio looks like or if one has ever been run.  It may take more energy to produce than it recovers.

[barbender]

My buddy that runs a Ponsse harvester had to take a class on ISO standards a couple of weeks ago. One of the company he works for's main customers is Blandin paper, which is owned by UPM Keymenne.  They said on Blandin land, the sites where the slash was left low at the stump, like a harvester does, showed way faster growth rate on the regen spruce.  So they seem to think it's better left in the woods.  There has been talk of a biomass plant being built in this area, the plan was to feed it with mowings from brushland sites.  These are open areas that used to stay cleared off from seasonal fires, now with fire suppression they are getting grown over.  So now they are trying to find a way to keep these from getting grown over with all this brush, mainly becuase this is a specific habitat type that some creatures can't survive without- sharptail grouse and quite a few songbirds.

[Ironman]

I sell to loggers all over the world, grinders, chippers, all kinds of logging equipment.  The only common justification I have heard is the desire to either sell the slash as fuel chips/biomass and/or avoid some of the cost of sending the slash to the dump as burning has become increasingly restricted over the years anywhere within a 50 mile radius of any reasonably sized township or city.

Another major factor is the volatility of the marketplace.  A logger has to be increasingly diversified in what he can bring to market if he wants to stay profitable year in and year out and avoid some of the serious financial lows that are common for the single crew operation.

If all you do is sawlog harvesting, you will have a tough time if your primary wood product tanks.  In some parts of the country you only have one or two major sawlog species.  In others the availability of quality timber is better and so the loggers tend to weather the storm a little easier if say red oak tanks.

Many of my larger logging customers are trying to not focus on having the best equipment for one type of logging but the best system for shifting operations when (not if) the need arises.  So if short wood is getting good money right now they can move one crew over from thinning or clearing to focus on short wood production.  If bagged mulch has increased in price so that it covers fuel and then some, they can fire up the grinders and start bagging some mulch.  The same is true for chipping slash into fuel or smaller pine or hardwood thinnings into chips for paper or fuel.  I have a customer in Michigain that runs 30-40 employees and 6 crews and it is interesting to see how rapidly and how often they shift operations to take advantage of changing prices at the mills or mill closings/openings.

[Ron Scott]

Removals of wood bimass has benefits for improved additional forest product markets and woodsworker jobs, additional fuel source, forest aesthetics etc. especially from site clearing projects, travel corridors for roads, utility lines, etc.

However, it needs to be managed in its volume of removal from within each forest ecosystem. More attention will need to be given to the forest soil types. There will be sites where there can be maximum biomass removal, others where there should be none and some where only a percentage of it should be removed.

Foresters will need to give more awareness to their timber harvest area planning and management for biomass removal.

[dundee]

Biomass collection from our forests in New Zealand has become a science, I completed a paper on this subject a few years ago resulting in too much work coming my way.

New Zealand forest plantations as you may know is is very large, the cost in the past to collect forest residue was prohibitive, now, because of a few constraints in energy, oil / coal / gas or any other fossil fuels has become very expensive.

Companies who use these fossil fuels are turning towards biomas, be-it residues from downstream (sawdust and shaving) or forest residue.

From the study done, there were many factors to address before one even thought of sending forest residue to energy.

1. Type of biomass that is availabe from the skid sites
2. Piece size that could be processed (ON-SITE)
3. Piece size that is acceptable to the energy user, I was quite amazed of how many boilers there were and what they could / or could not effectively combust
4. The calorific value of that forest biomass
5. The ash content
6. Machinery employed to reduce that selected biomass to a specification to the buyer/s boiler
7. The area on each skid site /landing to accomodate a tub grinder or similar machine
8. Transport from the skid site (access /egress) to haul out 40 tonnes at a time
9. Radius from the scource of supply (forest) to the buyers plant = cost /per tonne delivered

Conclusion: New Zealand has been subjected to this Kyoto Protocol meaning anyone combusting fossil fuels and the emissions (Co2) will be slammed with a carbon tax (NZD25.00 /tonne /emmission

This Government of ours are locked into this Protocol untill 2012---crazy!!!, and I suggest it could back fire on them

The third largest power generator in Japan at this moment is scouring the planet to IMPORT biomass to Japan

I have just completed blending 38,000 tonnes / per annum into a coal stream of a cement company, if this carbon tax is activated, then the savings to this company is millions of $$$

I could go on and on about this subject------good thread

Rgds
Richard

[getoverit]

thinking out loud...

In the southeast, the roadway right of ways are mowed on a regular basis. I have thought that there should be some way to make use of these clippings for years. I wonder also if there is a way to convert the grass clippings to alcohols for more fuel also.  Perhaps using these thousands of miles of roadway right of ways for growing a crop that could be used for fuel production would be good too. The only problem I could see is that it would have to be a low growing crop.

Large power lines are another source of this biomass, with hundreds of miles of it in Florida alone having to be cleared to maintain the  needed clearances for these power lines. It would be good to consider them a prime place to harvest biomass for fuel production or for other uses.

[Ron Wenrich]

I don't know of anybody that uses cellulose as a means to produce ethanol.  I remember that they were talking about needing a special enzyme to get it to work.  Besides, corn seems to be the darling of the industry right now. 

As for right of ways, when I did some work for the power companies, they would mainly poison anything that grew whenever they could.  Eventually it would get to a grass stage and require little maintenance.

The only ones with any type of whole tree chippers in my area are land clearers.  Most loggers deal only in sawlogs, with the rest left in the woods.  The economics don't support the investment needed and the markets are too few.

[dundee]

Ken, you raise a good point on clippings, I did want to mention tree pruning in my last post but did not for the fear of waffeling on---BUT, urban tree pruning by local Councils is enormous and on-going, the contractors in my town prune and chip (mobile chipper) as they go, they now take the wood chips to a apple juicing company who have converted their boiler from gas to biomass using this and other source of biomass in the area.

A local meat producer who kill and exports beef/ lamb to the States and other countries have also converted from coal, they grow their own fuel, a fast growing species which coppices very quickly

It works here in New Zealand, all driven I may add by Carbon tax exposure and cost of fossil fuel

Rgds
Richard

[Buzz-sawyer]

Alchohol an be produced from cellulose via the use of sulphuric acid

[Gary_C]

One of the problems with collection of biomass from logging sites is the moisture content. If the residue can be left scattered in the woods for some time, it will dry somewhat. They have an advantage in the arid areas in the west where the slash bundling machines have been tested because the biomass is very dry when they get around to the collection and processing. In other areas, I have heard that it is so wet that it has very little value as boiler fuel without drying. Once bundled or piled it will dry very little.

I just read some new sale offerings by the MN DNR and just as I expected they now require a separate "added timber agreement" to chip biomass.   

Alcohol can be produced from any number of raw materials. One of the most recent mentioned is Switchgrass. However if we waited for the development of the growing, collection, transportation systems and production facilities for all these other alternatives, we would continue to send our money to people that hate us and probably run out of oil.

Ethanol is a very good alternative for right now! In the future these ethanol plants may be producing alcohol from corn stover, switchgrass or any other economical and AVAILABLE raw material.

[Phorester]

My opinion for our situation in Virginia.....
A particular section of a forest is harvested only once every 10 - 20 years, whether thinned, selectively harvested, or a regeneration clearcut.  Clearcuts here are always replanted with pine, usually loblolly, a few white or shortleaf, not hardwood. You're talking about a minimum 20 year rotation, more like 25 years. with loblolly pine plantings on clearcut areas in Virginia.

We used to routinely prescribe burn practically every clearcut for site preperation because of all the tops and limbs ("laps") left by the pulpwood cutter.  We'd get some very clear burns, down to mineral soil over large areas of the burn.  These were good loblolly pine sites, and we always got good survival and growth of the newly planted forest.  Nowadays, so many pulpwood cutters have gone to whole tree harvesting that we now burn only perhaps 1/3 of the clearcuts for site preparation before replanting with loblolly pine.  They will skid the entire tree up to the landing, delimb it, and leave the limbs in large piles around the landing.  So the clearcut area itself is pretty much bare dirt with a light cover of pine needles that have been drug around when the trees were skidded to the landing, and scattered hardwood brush which has been mangled by the harvesting activity. No site prep needed before replanting.

With this scenario of leaving a new forest to grow for 20 years minimum, I don't see any problem with removing every ounce of biomass from a clearcut site that is then replanted with trees.  I feel the new forest will produce plenty of biomass every year to replenish the soil over the 20 years minimum the new forest will remain before being harvested again.

[Tom]

But isn't that biomass that is created coming from the nutrients in the soil?  If it isn't returned, won't the soil eventually become devoid of nutrients?

[Reddog]

You are right Tom. That is why some have had to go to fertilizing the plantations now.

[dundee]

Yes Tom, however in our case, the slash (branchwood and small headlogs) are left behind and are crushed, our final harvesting regime is from 26 to 28 years, there is a heck of a lot of needle fall during that time frame to compliment "some" nutrient loss

Most uncommon for any fertilizing to take place, we do however ariel spray for disease (needle rust)

[Phorester]

"But isn't that biomass that is created coming from the nutrients in the soil?  If it isn't returned, won't the soil eventually become devoid of nutrients?"

No, Tom. (Sorry reddog and dundee!  ;D)  It will come from the new forest itself in the form of shed needles, dead and dropped twigs and limbs, dead trees, natural plant succession that always comes in on a clearcut regardless of whether it's replanted in trees or not, throughout the 20 years or so this new forest is growing.

Take a walk through any replanted forest.  It is not bare dirt underneath the trees.  At the very least it is a carpet of pine needles, and you are also probably brushing past knee high and waist high brush in some spots. Years after p[lanting you see dead limbs on the ground, the occasional dead pine tree.  All newly created biomass that will continue to form and rot and be renewed over and over until the new forest is harvested decades later.

[Corley5]

As a farmer I've got to agree Tom,reddog and dundee.  If I were to take a crop year after year without putting anything back on the ground such as lime and fertilizer or turning a cover crop back in on occasion it wouldn't be long and I'd have a desert that wouldn't even grow very good weeds.  Plants depend on the nutrients in the soil to make biomass.  If everything is taken and nothing put back there will eventually be no nutrients for them to make biomass.  The depletion process will take longer in a forest system than in an ag system but the end result will be the same. 

[Reddog]

Corley5, You hit the nail right on the head. Trees are just big plants/crops. Farming on a diffrent scale, longer between harvests.

[Tom]

There are a lot of things that will return nutrients to the soil, Rain, flood, artificial fertilizers, rotting vegetation and animal matter.  I was just always taught that the trunks of the trees being removed didn't affect the total nutrient value of the soil on the site too much because the majority of the nutrients are kept in the "fines".  Fines have been described to me as small logs, limbs, twigs, leaves, anything left after the log has been removed.

I know that nutrients in the soil isn't finite.  But, for the sake of argument, the growth of the tree from the seed is nothing more than the accumulation of the nutrients that the organism extracts from the soil, air and sun.  In this simplistic scenario, every piece of bio-matter removed from the site has made those nutrients inaccessible to future growing organisms. (on that site)

In this simplistic view, the needles, leaves, twigs, etc., that drop in the current crop are just returning those nutrients to the forest floor, not creating new nutrients.  If the trees are harvested at maturity and "all" of the tree is removed from the site, those nutrients held by the Fines will no longer be available. 

I know that the parts of the organism that were returned to the earth during the life of the tree are still there.  It's not as if all of the nutrients associated with the growth of the tree are removed, but, doesn't the industry collecting Biomass remove the concentrated nutrients of the organism being stored at the time of harvest?  And, aren't those nutrients no longer available to the site for future crops?

I guess I ask this to determine, not only, if I'm understanding the process, but to learn what percentages of nutrients would be lost indefinitely by the collection and removal of "biomass", as defined, in the Fines that used to be left on site.

Even though the period may be longer than the growth of a crop of corn, it seems that the ultimate result is the permanent depletion of nutrients from the soil.

This has been an argument recently raised by those concerned over the long term affects of pine straw harvest, a rather new biomass collection industry.

[SwampDonkey]

I agree with Corley and all. The most limiting nutrient for growth though is nitrogen and that is a key ingredient to producing wood, leaves, seed, flowers and any living cell. Aside from that, the most other ingredients come from the air that plants can fix themselves. Nitrogen is also part of the air we breath, but requires leguminous plants and microbes to fix it in useable forms for plant use. Even rotten wood is useless to a plant until mineralized by 'lower forms of life'. ;D But, nutrients can also be added to the system from through-fall of rain dripping of plant growth. It creates a very diluted fertilizer from plants which could even contain bird doo doo. Even nutrients like potasium comes in rain water, as it's condensation nuclei for forming drops of rain and it comes from evaporation of ocean water. There's also other nutrient dust up their floating around. Even dust from Africa reached North America. But, not all components of dust are good. ;D

I've analyzed tree growth ring data for red spruce, being fertilized with amonium nitrate and if you have a period of above normal rainfall soon after application the nitrate is pretty much useless and ends up in the ground water. The amonium is more beneficial, but can be depleted by microbes. In the study I did the suppressed trees become further suppressed by the dominates and co-dom's. Then, the co-dom's usually have a 2 to 3 year delay in growth response (increased increment).

Sorry, get'n long winded. Breather. ;D  ;)

[Tom]

At the expense of members providing solutions, I am interested in the explanations that can be provided by our Foresters.

I know we members all have something to add but hope that we can keep it in the form of a question or clarification.

The analogies of the row crops are good.  I just don't want this to turn into a Forestry bashing session.  We can't speak for our field or the health of our forests without the knowledge the foresters can provide.   Come on fellows give us some college learning.  :D

[Ron Wenrich]

I've had to read up a little on the nutrient cycle and the energy flow to help me understand a little better about the effects of biomass removal.  The FORESTRY HANDBOOK has been pretty helpful.

There are a couple of ways that nutrients enter the cycle.  Some are through rainfall (primarily nitrogen), and some comes from weathered rock (phosphorus, calcium, etc). 

When you burn the slash, instead of removal, then some of those nutrients are returned to the soil.  Nitrogen is burnt off and released to the air.  So, there isn't much benefit there. 

The need for nutrients are highest in young stands.  At some point, usually about polesized, the stand reaches an steady stage where the nutrient uptake is not as much.  So, depriving your young stands of nitrogen through either burning or removal doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

A lot of the nutrients are in the decomposing matter.  Removing them from the loop will deplete them over time, depending on management practices. 

The boles in a stand have the lowest proportion of the nutrients, but when combined may be as much as 15-50% of the total.  For some elements, removing the bole alone may be enough to cause nutrient depletion, over time.