forestry

- October 28, 2014, HartfordBusiness.com

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"306","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"264","style":"width: 264px; height: 264px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"264"}}]]Glastonbury construction firm Gemma Power Systems has completed the 49.9 megawatt construction of a biomass plant in Woodville, Texas, three months ahead of schedule.

The plant to be run by the East Texas Electric Cooperative will operate on chipped forest waste. Construction of the facility began in 2012.

Financial terms were not disclosed. Gemma served as construction manager.

Gemma's subsidiary Gemma Plant Operations will run the plant for the electric cooperative under a separate contract.

-  Rachel Brighton, October 10, 2014, The Chronicle Herald

[More evidence of biomass energy competing for limited wood source.]

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"302","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"271","style":"width: 333px; height: 188px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: thechronicleherald.ca","width":"480"}}]]Opening up long-term access to western Crown lands will relieve some of the pressure that has been building in the forestry sector this year.

This week the province announced that 16 sawmills and manufacturers had been granted 10-year allocations on the former Bowater lands and other Crown land west of Highway 101.

Many sawmills had been crying out for this Crown access since late 2012, when the province acquired the assets of the defunct Bowater Mersey Paper Co.,including its vast tracts of timberlands in the southwest of the province.

This spring the province granted temporary access to these lands to 12 sawmills and two other players in the forestry industry: Louisiana-Pacific Canada Ltd., which produces hardboard siding in Lunenburg County, and Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corp.

Emera Energy, which operates a biomass plant in Brooklyn that produces electricity for Nova Scotia Power Inc., was also allowed to harvest on Crown land this year, under a separate agreement with the province.

The new allocations secure access for mostly the same group of mills that gained the spring licences, but with a few left out and a few more added. Northern Pulp’s access to western Crown land has also been assured for the next decade.

Alongside these allocations, the province has a separate Crown land agreement with Port Hawkesbury Paper LP.

As well, Nova Scotia Power has become a significant buyer of biomass, through independent contractors, to feed its power plant in Point Tupper.

The allocations conclude a year in which there has been acute price competition for firewood and low-grade hardwood, spiked by expanding demand for biomass at Nova Scotia Power’s Point Tupper plant and, as some sawmills and contractors maintain, by Northern Pulp’s acquisition of hardwood pulpwood.

There has also been a logjam in getting wood out of the forest into the market, caused in part by a major contraction in the number of forestry contractors and truckers.

Some households felt the force of these market factors this year, when the price for firewood shot up after last year’s heavy winter. Some firewood suppliers told me their customers were hoarding wood for fear of a shortage, making the problem worse.

- by Kate Prengaman, October 29, 2014 Yakima Herald-Republic

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"300","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 264px; height: 264px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Scientists are searching for the fuels of the future in high-tech laboratories around the world, but last week one research team debuted its new technology at a wood-chipping plant tucked in the forest outside Cle Elum.

That's because their technology runs on wood chips.

Roasting the wood, which might be otherwise worthless, at high temperatures without oxygen, creates a bio-oil similar to petroleum and a flammable gas that can be captured to run the burners. It also produces bio-char, a charcoal-like material that has applications in agriculture as a soil additive and in water filtration.

The state Department of Natural Resources hosted this demonstration because it's seeking solutions to Eastern Washington's biggest forest health problem: dense forests in need of thinning to reduce wildfire and disease risks, which is expensive work.

"When we are talking with landowners about how to improve their forest's health, (it) involves removing small trees and oftentimes that material doesn't have much of an economic value," said Chuck Hersey, a DNR forest health specialist who organized the event with a Utah-based company that developed the technology.

"This technology is one potential pathway for dealing with small, low-grade trees," Hersey said. "It's basically turning woody biomass into more dense, renewable energy products that have a higher value than just wood products."

- by George Wuerthner, September, 25, 2014, The Wildlife News 

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"288","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; width: 333px; height: 250px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]If the public really understood the illogic behind Forest Service management, including those endorsed by forest collaboratives, I am certain there would be more opposition to current Forest Service policies.

First, most FS timber sales lose money. They are a net loss to taxpayers. After the costs of road construction, sale layout and environmental analyses, wildlife surveys, (reforestration and other mitigation if required) is completed, most timber sales are unprofitable.

Indeed, the FS frequently uses a kind of accounting chicanery, often ignoring basic overhead costs like the money spent on trucks, gasoline, office space, and the personnel expenses of other experts like wildlife biologists, soil specialists and hydrologists that may review a timber sale during preparation that ought to be counted as a cost of any timber program.

The FS will assert that ultimately there are benefits like logging roads provide access for recreation or that thinning will reduce wildfire severity. However, as will be pointed out later, most of these claims are not really benefits. We have thousands of miles of roads already, and adding more does not create a benefit. Reducing wildfires–even if thinning did do this which is questionable–it can be argued that we should not be reducing wildfire severity.

- September 16, 2014, New Generation Power

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"286","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 255px; height: 255px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]New Generation Power International, a leading global renewable energy company, will develop three 11.5 Megawatt (MW) wood biomass plants in Japan.

Together, Chicago-based New Generation Power International (NGPI) and Nippon Energy Solution, Inc. (NES) will launch a new wood-based biomass energy generation venture that will construct three separate facilities located in the Japanese regions of Miyazaki and Kagoshima.

Expected to break ground around April 2015, the project will be capable of generating 248 GWh of electricity annually, the equivalent of powering 44,000 households and cost an estimated $169.67 million USD.

With a strong presence throughout Japan and a robust relationship with the local economies of Miyazaki and Kagoshima, NES will be responsible for the project’s development, operation and fuel supply. Synergy Power Solutions and Artha Energy Resources will advise the transaction.

- by Pete Creedon, October 6, 2014, Watertown Daily Times

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"276","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 255px; height: 253px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Always nice to see a company come in an offer jobs and other things that will benefit the area it serves (“ReEnergy wins huge contract at Drum,” Sept. 30).

The question is, at what cost? The people this will affect in a negative way are a small group of people who for the most part will not receive any of the benefits of this biomass plant.

These people are the ones who heat their homes with wood. For the last couple of years as this plant has been coming online, it has become harder to find firewood and at a price that has not been inflated.

There was an article in the paper last year, I believe, how the firewood producers were saying that they have not cut back on firewood production in favor of wood chip production for this biomass plant. That is hard to believe. The company I get my firewood from, I know for a fact, supplies this plant.

Last year, it was difficult to find the wood I needed for last winter. The price was almost double what I spent the year before.

- by George Wuerthner, September 25, 2014, The Wildlife News

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"271","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 228px; height: 251px; float: left; margin: 3px 10px;"}}]]If the public really understood the illogic behind Forest Service polices, including those endorsed by forest collaboratives, I am certain there would be more opposition to current Forest Service policies.

First, most FS timber sales lose money. They are a net loss to taxpayers. After the costs of road construction, sale layout and environmental analyses, wildlife surveys, (reforestration and other mitigation if required) is completed, most timber sales are unprofitable.

Indeed, the FS frequently uses a kind of accounting chicanery, often ignoring basic overhead costs like the money spent on trucks, gasoline, office space, and the personnel expenses of other experts like wildlife biologists, soil specialists and hydrologists that may review a timber sale during preparation that ought to be counted as a cost of any timber program.

The FS will assert that ultimately there are benefits like logging roads provide access for recreation or that thinning will reduce wildfire severity. However, as will be pointed out later, most of these claims are not really benefits. We have thousands of miles of roads already, and adding more does not create a benefit. Reducing wildfires–even if thinning did do this which is questionable–it can be argued that we should not be reducing wildfire severity.

[More taxpayer money funding private corporations to log National Forests under the unscientific guise of "wildfire prevention." -Ed.]

-  US Department of Agriculture, July 23, 2014, Office of Communications

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"234","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 167px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has selected 36 energy facilities in 14 states to accept biomass deliveries supported by the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), which was authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill. Biomass owners who supply these facilities may qualify for BCAP delivery assistance starting July 28, 2014.

Of the total $25 million per year authorized for BCAP, up to 50 percent ($12.5 million) is available each year to assist biomass owners with the cost of delivery of agricultural or forest residues for energy generation. Some BCAP payments will target the removal of dead or diseased trees from National Forests and Bureau of Land Management public lands for renewable energy, which reduces the risk of forest fire.

1. LARGE WILDFIRE CLIMATE DRIVEN