Converting pine nut trees to fuel
THE ENERGY BEHIND FUEL REDUCTIONS
Initiative began in 1994. The project arose out of a compact between the Forest Products Industry and the Department of Energy.
A Compact for the Forest Products Industry
1996 Quincy Group, which developed a model for
fuel reduction/ biomass
feedstock utilization.
http://www.qlg.org/pub/act_acp/ethanol/feasibility.htm
On August 12, 1999, the President issued an Executive
Order on Biobased Products and Bioenergy (64 FR 44639, August
16, 1999)
that will coordinate Federal efforts to accelerate the development
of 21 st century biobased industries that use forest, to make
an array of commercial products including fuels, electricity,
In an accompanying Executive Memorandum on these same issues, the President
set a goal of tripling U.S. use of biobased products and bioenergy by 2010.
The Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000 (Public Law No. 106-224) promotes the technology and research and development of industries that use trees, crops, and agricultural and forestry waste to make fuels, electricity, chemicals, and other industrial products. The law also provides that the feedstock sources on federal lands should be fully integrated into this use.
DOE seeks 5 billion gallons a year of ethanol
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Ethanol Project
Subcontract No. 4500010570
Biomass Conversion For Forest Residue/Thinnings Based Plants - We assume a 40 mile radius wooded area would equate to 520,000 BDT yielding 60 gallons per BDT. Chart shows, location, projected capcity in millions of gallons and feedstock type. Current or in construction
Susanville CA 15.0 forest Chester CA 20.0 forest Bend OR 30.0 forest Black Hills WY
PROJECTED ETHANOL PLANTS Williamsport PA forest 40.0 Beckley WV forest 30.0 Rome NY Forest 40.0 Russellville AR forest 40.0
Fayetteville AR forest 40.0 Alexandria LA forest 40.0 Winfield LA forest 50.0
Hattiesburg MS forest 30.0 Meridian MS forest 30.0 Natchez MS forest 50.0 Tupelo MS forest 50.0
Las Vegas NM forest 40.0 Magdalena NM forest 50.0 LaGrande OR forest
30.0 Gunnison CO forest 40.0 Idaho City ID forest 40.0 Kooskia
ID 20.0
Superior MT forest 40.0 Jackson WY forest 40.0 Riverside WY forest 27.5
Elma WA forest 30
New Meadows ID 20.0 forest Bozeman MT 30.0 forest
NATIONAL FIRE PLAN
In November of 2000, the General Accounting Office reported "According to the Forest Service, 67 million acres on national forests across the country are at moderate to high risk from catastrophic wildfire and need to be treated over a 15-year period."
National Fire Plan with the National Energy Policy, assume that just half of the 67 million acres of national forest lands at risk to catastrophic wildfires are available to be managed with the potential of utilizing approximately 50 tons of biomass per acre. Since it will take years to complete the work, at least 15 years, that would result in approximately 110 million tons of biomass material per year from just the national forest system lands. A typical biomass power facility will consume 15,000 tons of fuel (8,000 bone dry tons) per MW produced. So a conservative estimate of the potential energy production from thinning national forest system lands to reduce wildfire hazard is about 7,000 MW per year or double the current biomass power generating capacity. This is enough electricity to supply over 7,000,000 homes per year with power. This doesn't include other potential biomass fuel sources from private lands, state lands, tribal trust lands, lumber manufacturing residuals, agricultural waste, landfills and other sources still to be identified
Research Funded by: U.S. Department of Energy through the Oak Ridge National LaboratoryFeedstock Assessment and Analyses Projects
Western Forests and Bioenergy
Project Manager: Robin L. Graham, 865-576-7756, Grahamrl@ornl.gov
Objective: Fire suppression in the western US has resulted in a forest structure (many small crowded trees) which is highly vulnerable to catastrophic fire. Biomassing, the harvest of excess trees too small for traditional forest products but suitable for bioenergy, has been proposed as a means of reducing fire risk, restoring the forest to pre-european settlement conditions, and providing a new source of income. However, the long-term economic and environmental sustainability of this practice is unknown. Working with local community groups this project focused on understanding the effect of biomassing on water yield and the long-term flow of biomass wood from these forests.
.Oakridge National Labs. did this research on forest fuel available
for
biomass/alternative energy (1999). These targets were then adopted
by EREN.
As you look at the numbers understand that they are
DRY tons.
Forest residues include underutilized logging residues, imperfect
commercial
trees, dead wood, and other non-commercial trees that need to be thinned
from crowded, unhealthy, fire-prone forests. Because of their sparseness
and
remote location, these residues are usually more expensive to recover
than
urban and mill residues. The estimated supply of forest residues
for Montana
is 1,317,000 dry tons per year.
Forest residues The estimated supply of forest residues for Utah
is
173,000 dry tons per year.
Forest residues.The estimated supply of forest residues for
California is 2,364,000 dry tons per year
Forest residues The estimated supply of forest residues for Nevada
is 14,000 dry tons per year.
The estimated supply of forest residues for
Colorado is 720,000 dry tons per year.
The estimated supply of forest residues for Oregon
is 2,516,000 dry tons per year.
The estimated supply of forest residues for
Washington is 2,380,000 dry tons per year.
The estimated supply of forest residues for Idaho
is 1,180,000 dry tons per year.
http://www.eren.doe.gov/state_energy/tech_biomass.cfm?state= (enter state abrivation, eg.WA).
The US Forest Service's growth and yield models were used to evaluate
the long term effect of biomassing on forest structure and to determine
how much biomass could come from western forests after the initial thinning.
The models were programmed to simulate the harvest and removal of small
trees on a 20 year interval. A harvesting strategy was developed which
sought to recreate and maintain a stand structure similar to that prior
to european settlement. The amount of wood that would be harvested under
such a strategy and the subsequent stand structure (size and number of
trees) were tracked.
http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/western2/simulation_results2.html
Biomass Feedstock Availability in the United States: 1999 State Level
Analysis
