• Help convert wood collected during wildfire- and pine-beetle mitigation efforts for a prison boiler in Florence.
• Augment Colorado Springs Utilities’ coal-fired facility.
• Fuel Boulder County Open Space and Parks’ biomass heating system.
• Fund grinding, hauling and processing for Confluence Energy’s wood-pellet facility in Kremmling.

Colorado and much of the Intermountain West are reeling from major pine beetle infestations that stretch along the Rockies into southern Canada. Biomass advocates are looking to the dead trees as a potential source of raw feedstock for biofuel applications, and hope to jump-start wood energy and biomass utilization ventures in the state.

In other Colorado wood-to-energy news, Colorado State University recently announced a partnership with the Colorado State Forest Service to install a biomass boiler heating plant on the Foothills Campus to reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions and cut energy costs.

The heating plant will burn wood chips rather than rely solely on natural gas to provide hot water for a research complex. The boiler is rated at 1.5 million BTU/hr., large enough to burn more than 1,300 tons of wood chips each year produced from forest fire mitigation projects. According to Carol Dollard, energy engineer at Colorado State, wood chips cost about half the price of natural gas, resulting in a savings of approximately $60,000 in utility costs annually at CSU.

“These projects will promote the development of biofuels from wood and help private sector businesses to establish renewable energy infrastructure and accelerate availability in the marketplace,” said Merrigan. “Additionally, hazardous fuels reduction projects utilize biomass from forested lands that, when left untreated, increase wildland fire risks to communities and natural resources.”

In keeping with the Obama Administration’s interest in innovative sources for energy, these ARRA funds may help to create markets for small diameter wood and low value trees removed during forest restoration activities. This work will result in increased value of biomass generated during forest restoration projects, the removal of economic barriers to using small diameter trees and woody biomass, and generation of renewable energy from woody biomass. These funds may also help communities and entrepreneurs turn residues from forest restoration activities into marketable energy products. Projects were nominated by Forest Service regional offices and selected nationally through a competitive basis on objective criteria.

Biomass utilization also provides additional opportunities for removal of hazardous fuels on federal forests and grasslands and on lands owned by state, local governments, private organizations, and individual landowners.

A listing of the state-by-state breakdown of the wood-to-energy and biomass utilization projects can be found here. For information about specific projects please call the Forest Service or go to: http://fs.usda.gov.