The projects chosen are required to match the awards by at least 20% for research and development products and by at least 50% for demonstration projects.

The awards granted include: GE Global Research (Irvine, CA), for up to $1,597,544 and Gevo, Inc. (Englewood, CO), for up to $1,780,862.

The BCAP helps the participating plants by matching 50% of the amount paid to their suppliers.

Warden Electric is one of only a few companies selected for the program.

The plant currently produces 20 megawatts of electricity by using 400 tons/day of woody biomass.

These funds are targeted to help communities, entrepreneurs, and others turn residues into marketable forest products and green energy. The Forest Service Woody Biomass Utilization grant program has been in effect since 2005 and has provided over $26.3 million towards various projects, ranging from biomass boilers for schools and prisons, to helping businesses acquire equipment that improves processing efficiencies. During this time period, 110 grants have been awarded to small businesses, non-profits, tribes and local state agencies to improve forest health, while creating jobs, green energy and healthy communities.

The Forest Service, a USDA agency, selected 17 small businesses and community groups as grant recipients for these $250,000 awards. According to requirements, all 17 recipients provided at least 20% of the total project cost. Non-federal matching funds total more than $10 million.

The Forest Service’s State and Private Forestry, Technology Marketing Unit, at the agency’s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., will administer the grant program. The recipients were chosen from 109 applications.

The following are the 2009 woody biomass utilization grantees:

• Rover Shavings & Post, Inc., Rover, Ark. – $250,000
• Pure Wood Products, LLC, Pinetop, Ariz. – $250,000
• California Wood Shavings, Inc., Jamestown, Calif. – $249,550
• CLT Logging, Inc., Grenada, Calif. – $250,000
• Franklin Logging, Inc., Bella Vista, Calif. – $250,000
• Scott Dunn Logging, Fortuna, Calif. – $250,000
• Trinity River Lumber Company, Weaverville, Calif. – $250,000
• Independent Log Company, Alamosa, Colo. – $250,000
• Intermountain Resources, LLC, Montrose, Colo. – $250,000
• Rogue Resources, Inc./More Lumber, Milner, Colo. – $250,000
• Idaho Forest Group, LLC, Athol, Id. – $250,000
• Eagle Stud Mill, Inc., Missoula, Mont. – $250,000
• Eureka Pellet Mills, Inc., Missoula, Mont. – $250,000
• Southwest Piñon, Inc., Datil, NM – $250,000
• Community Smallwood Solutions, Wallowa, Ore. – $249,819
• Marubeni Sustainable Energy, Lakeview, Ore. – $250,000
• Olson Brothers Enterprises, LLC, Crivitz, Wis. – $250,000

It appears that the gene Cpg13, which stands for Carbon Partitioning and Growth on chromosome 13, controls how much of the carbon taken up by a poplar tree is used to make cellulose and lignin, two major building blocks of plant cell walls. Cellulose is a complex carbohydrate, which can be broken down into glucose and fermented to produce biofuels. Wood with high cellulose and low lignin content is better suited for biofuels such as ethanol, because it should convert more efficiently and with greater yields. High cellulose content is also a desirable trait for producing pulp and paper. The grants, totaling $6.32 million, were announced this week.

The UF team’s three-year, $643,000 grant will fund research on how the gene helps regulate cell wall chemistry and structure. The scientists will also investigate where and when its effects occur. Eventually, they will create genetically engineered trees that overexpress or underexpress the gene, to study resulting changes in wood composition and biomass growth.

• 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.