Across the country, communities and companies are looking to wood bioenergy as a solution to concerns as wide-ranging as public safety and forest health in communities at risk of wildfire to reducing the carbon footprint of a major multinational corporation.

● In California, the Yuba Water Agency recently approved a 5 MW biomass power plant near Dobbins in Yuba County that will process woody material from forest restoration projects in the Yuba River watershed. The move provides a local market for biomass that makes forest health projects in the area more viable, reducing transportation costs since biomass can be utilized locally and converted into renewable energy instead of being hauled to markets hours away.

Forest health projects are key to watershed quality, since burned hillsides can affect water quality and cause sedimentation. According to Yuba Water Agency Watershed Manager JoAnna Lessard, having a local power plant to process biomass coming off such projects removes a major barrier to expanding forest health and wildfire risk reduction efforts in the region.

The power plant is also finalizing a power purchase agreement and infrastructure upgrades for grid connection with Pacific Gas & Electric. Plans are to have the facility up and running in 2026, and the sooner the better. The Yuba Water Agency is part of the North Yuba Forest Partnership that is seeking to improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk on roughly 275,000 acres, and the Dobbins power plant is a big part of the group’s strategy.

● Meanwhile, across the country in Mississippi, major steel manufacturer Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) is seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 500,000 metric tons annually at its brand new Columbus, Miss. steel plant by substituting biocarbon for anthracite coal in its steel production.

This is a big deal, since this development merges two otherwise disparate industries—timber/biomass and steel production—and benefits both as the timber industry has an additional market for smaller diameter material that’s key for having a healthy supply chain and positive environment for forest investments, and the steel industry gets lower emissions while shifting inputs from foreign or domestic anthracite coal to domestic biomass.

The project, known as SDI Biocarbon Solutions, is a joint venture between SDI and Aymium, which is providing a thermochemical pyrolysis technology that produces hydrogen and concentrated biochar.

When used as a reducing agent in ironmaking, this sustainable hydrogen offers a cleaner alternative to conventional coke or coal, and substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Biocarbon, meanwhile, provides a renewable and carbon-neutral substitute for coke in the reduction process. Introducing sustainable hydrogen and biocarbon into the process promises to greatly reduce fossil fuel emissions during steel production.

The two-phase project is already moving toward commissioning and startup in north Mississippi.

As these two projects on either ends of the country show, wood bioenergy is a sustainable solution that can provide a wide range of benefits, from safer communities and less destructive wildfires to reduced emissions and alternative raw materials for advanced industrial processes. Wood bioenergy: There’s nothing else like it.