October 2024

Inside this issue

IN THE NEWS
  • Restoration Fuels Closes Biochar Plant
  • Vermont Announces Loan Program
  • PDI, Delta Biofuels Make Progress In Louisiana
  • Sierra Pacific Plants 300 Millionth Seedling
  • SEEMAC Appoints Goecke As CEO
  • Forest Products Society Reveals Leadership
  • Weyco Increases Alabama Acreage
  • AWC Receives $6 Million Grant
  • Weyco Partners With Careers Initiative
  • LP Building Solutions Touts Sustainability
ASSET PROTECTION
  • BE&E
  • Fagus Grecon
  • Flamex
PRODUCT NEWS
  • Büttner Enhances Service Offerings
  • Logmeter Returns With Carbotech
  • Jeffrey Rader EnduraHog Offers Variety Of Solutions

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    From the Editors

    From East To West Wood Bioenergy Solutions

    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.

    From Left: Jessica Johnson, Managing Editor; Dan Shell, Senior Editor; Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief; David Abbott, Senior Associate Editor

     

    Cover Story: Future Won’t be Powered by Fossil Fuels

    Article by William Strauss

    Not that long ago the best that humans could do to increase productivity was to engage lots of humans (often slaves) and use large animals to pull heavy loads. As humans innovated, where geography allowed, waterpower milled grains and eventually powered machines in factories with lots of pulleys and belts.

    Just a few hundred years ago, reciprocating pistons driven by steam were a huge breakthrough in generating power. Beginning in the 1800s the use of a very energy dense solid fuel, coal, evolved into the dominant supplier of primary energy for factories, railroads, and shipping. Spinning turbines driving generators no longer needed to be on a river or dam. Steam turbines powered by coal fueled boilers allowed electrification to expand rapidly. The evolution of energy dense liquid fuels produced from another mineral, petroleum, changed everything.

    These so-called fossil fuels underpinned a great leap forward in global standards of living. Even the poorest have benefited.

    Of course we want to keep doing what we have been doing. Most of the comforts and conveniences of modern living are supported by energy from fossil fuels. But for clear and present reasons, we cannot keep doing what we are doing.

    Fossil Fuel Age

    The first reason: Fossil fuels are a finite resource.

    The extraction rates have become huge and are still increasing. Coal use hit a new record in 2023, exceeding 8,700,000,000 metric tons. The earth’s resources are vast but not infinite.

    Ignoring the impacts of CO2 emissions (for now), over time, fossil fuels will be harder to find and extract and, out into the future, mostly depleted. Increasing scarcity pushes up prices.

    Without a well-managed transition to that future, there will be increasing conflict and chaos as coal, oil, and nat- ural gas supplies fall and energy poverty and a rising global Gini coefficient reverses established trends.

    A view of a possible future for fossil fuels is shown in Figure 2 (again, without consideration for changes due to carbon dioxide emissions mitigation). The simulation by FutureMetrics that produced the curve is based on historic data and projections by the IEA for peak fossil fuel use. It is likely wrong.

    However, while one can quibble about the location of the peak and the length of the long right tail, one cannot deny that something similar will happen if we simply keep doing what we are doing.

    Figure 2’s forecast is that our civilization will have consumed about 85% of fossil fuel in the 200 years between 1950 and 2150. Again, who knows for sure? But it is quite possible that a person’s normal lifespan today will be at least one-third of the majority of the fossil fuel age!

    Without a rational transition off of fossil fuels, only a few generations into the future gets us to a time of scarcity, increasing social unrest, and definitely not the future we wish for.

    Even ignoring the consequences of carbon emissions, depletion of a finite resource is why practical and pragmatic strategic policy making is critical.

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    Wood Bioenergy is published and delivered 6 times per year tosubscribers worldwide. Readership includes corporate executives, mill ownership, mill management, logging contractors and equity venture interests. Wood Bioenergy is FREE to qualified readers.

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