Cfri Energy From Bark Beetle October 21 2010

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Harvesting Energy- Options and Challenges from the Bark Beetle Epidemic Marcia Patton-Mallory, PhD Bioenergy and Climate Change Specialist US Forest Service/Western Forestry Leadership Coalition Presentation at: Colorado Forest Restoration Institute Workshop Economic Sustainability and Ecological Compatibility: Where is the room to move? Walden, CO October 21, 2010 1

description

Options for using bark beetle killed trees for bioenergy and other products in Colorado and Wyoming

Transcript of Cfri Energy From Bark Beetle October 21 2010

Page 1: Cfri Energy From Bark Beetle October  21 2010

Harvesting Energy- Options and Challenges from the Bark Beetle Epidemic

Marcia Patton-Mallory, PhDBioenergy and Climate Change Specialist

US Forest Service/Western Forestry Leadership Coalition

Presentation at:

Colorado Forest Restoration Institute Workshop

Economic Sustainability and Ecological Compatibility: Where is the room to move?

Walden, CO

October 21, 20101

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Major Topics:

• Forest biomass as a feedstock for bioenergy

• Opportunities and challenges for energy

feedstocks from forests impacted by bark

beetle

• The local situation in CO and WY

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Uses

Fuels:

− Ethanol

− Other Liquid Fuels

− Hydrogen

Electricity and Heat

Biobased Products

– Composites

– Specialty Products

– New Products

– Chemicals

– Traditional Products

Forestry: The Opportunity and Potential

Conversion

- Manufacturing

- Co-firing

- Combustion

- Gasification

- Hydrolysis

- Digestion

- Pyrolysis

- Extraction

- Separation

Feedstock

- Forest Residues

- Hazardous Fuel

Forest Treatments

- Short Rotation

Woody Crops

- Wood Waste

- Conventional

- Mill Waste &

Residues

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Forest Management and

Biomass

• Large volumes of biomass

• Fire risks

• Declining forest health

• Declining infrastructure

• Industry decline

• Offshore investments and

imports

• Worker (capacity) shortage

• Reduced investments

• Markets and barriers

• Cyclic booms and busts

• No markets

• Higher costs

• Very distributed resource

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Dynamics of Bark Beetle Eruption

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Raffa et al 2008. Bioscience

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Carbon Cycle and Forestry

OFRI and The Foresty Association

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Bark Beetle- Guiding Principles• Meet resource management and public safety

objectives

• Potential to use existing infrastructure for quicker response (energy and forest products)

• Sustainability

– Economic (short time frame- 10 years)

– Environmental (short term and longer term)

– Social (meet renewable energy goals, innovation and learning)

• Partnerships 7

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Zones of Agreement

• Priority on public safety and critical infrastructure protection

– Trees falling on roads, trails, in recreation areas, in transmission corridors, and in wildland urban interface

• Watershed protection and fire break harvesting on the broader landscape was not an area of broad agreement

• Removing trees to facilitate regeneration was not an area of broad agreement

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Biomass Supply

Table 9. Total available volume over a 10 year period– Hazard Tree Only (Level 2 Road is High Clearance Road)

National Forests Hazard Abatement

National

Forest

Timber

Program

State and Private10 Year Total

General

Forest

Estimation

With

Level 2

Roads

Without

Level 2

Roads

Lodgepole

PineState Private

General

Forest

Estimation

With

Level 2

Roads

Without

Level 2

Roads

Million

Cubic

Feet

328 561 425 58 16 65 467 700 564

Million

OD Tons3.9 6.7 5.1 0.7 0.2 0.8 5.6 8.4 6.8

Less than 10 percent of the dead lodgepole

pine in the epidemic area (four National

Forests in northern CO and southern WY)

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Cost Factors per OD ton for Forest Biomass Delivery

$11.00

$38.00

$10.30

$15.70

$26.70

$40.70

$0

$5

$10

$15

$20

$25

$30

$35

$40

$45

Biomass Logging along Roads

Biomass Logging in WUI

Chipping Hauling 50 miles Hauling 100 miles Hauling 150 miles

Cost Factors per OD ton for Forest Biomass Delivery

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Existing Facilities

Colorado

Wyoming

Existing larger wood processing facilities, chips/sort yards and wood heating

Gray area identifies

all insect infestation.

Forests inside the

oval are impacted by

bark beetle.

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Opportunities and Challenges

Opportunity

• Harvesting along roads, recreation sites, transmission and wildland-urban interface

• New pellet mills in the area of the beetle kill, but current sawmills are a long hauling distance

• Fuel switching at existing facilities - eg. bridge technologies at power plants

Challenge

• Priority material is most degraded and has lowest options for higher value products

• Existing forest products infrastructure has major commodity market challenges

• Short duration pulse of material limits new large capital investments

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Incentives

State

• Strong RPS in Colorado

• CO law requires utilities to switch fuels to meet emission reduction goals 2017-2022

• No RPS in WY

• CO Carbon Fund

• State Facilities- no specific goals or incentives

Federal

• Dedicated biomass power vs co-firing and Production Tax Credits

• Transportation of feedstocks (Biomass Crop Assistance Program) final rules not released

• Federal Grants and Loan Guarantees (rural areas)

• Renewable Biomass Definition- excludes federal land

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Broader Interests

• Meeting renewable energy goals for government, community and businesses

– Federal campus and facility (including military)

– College Campus President’s Carbon Neutrality goals

• Smaller scale fuels conversion that goes beyond the bark beetle epidemic:

– Campus heating

– combined heat and power

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Opportunity Zone: Co-firing with Coal

• Given the length of time much of the material has already been dead, the rate at which treatments can be implemented, and the lack of sufficient primary processing infrastructure (sawmills or veneer mills) it is unlikely that much if any of this material can be sold for sawlogs.

• Co-firing of coal fired power plants or industrial/institutional combined heat and power systems hold the potential to dispose of large amounts this material but the costs could be high.

• The potentially available material could provide raw material to co-fire 5 coal power plants the size of the one at Hayden, Colorado for 11 to 17 years.

• Depending on the haul distance and the source of the raw material the subsidy required to co-fire one of these plants could range from $1.8 million to $7.2 million per year.

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Potential Heat and Power Opportunities

Colorado

WyomingGray area identifies

all insect infestation.

Forests inside the

oval are impacted by

bark beetle.

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10000 11000 16000

40000

67200

100000

120000

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

400,000

Heat/Cool campus-Chadron

Co-firing with coal-108 MW

Prison-Carson City-

CHP

Heat/cool campus- U

of ID

District Heating-Prince of Whales

Co-firing with coal-456 MW Hayden

Sawmill-CHP

Biomass Power- 45

MWe

Wo

od

Ch

ips

GT

/Ye

ar

Larger Scale Biomass Heat/CHP/Co-firing/Power

550000

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Opportunity Zone: Campus Heating

• Major colleges and universities in Colorado and Wyoming have signed onto American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) which states:– “Within two years of signing this document, develop an institutional action

plan for becoming climate neutral”

• Military campuses and federal campuses that have district heating that may be viable opportunities. The Denver Federal Center, Fort Carson Army Base and Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs), and Warren Air Force Base (Cheyenne) are closest to the bark beetle area.

• State Prison campuses such as those at Rawlins, Canyon City and Buena Vista may be viable options where they already have district heating.

• The comprehensive state boiler studies should help identify these opportunities.

• Converting to renewable energy sources at federal facilities also helps agencies achieve the goals of the President’s Executive Order 13423, Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management.

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Opportunity Zone: value-added beyond commodities

• Experts in business development and wood utilization, working in the beetle killed area, could develop a comprehensive market analysis for value added products that can use blue stained wood and wood pellets (beyond pellet fuel)

• The area of value-added products and diversification of products streams has the highest potential to maintain existing sawmill and pellet manufacturing capacity.

• Business enterprises that also use other residues (such as recycled plastic) and that are located near rail transportation should be considered.

• Explore options for locating a demonstration portable sawmill (such as Hew Saw or Chip N’ Saw) at Saratoga or within the bark beetle area.

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Opportunity Zone:Forest Biomass Energy Technology Demonstration Center

• The USDA and Department of Energy have a wide variety of programs that support scaling up and demonstrating new technologies, especially in the area of biofuels.

• The large volume of biomass from the beetle killed trees will only be available for the next 10 years, so large permanent commercial-scaled facilities are not feasible unless they would use a wide variety of biomass from urban wood waste streams.

• Options to build demonstration scale technology that could benefit from operating full time for 3-6 years could use a significant amount of the forest biomass, and gain useful insights about reliability, cost and operations.

• This concept has been implemented in Tennessee for switchgrass, and the concept could be replicated in Colorado at a community that would like to sponsor a site that is near the bark beetle epidemic area.

• The C2B2 Biofuels cooperative effort among the Universities and NREL could possibly provide a partnership to help move this forward. It could take 3-5 years to make this idea a reality, and it would not use large amount of biomass.

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Railroad Access to Facilities

Existing and potential new users showing railroad access

Gray area identifies

all insect infestation.

Forests inside the

oval are impacted by

bark beetle.

Colorado

Wyoming

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Harvest Chip Transport Sort

Commodity Product

Value Added Product

Bioenergy

Transparency of

planned treatments

(Interactive CROP)

Use all Contracting

options including

Stewardship or

Service for different

sized businesses

Loan/Grant

Programs to help

businesses upgrade

equipment

Logger training and

certification at

Community Colleges

Include chip processing/landings needs in treatment layout

Loan/Grant

Programs to help

businesses upgrade

equipment

Chip processing and

handling training in

logger training

(clean chips for

energy)

Transportation

subsidy

Loan/grant Programs

to upgrade hauling

equipment

Focused analysis of

log transport/ chip vs

chip and transport

(technical assistance

workshop)

Options/needs for

sort yards/storage

and handling

Sort Yard- training and business options workshop

Develop businesses that use blue-stained lumber to produce value-added product near the mill- egtrusses, sheds, millwork, pallets, etc.

Develop local network of facilities that

use pellets delivered in bulk to by-pass

commodity bag market.

Alternative value-added products using

pellets made locally- eg erosion

waddles, landscape mats, pet bedding

Matching incentives with projects

Maintain a viable sawlog supply using

bark beetle material that is within the

first two years of mortality

Recommendations to Support Biomass

Utilization Along the Value Chain

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[email protected](970) 295-5947

Western Forestry Leadership Coalition

We work as a Coalition to address critical resources issues across ownerships and jurisdictions. We assist family forest owners, rural and state fire

organizations, and community forestry groups; improving forest health, encouraging land conservation, and stimulating community economic

recovery.

http://www.wflccenter.org/

US Forest Service Web sites:

Biomass www.fs.fed.us/woodybiomass/

Climate Change www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/

Interagency Woody Biomass information: www.forestsandrangelands.gov/woody_biomass

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