What Do We Think About?: Forest Biomass Emissions Act of 2024

First, it seems to me that the southern experience with biomass shipping to Europe has sucked all the air out of the room for folks in the west who have a great deal of material and want to do something with it besides burning it in situ.  You’ll remember that  ENGOs like TNC and Defenders signed on to these agreements about forest biomass in the Sierra Nevada, with many caveats. So when some national folks say “forest biomass” they don’t think the Sierra and TNC, they think the South and the Dogwood Council.  Completely different conditions, needs, and “what will happen to the material if there are no markets for biomass.”

Given that we in the West are junior partners in this discussion,  here’s a link to the announcement.  First of all, we note that the concern is from Senators from Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey about forest biomass in the southern US. Usually we think of Congressfolk passing bills to support their own industries, not to critique other areas industries.  I’ve told this story before, but in the mid 90’s I worked on Rep. Carrie Meek of Florida’s staff, and was the representative from our staff to the Democratic Environmental Caucus.  We supported wilderness in Idaho, but not bills that would affect development along Florida’s coasts.  The DEC person told me “we can usually count on you” and I just looked at him.  I couldn’t figure whether he really didn’t get it (the DC occupational disease, believing your own hype) or was shining me on.

There are more than 20 wood pellet mills from Texas to Virginia, with over a dozen more planned. Many of these facilities have benefitted from grants and tax breaks in addition to increased international demand due to subsidies. At the same time, the consequences of this energy production have not been fully measured. Over a million acres of U.S. forest have been cut and combusted to supply the biomass industry, releasing millions of tons of carbon dioxide as well as harmful co-pollutants that impact air quality and health.

When I researched this, I found it not to be actually true that forests are cut to feed the biomass industry. At least in North Carolina, landowners sell trees to the timber industry and have leftover material. Here’s their side of the story, and they even had on their website exactly where they sourced the material.

It is very important to understand that Enviva’s pellets are made from low-value wood that is a byproduct of a traditional timber harvest. Enviva creates an additional market for private forest landowners to sell their low-value wood, such as “thinnings,” limbs, tops, or low-grade trees (deceased, crooked) that would otherwise go unused, and an incentive to keep their land as forests. We’re talking about material that is a relatively small source of revenue for a landowner, so it’s not driving their decision to harvest in the first place.

Meanwhile, Enviva declared bankruptcy in April.

Here’s the legislation:

legislation that would direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assess the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with forest biomass combustion for electricity and study the impact of the industry on communities living in direct proximity to forest biomass industrial areas, including mills.

address concerns related to combustion of forest biomass for electricity generation and its impact on both the environment and public health. This includes examining the impact on air quality, noise pollution, and other environmental factors that may affect the health and well-being of people living in close proximity to these facilities. Wood pellet biomass mills have been expanding particularly in low-income, majority-Black communities across the South.

If you think about it, probably the FS or others have done LCAs on forest biomass.  I tend to be skeptical of LCA’s unless there’s some kind of public process to arrive at assumptions and accompanying sensitivity analysis.  Actually, that would be the way to do it, making sure to include people on the ground familiar with practices.  When I worked on genetically engineered plants, we had unpleasant surprises because EPA scientists weren’t familiar with how farmers actually work with seed. I’d involve the forest departments at the southern universities, and the FS’s Southern Research Station, for sure.  Of course, EPA may be the experts on other topics, but health aspects of noise pollution, but wouldn’t that be a .. public health research agency?

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Sidenote, a group that supports this bill, SELC (yes, the one who litigates the Forest Service) also received money to pass-through to other groups via the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program Cooperative Agreements.

The Grantmakers will provide subgrants to community-based nonprofits and other eligible subrecipients for assessment, planning, and project development activities. Grantmakers will alleviate much of the burden that the federal grants process places on small, resource-constrained community-based organizations supporting underserved communities and marginalized population

Another alternative would be to look at the federal grantmaking process, and simplify it so it would be easier for everyone to access.  But then we wouldn’t need pass-through entities, and we would save applicants and  taxpayers, time and money.  I’m sensing a grift opportunity here.

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Back to the bill..

The Forest Biomass Emissions Act of 2024 would:

  • Require the EPA to account for the full life cycle of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of electricity from forest biomass when enactingrelevant rules and regulations.
  • Task the EPA with conducting an evaluation of the impacts on communities living in the direct proximity of facilities involved in the production of electricity from forest biomass, including forest biomass harvesting areas, pellet mills, and power facilities.
  • Mandate the EPA to collect data on air and noise pollution considering the race and socioeconomic status of impacted individuals, and to submit a report to Congress.

The Forest Biomass Emissions Act of 2024 is endorsed by the following organizations: Natural Resources Defense Council, Southern Environmental Law Center, National Wildlife Federation, Clean Air Task Force, Sierra Club, Dogwood Alliance, Concerned Citizens of Northampton County, North Carolina, Concerned Citizens of Cook County, Georgia, Greater Greener Gloster, Mississippi, Mississippi ACLU, and Earthjustice.

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If I were a Senator from those coastal states, I might be more interested in noise and pollution (like fiberglass) from offshore wind, and ask EPA to study that.  For example, this group, Save Long Beach Island, asked the US Senate to hold hearings on the offshore wind energy program.  It wouldn’t be hard to be responsive to my own voters’ environmental concerns -or would it?

A New Biochar Research Program? Part of Westerman Bill

The Westerman Draft bill wants to support biochar research. It seems that many folks are already studying biochar. An idea would be to round these up, and look for gaps and overlaps before we send any more funding.

I tried the search terms forest and biochar for a variety of federal research organizations. Apparently, search terms select a broader group than I intended.

I looked at NSF (National Science Foundation) and searched on biochar and forests and got this.. but many of them don’t seem to have biochar or forests, so maybe my searching is at fault.

I looked at Department of Energy and found these, which are about biochar but the forest one is about biomass for energy 🙁 not biochar.

Here’s the list from National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA extramural research), again the search did not seem to restrict to biochar and forests.

I could find many biochar projects with the Forest Service, but not in a format that shows the funding and a link to the abstracts (which might exist, and I hope R&D folks will point that out.)

US Geological Survey of the Department of the Interior also doesn’t have project by dollars as far as I could tell, but does have this..including one on the effect of biochar on maize yield in Zambia. But it appears the last one was in 2015.

Speaking of agriculture, ARS (in-house USDA R&D) has a list of biochar projects.

This ongoing study is pretty interesting.

Through this project, we expect to demonstrate that applying biochar in agricultural lands for soil modification and remediation would be a climate-smart solution for sustainability in forest management, timber/biomass har- vesting, and economic growth of bioenergy, bioproducts, and crops. [2] Wood Fiber Insulation: The proposed solution is to evaluate several (underutilized) species in the region as feedstock for wood fiber insulation. Spruce (Pices spp.) and white pine (Pinus strobus) will serve as controls or “benchmarks”; other species to be investigated include: eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), bal- sam fir (Abies balsamea), red maple (Acer rubrum), and aspen (Populus tremuloides). [3] Wood Fiber Foam Packaging: Most available literature around foam forming is focused on rectangular shaped panels with no specific 3D shape. A process that can produce true 3D shaped lignocellulosic foamed structures by foam forming is currently lacking. In addition, low-density packaging foams are bulky and occupy a lot of space, making them difficult to ship and transport. Innovation is needed to develop foamed materials that can be compressed into high-density thin sheets for easier transportation and used upon 3D shape recovery after exposure to a stimulus. Finally, a clear understanding of the foam forming process in the presence of additives and various types of lignocellulosic feed- stock is required. Use of LCNF derived directly from wood sawdust as a binder in the formulation of such foams is another innovation that needs to happen to reduce costs and enable commercialization.

Sounds like something the FS could be funding?

I didn’t query NOAA, NASA or DOD. Conceivably biochar is related to climate and everyone studies climate (and researcher are creative in rationalizing what they want to do) so who knows?

Wouldn’t it be terrific if the research agencies would feed into a centralized database of all federal research? That included abstracts, and who is funding, how much and how long. Plus links to products. Then those interested could analyze gaps and overlaps. It appears that the Congress is interested in saving money.. but, I guess, not so much in spending it better. Especially when fixes would go across Committee responsibilities. Where is the Admin’s Office of Science and Technology Policy when you need it?

From Frivolous Litigation to Western Headquarters Via Many Other Ideas: Westerman’s Bill: What’s In it and What Do You Think?

Subtitle C actually says “addressing frivolous litigation” and Section 121 is titled “Commonsense Litigation Reform”

Here’s the text. We’re going to need help from lawyers out there..

a) IN GENERAL.—A court shall not enjoin a fireshed management project under this Act if the court determines that the plaintiff is unable to demonstrate that the claim 7 of the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits.
8 (b) BALANCING SHORT- AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES IN CONSIDERING INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—As part of its weighing the equities while considering any request for an injunction that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act, the court reviewing the agency action shall balance the impact to the ecosystem likely 15 affected by the fireshed management project of—
16 (1) the short- and long-term effects of under taking the agency action; against 18 (2) the short- and long-term effects of not undertaking the action.
20 (c) TIME LIMITATIONS FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—
21 (1) IN GENERAL.—Subject to paragraph (2), the length of any preliminary injunctive relief and stays pending appeal that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act shall not exceed 30 days.

1 (2) RENEWAL.—
2 (A) IN GENERAL.—A court of competent  jurisdiction may issue one or more renewals of any preliminary injunction, or stay pending appeal, granted under paragraph (1).
6 (B) UPDATES.—In each renewal of an injunction in an action, the parties to the action shall present the court with updated information on the status of the fireshed management project.
11 (d) LIMITATIONS ON CLAIMS.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a claim arising under Federal law seeking judicial review of a fireshed management project  shall be barred unless—  such claim is filed not later than 120 days after the date of publication of a notice in the Federal Register of agency intent to carry out the proposed agency action;

This sounds like a time limit for filing.

19 (2) such claim is filed after the issuance of a record of decision or other final agency action with respect to the relevant proposed agency action; and

How could it be filed before the ROD is issued?

22 (3) such claim does not challenge the use of a categorical exclusion under this section.

I’m kind of lost in the negatives here. “a claim shall be barred unless it does not challenge the use of a CE? So claims about CE-hood would be barred? Under “this” what (?) section.

Section 122 sounds like the Cottonwood fix but maybe not.

ARBITRATION PILOT PROGRAM

This is always one of my favorites. People learn a lot from pilots. This one has a ceiling, no more than 15 projects per year per FS Region or BLM States. You could lower the numbers, but is anyone really against it? Apparently the results would not be subjected to judicial review, except “as 16 provided in section 10(a) of title 9, United States Code.” Maybe someone knows what that is.

COMMUNITY WILDFIRE RISK REDUCTION PROGRAM.

Then there’s a section on WUI. My friends who are involved in community wildfire programs tell me that this would be very useful

create a single, uniform application and portal for local communities seeking to apply for Federal financial assistance or 23 technical assistance programs targeted at reducing fire risk to communities

Also these:

SIMPLIFICATIONS.—In creating the portal under paragraph (1), the Secretaries and the Ad1ministrator shall seek to reduce the complexity and length of the application process.
18 (3) TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE.—The Secretary of the Interior shall provide technical assistance to communities looking to apply for financial assistance under the streamlined application and portal created under paragraph (1).

Of course, Congress can’t do that, but a really wild and crazy idea would be for States to try to simplify  procedures for funding as well and maybe try to harmonize with the feds..

Then there’s section 202 which seems to be about controlling management of fires for resource benefits. That’s probably worth its own post, if anyone wants to take a look.

A Community Wildfire Defense Research Program (expanding JFSP to include):

(1) different affordable building materials, including mass timber;
5 (2) home hardening;
6 (3) subdivision design and other land use planning and design;
8 (4) landscape architecture; and
9 (5) other wildfire-resistant designs for structures or communities, as determined by the Secretary.

And a Community Wildfire Defense Innovation Prize

A new CE for power line operation and maintenance:

“the development and approval of a vegetation management, facility inspection, and operation and maintenance plan submitted under section 512(c)(1) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1772(c)(1)) by the Secretary concerned; and 11 (2) the implementation of routine activities conducted under the plan referred to in paragraph (1).

Plus a change to FLPMA from 10 to 50 feet of a power line for hazard trees.

Seeds of Success

I imagine Defense is included here as federal lands include Forest Service, some Interior agencies and DOD. The point seems to be enhance the domestic supply chain of native seeds, in a manner coordinated across agencies. It seems like it’s about native plants perhaps not including trees, as it appears to be BLM focused. I’d put them (trees and other natives) together somehow and get them coordinated.

Biochar Demonstration Projects and Biochar Competitive Grants. (more on this later)

Accurate Hazardous Fuels Reduction Reports

This approach sounds plausible to me, certainly it needs clarification and consistency. Many other groups, of various persuasions, have pointed out the problems with the current approach.

Public Private Wildfire Technology Deployment and Testbed Partnership
This seems like a mechanism for coordination among agencies to ensure real-world testing of new technologies. Hopefully, this will ensure that less USG funding is spent on random “sounds plausible” technologies, and gets them to field testing. Note that it includes say, thinning as a hazardous fuels reduction, so all our friends interested in mechanizing and improving marking and harvesting would be included.

(A) hazardous fuels reduction treatments or activities;
5 (B) dispatch communications;
6 (C) remote sensing, detection, and tracking;
8 (D) safety equipment; and
9 (E) common operating pictures or operational dashboards; and
11 (3) partner with each covered entity selected to participate in the Pilot Program with the appropriate covered agency to coordinate real-time and  on-the-ground testing of technology during wildland  fire mitigation activities and training.

GAO Study on Forest Service Policies

(A) the effectiveness of Forest Service wildland firefighting operations;
(B) transparency and accountability measures in the Forest Service’s budget and accounting process; and
(D) the suitability and feasibility of establishing a new Federal agency with the responsibility of responding and suppressing wildland 2 fires on Federal lands;

What happened to C? Also I’d have two studies, one that looked at the Interagency wildland firefighting and the idea of a new Federal Agency (why just FS?) and a separate one for FS budget transparency and accountability.

Forest Service Western Headquarters Study

It’s not clear to me whether this is to substitute for Regions or to add another layer of bureaucracy. Perhaps it will be clear in FS testimony tomorrow.

Summary: there are lots of interesting ideas in this bill.  It will be interesting to see the FS testimony.  What do you think?

Who Knew? Wood Is Still Main Heating Fuel For Some: A Roundup of Miscellaneous Articles on Wood Stove Use

Many of you have been following the great gas stove controversy (who actually decides which of the many health/environment/climate enhancing ideas to generate campaigns about?). Perhaps wood stoves are on the list. Perhaps they’re next.

It’s 0 F this morning where I live, so I’ve been thinking about our woodstove. It’s cheaper than propane and gets rid of waste wood, and that’s all I really need to know for now. But..

I ran across this article by some folks with the Census Bureau, published in 2018, with data from the 2016 census.. see the table above.

As I looked around, it wasn’t always clear who uses wood heat and who uses it as a primary source. Seems like many more folks would use it as a backup. But I’m not sure that there is literature on this.

Here’s what the American Lung Association has to say about that as of Jan. 3, 2023:

As the weather gets colder, thoughts of curling up with a mug of hot cocoa in front of a roaring fire become more appealing. Though indoor wood-burning stoves and heaters may have a quaint and traditional feel, they also produce harmful toxins that could damage your lungs and affect the air quality.

So, before you throw another log on the fire, it is important to understand how wood-burning devices work and how to protect your family’s lungs:

Health Effects Caused by Wood Smoke

The smoke from wood-burning devices, such as stoves and heaters, contains fine particle pollution, and hazardous air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides benzene and formaldehyde. Particle pollution is especially dangerous because these tiny particles can get deep into the organs, harming not just the lungs, but also blood vessels, the heart and brain. Wood smoke can cause coughing, wheezing and asthma attacks, and lead to serious health issues, such as heart attacks, stroke and premature death. Wood smoke also adds carbon dioxide and methane to the air, both of which significantly contribute to climate change.

Protecting Those at High Risk

Wood smoke is not good for any set of lungs, but it can be particularly harmful to those with vulnerable lungs, such as children and older adults. Additionally, those with lung diseases, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer are also more affected by wood smoke. Breathing the smoke can easily cause coughing and asthma attacks.

Outdoor Pollution Created by Wood Smoke

Wood stoves often run 24 hours a day, pumping wood smoke and toxins into the outdoor air. If wood-burning stoves or heaters are affecting your neighborhood’s air, take steps to protect your family: encourage children, older adults and those living with lung disease to remain indoors; use the recirculate function on air conditioners; and keep windows and vents closed.

Finding Wood Alternatives

To reduce indoor and outdoor pollution from wood-burning devices, switch to cleaner devices such as natural gas stoves and heaters, and make sure they are fully vented to the outdoors. If you are unable to switch, use pellets and dry hardwood for a cleaner and more efficient burn. You can also buy a cleaner wood-burning device. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopted new standards for cleaner and more energy efficient wood-burning devices in 2015. Many devices currently meet the 2020 standards and have hangtags showing this certification.

This winter, make changes to your wood heater and stove so you and your lungs can enjoy a cozy evening.

So burning wood “contributes significantly to climate change” and natural gas is preferable- because it doesn’t have smoke, indoor or outdoor. For whatever reason, I don’t think people who use wood from fuel treatments (otherwise burned in the atmosphere in piles) are included in the Lung Association’s thinking on this.

Otherwise, I can see where they are coming from. Some of us live in urban areas where there is too much wood smoke. But…many of us do not. I think it’s good to be aware of the dangers, especially to people with breathing problems, but, on the other hand many people can’t afford to keep switching out heat sources,either more current wood stoves or other heaters. Further, having wood as a backup allows us to have heating diversity in case of price rises in either propane or electric rates. It seems important at the home level to not be locked in to one source of energy, especially as our sources are transitioning. Especially in parts of the country where heating is a matter of life and death.

Meanwhile, this report from the Guardian talks about what you can do to reduce the impacts (the Guardian is located Great Britain).

The government is phasing out the sale of wet wood, which produces more smoke, but the people in the study used only dry, seasoned wood. Wood and coal burning in homes is estimated to cause almost 40% of outdoor tiny particle pollution, but the new research is among the first to analyse indoor pollution in real-life settings. Almost 16% of people in the south-east of England use wood fuel, and 18% in Northern Ireland, according to 2016 government data, and about 175,000 wood burners are sold annually.

“Our findings are a cause for concern,” said Rohit Chakraborty, of the University of Sheffield, who led the study. “It is recommended that people living with those particularly susceptible to air pollution, such as children, the elderly or vulnerable, avoid using wood-burning stoves. If people want to use them, we recommend minimising the time the stove is open during lighting or refuelling.”

Wood burners cause less indoor pollution than open fires. “But every time you open the door, you reduce the stove to an open fire and particulate matter floods into the home,” he said. The peaks take an hour or two to dissipate. “But by the time it comes down, someone opens the door again to refuel and you get spike after spike,” Chakraborty said. Some burners have filters, but these only reduce the pollution being vented outside.

Meanwhile as of November of last year (according to this pro-woodstove UK site)

The use of wood-burning stoves is growing in popularity in the UK, especially so with the advent of highly efficient Ecodesign stoves and, more recently, with the growing instability of gas and electricity prices, people have found the idea of self-sufficiency very appealing.

That article rounds up what countries in Europe are doing. Like I said, these folks sell woodstoves. Still it’s interesting what they say about countries in Europe, for example…

The Netherlands – Like with other countries, there is a rush to buy firewood in preparation for the winter. The rush for wood in The Netherlands usually starts in September, but due to the war in Ukraine, people started this rush in July, according to one wood supplier. The Netherlands aims to ban fossil fuels for new heating insulations from 2026. This could mean an increase in Ecodesign stove sales – renowned for their green credentials. We already supply a number of our stoves to The Netherlands.

Poland – Due to the spiralling price increases in gas and electricity, there is a shift towards burning wood in Poland. This is the same for several other nearby countries. However, Poland is far less affluent than many of the aforementioned Scandinavian countries, and so a key driver for using wood to stay warm is financial.

Any other ideas for minimizing impacts without buying new stoves or switching heating sources?

How Surprising is That Really?: “To Fight Wildfire, California Gets a Surprising Solution: a New Sawmill”

A new sawmill under construction near Lake Tahoe is offering hope to state officials and some environmental advocates. Its first job will be to process wood from trees killed in the massive Caldor Fire in 2021, before moving onto smaller trees. Photographer: Patrick Mouzawak/Bloomberg

A Bloomberg article today talks about a new sawmill under construction near Lake Tahoe. Some of us may have a “back to the future” vibe about this. Others may wonder about whether communities without the substantial resources and economic/political clout.. think casinos, resorts, Billionaire’s Row, ski areas and so on, might also be assisted by having a sawmill in the community. Lake Tahoe is the place with its own CE, after all.

Under our legislation, active forest management of up to 10,000 acres at Tahoe now qualifies for a categorical exclusion from NEPA. Forest Service Region 5 Manager Randy Moore told me that this takes their environmental assessment from more than 800 pages to less than 40 pages, and Tahoe Basin Supervisor Jeff Marsolais reports that their first project under this new authority took just four months to permit.

Perhaps other philanthropic organizations could support traditional underserved rural communities? The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities is doing that in John Day, Oregon, but perhaps the larger philanthropic foundations?

Check out the Tahoe Fund’s website it looks like they have an enormous variety of projects, trails, sugar pine restoration, scholarships for forestry education (could forestry be cool again?), including a grant to a biomass plant:

The Tahoe Fund has made Forest Health our top priority, with a focus on increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration in the Tahoe Basin. A major issue our public land managers face is the lack of places to offload woody biomass. There is currently nowhere feasible to take the excess biomass, resulting in hundreds of thousands of burn piles sitting in the Basin.

The Tahoe Fund has been working with Sierra Valley Enterprises, the new owners of a biomass facility in Loyalton that was shut down in January of 2020, to help get it back up and running. To help facilitate the financing required to re-open this facility, the Tahoe Fund hired TSS Consultants to develop a Resource Study of available forest biomass and log supply within the economic transport distance of the Loyalton site.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from the story. I think you can read Bloomberg News for free if you register.

The Tahoe Fund helped convene the sawmill project leaders, which include Shinn and Kevin Leary, the CEO of a Reno-based private investment firm, Hallador Investment Advisors. In 2021, it commissioned a study that examined how much supply would be available for a sawmill operation in the region. It cited recent funding and planning by the state of California and the US Forest Service to increase fuel reduction treatments such as thinning as well as prescribed fire. That support should help keep the supply of logs for the sawmill flowing, with the oversight of environmental regulators, said Berry of the Tahoe Fund.

“Everyone has a role to play here,” she said.

The Carson City mill will be built on land owned by the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. Wendy Loomis, the executive director of the tribe’s business arm, said the project will aim to hire tribal members for jobs that will be available in the sawmill.

“When we look for projects, our first priority is to support the Tribe’s vision and mission statement to help Mother Earth,” Loomis said. “Number two is to create workforce development. So this accomplishes both of those things.”

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Several environmental groups and restoration experts offered cautious support for the types of thinning projects that the new sawmill is supposed to help. A spokesperson for the Nature Conservancy, the largest environmental nonprofit in the US, said that while it did not specifically endorse the Carson City project, “we can envision a future where a small-diameter sawmill, properly sited and sized, could help scale forest restoration efforts.” The Sierra Nevada Alliance, an environmental nonprofit based in the Tahoe area, similarly advocates for healthy forest restoration.

relates to To Fight Wildfire, California Gets a Surprising Solution: a New Sawmill
The plans for the Tahoe Forest Products sawmill in Carson City.
Photographer: Patrick Mouzawak/Bloomberg

Last year’s Caldor fire provided some evidence that thinning and prescribed fire — which was developed and practiced by Indigenous people for millennia — are beneficial for forests. In areas that had been treated, flames dropped down enough to leave patches of forest still green and alive, officials said at the time.

Not everyone is in favor of the Carson City plan. Some residents have registered concerns with elected officials about noise impacts related to the mill. And there are some scientists and activists who oppose all forms of logging, arguing that forest thinning is a smokescreen for the economic interests of timber companies. A lawsuit impacting a restoration-focused logging plan in Yosemite National Park reflects that ongoing tension.

Battles, the Berkeley scientist, said those voices are in the scientific minority. And the Carson City sawmill isn’t the only project of its kind. Further north, in Quincy, California, another sawmill is being built to tackle the acres of dead trees killed by last year’s Dixie fire.

“We need to do more forest management, whatever it is,” he said. “But we need the capacity for it, and one way to get that is to sell the wood and make sawmills that can handle it.”

For groups that “oppose all forms of logging, arguing that forest thinning is a smokescreen for the economic interests of timber companies”.  But what about all the timber industry-free places like Lake Tahoe or many other places that have the (identical bolded above) problem? Thinned trees in piles?

I’d really like to have that discussion with someone who represents that point of view, perhaps a TSW reader? Otherwise it sounds like a “bad industry, we can’t work with them” thing. And I think this “bad industry” attitude can actually work against environmental goals, be it decarbonization, keeping green forests on the landscape, helping fire suppression folks do their job, and so on.  There are plenty of ENGOs without that attitude, so I wonder what underlies it.  In fact, I was kind of surprised by the relatively lukewarm TNC quote.

In this case, it would have been helpful if the reporter had pushed back.  Should they (public and private) not thin? What else should they do with the piles?

Yale Forest Forum (Western) Fuel Treatment Residues/Bioenergy Webinars of Interest

Here’s a link to all of Bioenergy series webinars organized by the Yale Forest Forum. They have links to the recordings and the slides.

I took the slides above from the presentation by Matt Donegan, the Chair of the  of Oregon Governor’s Wildfire Response Council.  This should be of particular interest to Oregonians. If you only have a bit of time/interest, just check out the slides.

Summary:

The Potential Role of Bioenergy in Mitigating Wildfire in the West

Record wildfire seasons continue across the US West, increasingly comprised of unnatural and catastrophic events owing to climate change, excessive fuel accumulation and development within the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI).  The comprehensive costs of these wildfires are staggering, when considering costs of suppression, property and ecosystem degradation, carbon emissions, human health impacts, infrastructure damage including water, and numerous other direct and indirect effects.  To contain these costs, excess fuels must be removed to restore wildfire-resilient landscapes and to protect vulnerable communities.  Fuel treatments, in turn, entail significant costs, potentially combined with carbon emissions if wood waste is left to burn or decompose.  An oft-proposed solution is the development of wood waste markets including biofuels, potentially combined with carbon capture technologies.  To develop biofuels markets at the scale needed to address the growing wildfire problem in the West, a complete system must be designed including economic incentives recognizing multiple public values, and policies to stabilize supply sources and ensure adequate workforce development.

I watched this one, it’s really good and goes into the nitty-gritty of the technologies of interest.

Daniel L. Sanchez – Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension, University of California-Berkeley
Daniel L. Sanchez studies engineered biomass & bioenergy systems that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Trained as an engineer and energy systems analyst, Sanchez’s work and engagement spans the academic, nongovernmental, and governmental sectors. As an Assistant Professor of Cooperative Extension, he runs the Carbon Removal Lab, which aims to commercialize sustainable carbon dioxide removal technologies, and supports outreach to policymakers and technologists in California and across the United States

Innovative Wood Products for Carbon-Beneficial Forest Management in California
Natural carbon sinks can help mitigate climate change, but climate risks—like increased wildfire—threaten forests’ capacity to store carbon. California has recently set ambitious forest management goals to reduce these risks. However, management can incur carbon losses because wood residues are often burnt or left to decay. This study applies a systems approach to assess climate change mitigation potential and wildfire outcomes across forest management scenarios and several wood products. We find that innovative use of wood residues supports extensive wildfire hazard reduction and maximizes carbon benefits. Long-lived products that displace carbon-intensive alternatives have the greatest benefits, including wood building products. Our results suggest a low-cost pathway to reduce carbon emissions and support climate adaptation in temperate forests.

I haven’t checked out the others but they are probably good as well.  My pet peeve (as discussed with the organizers) is that western fuel treatment residue bioenergy tends to get ignored in national/Coastal  discussions of bioenergy around the world or chips for European export in the SE, so that’s why I focused on these two.  As always, anyone is welcome to view and write a post or comment about what they think is interesting about them.

The two western webinars are not so much about bioenergy itself, but more about “what the heck are we going to do with all this material?”

4FRI By The Numbers- January 2022 Accomplishment Report

Why it 4FRI important?  At our Region 2 Wildfire Strategy Roundtable, I heard “entrepreneurs need some guarantees for supply.” Which makes sense. But as we have seen, that and “having NEPA done” hasn’t necessarily worked out as well as expected for a variety of reasons that are important to understand.  Since they are the main pioneers in the efforts to do fuel treatments at scale in places without existing infrastructure sufficient to process the material (a common problem across the west), I think it’s worth understanding their context to help understand how replicable it is in other places.

Here’s a handy chart of what they accomplished by year.

 

Here’s the January accomplishment report. It includes a list of NEPA projects and NEPA status.

‘Fuel for the next fire.’ Why California can’t unload the trees that worsen its wildfires: Sacramento Bee

IMHO, this is a really really good story.  Unfortunately, it’s for subscribers of the Sacramento Bee only.  Fortunately, they have a 99 cent day rate (yay, wish everyone had that). There are also excellent videos and photos.  I think it’s particularly interesting to contrast the kind of conversations in California with those of Oregon.

State and federal officials, as well as forestry experts, say California doesn’t have nearly enough lumber mills to process the trees — dead or alive — that need to come out of the state’s 33 million acres of forestland to reduce the risk of megafires. California suffers from a similar shortage of biomass plants, which make electricity out of trees and brush hauled out of the woods.

So the timber stays in the forests.

“It’s fuel for the next fire,” said Tim Robards, a staff chief at Cal Fire who oversees forest health and wood products issues.

Robards said the problem has worsened in the past two years, during which 6.7 million acres burned. The surge of dead and dying trees is clogging the state’s meager fleet of mills and biomass plants, he said.

The problem is intensifying at the very moment state and federal agencies are trying to reduce the density of California’s forests. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages 20 million acres of California land, says the shortage of mills and plants makes it hard to even plan the fuels-reduction projects it wants to undertake.

“We lack sufficient infrastructure to make as much progress as everyone would like us to do,” said Larry Swan, a wood utilization and biomass specialist with the Forest Service.

There’s no obvious quick fix for “this deficit of capacity,” as Robards called it. The facilities have been in decline for decades — lumber mills have been disappearing since the early 1990s, largely because of environmental restrictions, and the biomass industry has been battered by competition from cheaper energy sources.

“We had this robust infrastructure,” said Mike De Lasaux, a retired forester with UC Cooperative Extension. “Now we see these humongous piles of treetops and small trees that have no place to go.”

There’s a detailed discussion of biomass and the difficulties of getting biomass plants established.

It’s a tragedy,” said Brett Storey, the recently retired biomass manager for Placer County. “All of that material would be utilized instead of going up in smoke every summer.”
Storey spent years trying to get a biomass plant built near Lake Tahoe. A proposed site near Kings Beach faltered when residents and local officials objected to an industrial facility opening in the Tahoe basin. County officials then chose a spot near Truckee, but that fell apart four years ago when they couldn’t make a deal with the area’s electric company, Liberty Utilities, to buy the plant’s energy.
Now the county is trying again. After the Caldor Fire nearly burned down South Lake Tahoe this summer, county officials are taking a fresh look at the biomass project.
“There’s just a great sense of urgency,” said Kerri Timmer, the county’s regional forest health coordinator.
The state has tried to revive the industry, with some success. An auction-based program called BioRAM, which requires utilities to purchase biomass power, has enabled some plants to garner higher prices for their electricity than they can negotiate on their own. The program has saved at least one plant that was about to shut down, Burney Forest Power in Shasta County.
But not everyone’s eligible.
In the Sierra County town of Loyalton, the American Renewable Power biomass plant was consuming 100,000 tons of wood annually until it closed last year. One reason was price: Because of issues around its connection to the power grid, the Loyalton plant wasn’t eligible for the BioRAM program and couldn’t negotiate a decent rate for its energy.
Jeff Holland, who runs a logging company near Placerville, purchased the Loyalton site for $825,000 and is trying to resume operations. But startup costs are higher than expected, and he isn’t sure when it will reopen. He thinks the state must do more to support biomass.
“Logical thinking people who are tired of breathing smoke and tired of losing our national treasures believe biomass should be in the picture,” Holland said

Biomass plants are so limited in number, it often doesn’t pay to haul the wood out of forests that have been thinned. Instead, it gets stacked up and burned in the open, polluting the air. “For a lot of that biomass that’s being produced, particularly in the forested areas, there isn’t a market for it,” said Steve Eubanks, a retired Forest Service official who’s trying to build a biomass plant near Grass Valley. “They’re either leaving it on the ground or piling it or burning it.”
Often, the piles sit a long while. The regional air district has to issue a burn permit. The weather has to cooperate — if it’s too windy, the fire could blow out of control, as when the Caples Fire burned part of the Eldorado National Forest in 2019.
“It’s a struggle to burn our piles, and, yes, we have a backlog,” said Swan of the Forest Service.

I recommend a read of the whole piece. What seems to be missing for me is that our energy policies don’t reflect the risk reduction benefits of biomass removal. Biomass can only win by being cheaper than wind and solar. But nuclear folks will tell us that intermittent energy sources need backup. Then wind and solar folks will point to batteries or pumped hyro or homes as batteries, all unproven technologies at scale, plus issues around mining and trade in minerals needed for batteries. The old decarbonizing technology horserace. But today we could be running forest biomass plants with the technology we have And do risk reduction for wildfires, and contribute to air quality (instead of burning in piles). Perhaps the difficulty is ultimately policy siloing. And California’s working to tackle it.

DePartisanizing Issues: Biomass Utilization and Fuel Treatments

 

 

It’s been interesting to watch the mechanics of how an issue becomes partisanized.. or departisanized. Two cheery notes on this wherein what used to be considered that bad R people had are now the same ideas that good D people from states like California and Colorado have.

At a alumni gathering a few years ago at Yale, Gina  McCarthy gave what amounted to a rousing very partisan political speech (personally that’s not why I show up for reunions, but that’s a different topic) that included the concept of biomass being bad for climate as if it were something everyone knows the “right answer” to.

Fast forward a few years and here’s Senator Feinstein saying what we’ve always said here- it depends.. Don’t look at our problems through an “east coastal” lens.

“I write to request that the Environmental Protection Agency use its administrative authority to revise the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to expand allowable sources for biomass to include vegetation cleared from human-occupied areas where it creates wildfire hazards,” Feinstein wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “Since 2010, California has experienced unprecedented wildfires and this change would help reduce risk in my state, improve forest health, and make use of cleared vegetation.”

Here’s what her letter said:

As you may know, Section 201 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) allows biomass from federal land to be sourced “from the immediate vicinity of buildings and other areas regularly occupied by people, or of public infrastructure, at risk from wildfire.” In 2010, the EPA published implementation guidelines for that category in its final rule, “Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard Program.” Unfortunately, the implementation of this law did not account for areas with wildfire hazard potential and excluded most of the Western United States where catastrophic wildfires are increasing common. (See attached map, “2020 U.S. Forest Service Wildfire Hazard Potential,” which underscores the risk in the West.)

As this year’s fuel quantities become finalized, I urge the EPA, in conjunction with federal land management agencies, to expand the criteria for which qualifying biomass could be sourced and, thus, eligible for credits under the cellulosic category in the RFS. This determination should be made in accordance with the latest science, and to recognize the exacerbating threat that climate change poses to catastrophic wildfire in the American West.

This one from the formerly “fuel treatments don’t work” Los Angeles Times.. (this is from a political reporter, not an environmental reporter, so..)

Democrats are proposing a potentially seismic shift in how the nation battles wildfires by dramatically increasing funding for efforts that aim to prevent blazes, rather than focusing on the tools to put them out.
Under the social safety-net and climate bill passed by the House and now being negotiated in the Senate, Democrats would funnel $27 billion into the nation’s forests, including a sizable $14 billion over a decade for clearing vegetation and other dry debris that can fuel a fire.

What this article seems to overlook is that there is a substantial chunk of change in the bipartisan Infrastructure bill, and that the BBB $ come with restrictions that may make them less useful than they could be.

Still, the $27 billion would represent the largest investment the federal government has made in its forests, according to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who introduced a similar forestry bill this year. Funding for the preventative hazardous fuels reduction — to be spread over a decade — is more than double what Congress spent on such efforts annually between 2011 and 2020, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Traditionally, the federal government has focused its wildfire spending on suppression at the expense of prevention. The Interior Department and Forest Service are even allowed to unilaterally move money from any of its programs, including fire prevention, to fund more urgent suppression efforts.

“When you combine the effects of climate change with the profound negligence of the federal government in terms of managing its national forests, these places are profound dangers to our communities and to our economy,” Bennet said.

“Profound negligence of the federal government in terms of managing its national forests”.. sounds almost like an R Congressperson from the Sierra, or dare I say, the Western Slope.

The Other Side of the Story: CNN Story on Enviva and “Helicopter Journalism”

Franklin Williams, Northampton County’s Economic Development Director

Matthew posted this CNN piece, and my original thoughts were “I bet there are Black people who work at Enviva and who supply wood to them.. I wonder why their perspectives are not in the story?” The headline was “marginalized communities are paying the price for green energy in Europe”, but it could also have been “marginalized communities benefit from green energy exports to Europe.” If we go to the reporter’s Twitter,  she says “how Europe’s green energy hurts Black Americans.” It almost seems as though evidence was selected that supported this (predetermined?) claim, and other evidence not examined. Is this a case of helicopter journalism, similar to “helicopter research?”

“Journalists don’t have the time to get closer and understand the communities they are reporting on. They just land somewhere, cover the big story from a distance and dash off,” he said. “They inevitably miss the details.”

The topic is not as far afield from the western US as you might think, as landowners and Enviva are making money from residuals from forest management, which is something many westerners would like to do (and is arguably better for the climate than burning wood in piles).  Enviva developed its own proprietary tracking program to make sure that the material is responsibly sourced, allowing it to trace every ton of wood back to its origin in the forest or sawmill.  And they post their sources and the site information to the public via this cool map.. Imagine if we could use a similar system for western forest residuals…

Here’s an answer to the CNN article from Enviva on forest management.  It’s not hard to understand,  but perhaps I have a leg up, as I did my post-doc at NC State. They’re private forests, and landowners do what they want to do within regulations. They have a variety of objectives, including producing timber and other forest products. According to Enviva,

It is very important to understand that Enviva’s pellets are made from low-value wood that is a byproduct of a traditional timber harvest. Enviva creates an additional market for private forest landowners to sell their low-value wood, such as “thinnings,” limbs, tops, or low-grade trees (deceased, crooked) that would otherwise go unused, and an incentive to keep their land as forests. We’re talking about material that is a relatively small source of revenue for a landowner, so it’s not driving their decision to harvest in the first place.

Good biomass, like the one we source at Enviva, does not drive harvests. It is crucial to understand that forests are not being harvested for biomass. The value is too low. Harvest decisions are driven by how trees are sorted, purchased, and used according to their quality and value. A forest owner can obtain as much as 8 or 9 times the price for high-value wood versus the wood Enviva uses for wood pellets. It doesn’t make economic or business sense to use a high-quality tree for wood pellets or any other low-value product. As long as we source fiber from the bottom of that value scale, regardless if it’s a whole tree or parts of a tree, then we know we’re operating sustainably and delivering tangible benefits for the climate.
..
Enviva consults with independent academic and environmental organizations, who assist in identifying environmentally sensitive forest ecosystems that have high conservation value (HCV). We do not accept wood from sensitive forest ecosystems and we do not harvest, nor accept wood, from old growth forests or independently designated high conservation value sites.

We would like to reinforce that at Enviva, we only source from land that will be returned to forest. We require replanting of tracts with forests under the purchase contracts and per our Responsible Sourcing Policy.

On the human side, here’s a July 2021 Op-Ed “Elevating Equity and Inclusion in North Carolina” that describes some of the work Enviva does in communities, including:

“For years, we have assisted truckers in paying for their rigs as well as helping loggers finance chippers and skidders. We are looking to partner with more small businesses to create real opportunity and wealth for our neighbors.

Finally, North Carolina’s Black families have been mistreated and their wealth devalued by outmoded heirs property laws. Enviva has long assisted Black families who seek to create forest management plans that will secure their property, obtain the applicable tax benefits, and begin to restore the land’s value. We want to do more to support heirs’ property and Black land retention, and we want to hear from neighbors who need help with this.

Not helicoptering in, a local reporter (Holly Taylor of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald) wrote two stories to get “the other side of the story.” In the first, she quoted a letter from the Chair of Northampton Economic Development (photo above), Franklin Williams.

“As a leader in Northampton County, North Carolina, I am extremely disappointed to read a recent CNN article entitled ‘How marginalized communities in the South are paying the price for “green energy” in Europe.’ The article portrays our county, and one of the industries operating in it, in an incredibly negative light – contrary to the truth on the ground.

“Yes, our county has challenges – all communities do – but the article neglects to mention the great work that has been happening locally and depicts one of our proud local businesses – Enviva – as reckless and inconsiderate of its neighbors.

“Northampton County has made great strides in recent years – we have a long way to go to get where we want to but each day, each week, the lives of county residents are getting incrementally better. Attracting businesses is vitally important to our work and growth.

“Your recent article portrayed Enviva as a negative part of our community and one intent on doing harm. First, Enviva is well respected in Northampton County. They work with all segments of the community to support the needs of their neighbors. Second, the forest products industry is a vibrant part of our economy – your article failed to recognize this and the very important role Enviva plays by purchasing excess or low-grade wood fiber. Third, the State of North Carolina has installed air monitors in the vicinity of Enviva and those monitors demonstrate that contrary to your story the air in Northampton County is healthy. Publishing a story leading your readers to believe our air is unhealthy could be detrimental to our long-term growth and efforts to improve our county.

“Your recent story left out many of the facts and replaced them with opinions from just a few individuals. Northampton County has a great story to tell – it’s unfortunate that you decided not to tell it.

In the second, Taylor reached out to Enviva and printed their response to the claims in the CNN article.