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Where's the Wood?
Bioenergy and Southern Wood Suppliesby Zoë Hoyle
Just a century and a half ago, Americans relied on wood for structural materials and energy so heavily that they almost stripped the country of its forests, leaving a devastation of soil and water. This near disaster prompted the formation of the Forest Service and began a century of research that has resulted in the restoration of the Nation's forest ecosystems and the innumerable benefits they provide.
The 1800s also brought the shift to fossil fuels that led us to another era of crisis. As concerns grow about the effects of global climate change and American dependence on foreign oil, so has interest in using woody biomass to produce transportation fuels or electricity. If it pans out, using wood for energy could usher in the most important new phase for forestry in a century.
North Carolina: A Case Study
by Zoë Hoyle
In the South, only North Carolina and Texas have adopted renewable portfolio standards that mandate the use of alternative energy sources to produce electricity. One of the questions that comes with RPS—and with a proposed national renewable electricity standard and fluctuating national fuel standards—is how the increased demand created by these policies will affect local timber markets and underlying forest resources. SRS research economist Karen Abt and North Carolina State University cooperators used the North Carolina RPS as a case study to simulate the impacts of increased demand for woody biomass as a result of renewable energy policies.
Adding Bioenergy to the Agroforestry Mix
By Sarah Farmer
The USDA National Agroforestry Center (NAC ), a partnership between SRS, Forest Service State and Private Forestry, and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, studies how "Working Trees" (also called agroforestry), can be put to work on farms, ranches and in communities doing important tasks such as improving water quality, controlling soil erosion, increasing sustainable agricultural production, providing wildlife habitat and sequestering carbon. Scientists at the NAC investigate the economic and ecological payoffs associated with agroforestry practices and offer tools and training to natural resource professionals so that they in turn can help landowners get the most out of their land. Michele Schoeneberger, NAC research project leader, also examines how these same practices, be they windbreaks, riparian forest buffers, or alley cropping systems, can contribute to bioenergy production while providing multiple other services.
Wood Powers Forest Service District Office
by Stevin Westcott
A wood-to-energy gasification project by the Forest Service in Louisiana is proving that it's possible to produce electricity from forest biomass and promote forest health at the same time.
The gasification system directly converts chips from woody materials such as small-diameter trees into electricity. In this case, the electricity produced powers the Winn Ranger District office on the Kisatchie National Forest. The SRS Utilization of Southern Forest Resources unit in Pineville, LA, purchased and operates the gasification unit in collaboration with the Kisatchie National Forest and Forest Service State and Private Forestry (SP&F). The Community Power Corporation, from Littleton, CO, constructed the system.
The Biomass Site Assessment Tool (BioSAT)
As new bioenergy markets emerge, one of the greatest challenges is balancing technological, political, environmental, and economic forces.
In 2007, SRS and the Southeastern Sun Grant Center at the University of Tennessee (UT) formed a partnership to provide research, policy, and business practitioners with innovative biomass to energy research that takes into account regional differences in available biomass supplies, infrastructure capacities, and environmental impacts.
This partnership gave rise to the Biomass Site Assessment Tool (BioSAT), a dynamic and durable data delivery system that enables users to compare, map, and display a variety of data and information by ZIP code for the 33 Eastern states.
