Forest and Wood Residues
in a Low Carbon Future
C. Scott Miller
Price BIOstock, Marketing Consultant
BIOstock Blog, Editor
May, 2008

The Price Companies Business Model
 Provide all services upstream
of the wood processing facility:
– Paper and pulp mills
– Saw mills
 Services include:
– Procurement
– Harvesting and hauling logistics
– Design/construction of the
receiving/processing site
– Processing site management

14+ million tons
per year
Victoria, Australia
PBS Headquarters
Wood Chipping

The Price BIOstock Mission:
To apply The Price Companies business model
to making biomass supply simple for
emerging bioenergy companies.
The Commitment:
Use the most environmentally sustainable
biomass available to supply emerging
bioenergy technologies - wood, energy
crops, MSW, etc.

Raven Energy
Kamloops, BC
Range Fuels
Soperton, GA
PB Headquarters
Biorefinery Agreements

Overview:
 Woody biomass fundamentals
 Lessons learned from the
forest products industry
 The need to manage forests
 State and federal policies that
frustrate market development

Woody biomass fundamentals

Wood built and powered early America
Quad
BTU
40  Fossil fuels are carbon positive Petroleum
and “getting dirtier”
30  Biofuels are carbon neutral
and “getting cleaner”
Natural
20 Gas
Coal
10 Nuclear
Wood Hydro
0
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
Energy Information Administration

Forests do not consume resources
Palm Sugar
Corn Oil Soy Canola Cane
Lifecycle
GHG vs. Roughly 25-50% >75%
equal less less
Oil-based
The Nature Conservancy

Forests do not consume resources
Palm Sugar
Corn Oil Soy Canola Cane
Lifecycle
GHG vs. Roughly 25-50% >75%
equal less less
Oil-based
Water
Fertilizer
Pesticides
Energy
Resource Consumption
Very High Low
The Nature Conservancy

Forests do not consume resources
Palm Sugar Agric. Woody
Corn Oil Soy Canola Cane Waste Biomass
Lifecycle
GHG vs. Roughly 25-50% >75% >95% less to
equal less less net sequestration*
Oil-based
Water
Fertilizer
Pesticides
Energy
*depends on methods & type
Resource Consumption
Very High Low
The Nature Conservancy

Forests do not consume resources
Palm Sugar Agric. Woody Switch Native
Corn Oil Soy Canola Cane Waste Biomass grass prairie Algae
Lifecycle
GHG vs. Roughly 25-50% >75% >95% less to Net
equal less less net sequestration* sequestration
Oil-based
Water
Fertilizer
Pesticides
Energy
*depends on methods & type
Resource Consumption
Very High Low
The Nature Conservancy

Wood industry produces residuals
Residues of logging & forest products industry
USDA Billion Ton Report, 4/2005

Lessons learned from
the forest products industry

‘70’s “Cradle-to-grave” material value cycle
Wood Biomass +$
& Grid Power
Biomass
Conversion
Waste
to Pulp & Paper
Landfill

‘80’s “Cradle-to-cradle” bioenergy value cycle
Wood Biomass +$
Waste as
an Energy Biomass
Feedstock Conversion
Parasitic
- Black liquor Load
- Sawdust
- Wood residues
- Bark Pulp & Paper

New “Cradle-to-cradle” bioenergy value cycle
Flexible
Feedstock
- Wood
- Energy crops +$
- Residues
- MSW
Waste as Biomass
Parasitic Conversion
an Energy
Load
Feedstock
Flexible
Products
-Pulp & Paper
-Biofuels
-Bioplastics
-Centralized Heat
-Power to Grid

Stumpage Prices

Example: $25/ton Biomass Delivered to Mill
$7
Stumpage
$13
Site Logging
and Processing
$5
Freight

The need to manage forests

Forest Service litigation 1989-2002
728 land management cases over 13 years
4%
18%
58%
21%
Society of American Foresters, 2007

USDA - Greenhouse Gas Impact 1990-2030
Temperature
USDA Climate Change Program Office May 2008 Report based on IPCC, 2006

USDA - Greenhouse Gas Impact 1990-2030
Temperature Precipitation
USDA Climate Change Program Office May 2008 Report based on IPCC, 2006

Multiple stresses of a changing climate
2003 National Assessment Synthesis Team, US Global Change Research Program

Forest Management means Fire Prevention
6 of the 7 worst fire seasons
U.S. Forest Fires
1960-2007
National Interagency Fire Center, 2008

2002 fire - 80,000 acres
Where there’s fire,
there’s smoke.
Colorado Hayman Fire,
emitted more CO2 in one
day than all the cars in the
U.S. in one week.
- NASA
Lasted 14 days.

The problem of forest density
“Many forests, particularly those on public
lands, have grown dangerously overcrowded
due to a century of fire suppression and
decades of restricted timber harvesting.”
4-10 times
more dense
Thomas Bonnicksen, Ph.D

We need “more
infrastructure.”
Rod Vineyard
Eagle Lake Ranger District
Lassen National Forest

2002 fire - Cone fire

GHG during decay
Unsalvaged trunks
contribute 300%
more GHG during
decay
“Nearly four years after fires burned more than
133,000 acres of national forest land in California, less
than one percent of those acres have been replanted.”
The Forest Foundation

The sustainable solution:
1. Salvage decaying biomass
to pay for forest management
2. Reforest to historic model
3. Mechanically thin vulnerable
forests for biomass
Tahoe - 1911 Tahoe - 2003

Beetle kill deforestation

Hurricane disaster debris
Destruction demolition waste
Katrina knockdown - 5,000,000 acres
(Mount St. Helens - 130,000 acres)
J.Q. Chambers et al., Science 318, 1107 (2007) Published by AAAS

State and federal policies that
frustrate market development

1. CARB LCFS land use change
 Direct - cultivating corn and energy crops adds
carbon to the atmosphere
– Tilling soil - releases Biogenic carbon
– Fossil inputs - fertilizer and diesel fuel

1. CARB LCFS land use change
 Direct - cultivating corn and energy crops adds
carbon to the atmosphere
– Tilling soil - releases Biogenic carbon
– Fossil inputs - fertilizer and diesel fuel
 Indirect - Developing countries will deforest acres
to compensate for acres changed in U.S.
– Soy acres changed to corn acres in U.S. means…
– Amazonian deforestation to soy acres in Brazil

Future carbon improvements
 No-till agriculture
 Increased yield per acre
 Biogenic inputs replace
fossil inputs
 Hybrid crops that are:
– Perennial
– Faster growing
– Nitrogen fixing
– Bug & drought resistant

If we don’t create alternative fuels here…
Won’t that increase market demand
for creating it elsewhere?

2. 15% Ethanol Blend Wall
Billion Gallons/Year
40
35 Other Biofuels
BioDiesel
30
25 21B
Cellulosic
Biofuels
15% Blend Wall
20
15
10% Blend Wall
10
2005 Corn Ethanol
7.5B x 2012 15B
5
0
Green Car Congress

3. EISA’s RFS2 definition
Georgia before EISA RFS
23,000,000 acres
One dot = 5,000 acres
Federal land
USDA Forest Service - Forest Inventory and Analysis National Program

3. EISA’s RFS2 definition
Georgia before EISA RFS
23,000,000 acres
vs. 7,300,000 acres
After RFS
One dot = 5,000 acres
Federal land
USDA Forest Service - Forest Inventory and Analysis National Program

3. EISA’s RFS2 definition
75 Miles
50 Miles
25 Miles
 Logistics uneconomical
 Feedstock tracking
unworkable

3. EISA’s RFS2 definition
California before EISA RFS
19,000,000 acres
One dot = 5,000 acres
Federal land
USDA Forest Service - Forest Inventory and Analysis National Program

3. EISA’s RFS2 definition
California before EISA RFS
19,000,000 acres
vs. 500,000 acres
After RFS
One dot = 5,000 acres
Federal land
USDA Forest Service - Forest Inventory and Analysis National Program

Bad precedents beget bad policies
The same RFS2 definitions are being
used as RES definitions in the
Waxman / Markey cap and trade bill

Summary
 Bioenergy addresses carbon
footprint challenge
 Forest products industry is
a blueprint for developing
integrated biorefineries
 Bioenergy infrastructure
helps environment
 Biomass opportunities and
challenges require advocacy
and public education

BIOenergy BlogRing @
Biostock.blogspot.com
C. Scott Miller
Price BIOstock, Marketing Consultant
May, 2008