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

1. 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
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2. 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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3. Forestry: The Opportunity and Potential
Feedstock Uses
Conversion
Fuels:
- Forest Residues - Manufacturing − Ethanol
- Hazardous Fuel - Co-firing − Other Liquid Fuels
Forest Treatments - Combustion − Hydrogen
- Short Rotation - Gasification
Woody Crops - Hydrolysis Electricity and Heat
- Wood Waste - Digestion
Biobased Products
- Conventional - Pyrolysis – Composites
- Mill Waste & - Extraction – Specialty Products
Residues - Separation – New Products
– Chemicals
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– Traditional Products

4. 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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5. Dynamics of Bark Beetle Eruption
5
Raffa et al 2008. Bioscience

6. Carbon Cycle and Forestry
OFRI and The Foresty Association

7. 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

8. 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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9. Biomass Supply
Table 9. Total available volume over a 10 year period– Hazard Tree Only (Level 2 Road is High Clearance Road)
National
Forest
State and Private
National Forests Hazard Abatement Timber 10 Year Total
Program
General With Without General With Without
Lodgepole
Forest Level 2 Level 2 State Private Forest Level 2 Level 2
Pine
Estimation Roads Roads Estimation Roads Roads
Million
Cubic 328 561 425 58 16 65 467 700 564
Feet
Million
3.9 6.7 5.1 0.7 0.2 0.8 5.6 8.4 6.8
OD Tons
Less than 10 percent of the dead lodgepole
pine in the epidemic area (four National
Forests in northern CO and southern WY)

10. Cost Factors per OD ton for Forest Biomass Delivery
Cost Factors per OD ton for Forest Biomass Delivery
$45
$40.70
$40 $38.00
$35
$30
$26.70
$25
$20
$15.70
$15
$11.00 $10.30
$10
$5
$0
Biomass Logging Biomass Logging in Chipping Hauling 50 miles Hauling 100 miles Hauling 150 miles
along Roads WUI

11. Existing Facilities
Gray area identifies
Wyoming all insect infestation.
Forests inside the
oval are impacted by
bark beetle.
Colorado
Existing larger wood processing facilities, chips/sort yards and wood heating

12. Opportunities and Challenges
Opportunity Challenge
• Harvesting along roads, • Priority material is most
recreation sites, degraded and has lowest
transmission and wildland- options for higher value
urban interface products
• New pellet mills in the area • Existing forest products
of the beetle kill, but infrastructure has major
current sawmills are a long commodity market
hauling distance challenges
• Fuel switching at existing • Short duration pulse of
facilities - eg. bridge material limits new large
technologies at power capital investments
plants 12

13. Incentives
State Federal
• Strong RPS in Colorado • Dedicated biomass power
• CO law requires utilities to vs co-firing and Production
switch fuels to meet Tax Credits
emission reduction goals • Transportation of
2017-2022 feedstocks (Biomass Crop
• No RPS in WY Assistance Program) final
• CO Carbon Fund rules not released
• State Facilities- no specific • Federal Grants and Loan
goals or incentives Guarantees (rural areas)
• Renewable Biomass
Definition- excludes federal
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land

14. 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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15. 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.

16. Potential Heat and Power Opportunities
Gray area identifies
Wyoming all insect infestation.
Forests inside the
oval are impacted by
bark beetle.
Colorado

17. 550000
400,000
Larger Scale Biomass
350,000
Heat/CHP/Co-firing/Power
300,000
250,000
Wood Chips GT /Year
200,000
150,000
120000
100000
100,000
67200
50,000 40000
10000 11000 16000
0
Heat/Cool Co-firing Prison- Heat/cool District Co-firing Sawmill- Biomass
campus- with coal- Carson City- campus- U Heating- with coal- CHP Power- 45
Chadron 108 MW CHP of ID Prince of 456 MW MWe
Whales Hayden

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. Railroad Access to Facilities
Gray area identifies
all insect infestation.
Wyoming Forests inside the
oval are impacted by
bark beetle.
Colorado
Existing and potential new users showing railroad access

22. Recommendations to Support Biomass
Utilization Along the Value Chain
Commodity Value Added
Product Product
Harvest Chip Transport Sort
Bioenergy
Transparency of Include chip Transportation Options/needs for Develop businesses that use blue-
planned treatments processing/ subsidy sort yards/storage stained lumber to produce value-
(Interactive CROP) landings needs in and handling added product near the mill- eg
treatment layout Loan/grant Programs trusses, sheds, millwork, pallets, etc.
Use all Contracting to upgrade hauling Sort Yard- training
Loan/Grant and business options Develop local network of facilities that
options including equipment
Programs to help workshop use pellets delivered in bulk to by-pass
Stewardship or
businesses upgrade Focused analysis of commodity bag market.
Service for different
equipment log transport/ chip vs
sized businesses Alternative value-added products using
chip and transport
Chip processing and pellets made locally- eg erosion
Loan/Grant (technical assistance
handling training in waddles, landscape mats, pet bedding
Programs to help workshop)
logger training
businesses upgrade Matching incentives with projects
(clean chips for
equipment Maintain a viable sawlog supply using
energy)
Logger training and bark beetle material that is within the
certification at first two years of mortality
Community Colleges

23. 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
mpattonmallory@fs.fed.us
(970) 295-5947
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