The Canadian action plan against the Mountain Pine Beetle

Previous posted was an article about beetle infestations and how they were ravaging forests and wildlife habitats - Will dead trees revive forest industries?.

The British Columbia government in concert with BC Hydro (the primary electricity provider of the province have published their Mountain Beetle Action Plan. In concert with that, they have issued the following press release...

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PROVINCE AND BC HYDRO LAUNCH BIOENERGY CALL PROCESS

VANCOUVER – In support of the BC Energy Plan, BC Hydro today launched the Bioenergy call process with a Request for Expressions of Interest to assess the potential of using wood fibre for power production. This Bioenergy Call will help meet the Province’s goal of making British Columbia a leader in clean energy.

BC Hydro is asking for preliminary proposals in order to identify potential projects that will generate electricity from wood fibre fuel sources such as beetle-killed timber, sawmill residue and logging debris.

“The BC Energy Plan recognizes the enormous potential to build on British Columbia’s natural bioenergy resource advantages,” said Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld. “The steps BC Hydro is taking today will help us meet our goal of electricity self-sufficiency and secure B.C.’s position as a leader in Canada for the use of biomass for energy.”

“Energy production is an innovative way to use mountain pine beetle-damaged timber,” Forests and Range Minister Rich Coleman said. “It helps to recover the value of the dead wood and creates a viable energy opportunity.”

“BC Hydro is committed to finding new, clean, renewable sources of power for British Columbians and we see wood fibre as one of the many potential sources of this clean energy,” said BC Hydro CEO Bob Elton. “Another potential benefit of these bioenergy projects is that they will provide us with firm power which we can schedule to use at times when we most need the electricity.”

B.C.’s new Energy Plan requires that at least 90 per cent of electricity come from clean, renewable resources. BC Hydro’s 2007 Bioenergy Call for Power will help address the surplus of wood residue.

The deadline for expressions of interest to be filed with BC Hydro is April 17, 2007. For more information, go to >www.bchydro.com/2007bioenergy.

technorati BIOblog, BIOstock, biomass, beetle, forestry

Utilizing Pine Beetle Wood Waste as BIOstock

Forestry Dean Jack Saddler forecasts a seismic charge in agricultural and forest industries - photo by Darin Dueck

The size of the Mountain pine beetle (MPB) blight in Canada is in direct proportion to the number of trees found there. It is believed by many scientists that there is a connection between global warming and the spread of the infestation.

In an article published today by the University of British Columbia (UBC) the magnitude of the problem is pegged at about 1 Billion cubic meters of lodgepole in British Columbia by 2013. "An outbreak of this size is unprecedented in recorded history." That piece of information begs the following question - what is the total for all forests in North America?

In this article, UBC professor Jack Saddler projects that "if only 25 per cent of the MPB-killed wood was converted to ethanol, it could supply between five and ten years worth of BC’s gasoline requirements." Of even greater value of such an enterprise is the mitigation of the risk of having so much standing deadwood in our forests. How much particulate matter and CO2 will be released from fires consuming just some these trees? What impact would such fires have on industry, tourism, and population centers throughout the world?

Here are some excerpts from Professor Saddler's article...

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Back to the Future: Substituting Wood for Oil with the “Forest Biorefinery”
By Jack Saddler, Professor of Forest Products Biotechnology and Dean
and Warren Mabee, Research Associate, Dept. of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry

Over the past few years, the University of British Columbia (UBC) has been fortunate in obtaining federal and provincial support to establish a world class Clean Energy Research Centre based in the Faculty of Applied Science, while the Faculty of Forestry has received about $2.5 million to establish a Process Development Unit (PDU) to assess the potential of wood-based biofuels and chemicals. Our group also acts as the Task Leaders for the International Energy Agency's (IEA) network, coordinating the technical and policy issues influencing the global commercialization of liquid biofuels from biomass.

The ongoing Mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreak (is) projected to cumulatively impact almost 1 billion cubic metres of lodgepole pine in the province of British Columbia by 2013. An outbreak of this size is unprecedented in recorded history. There is an accumulating surplus of standing deadwood in our forests, which increases the danger of catastrophic fires and reduces the merchantable volume of the working forest. While we will try to recover as much of the beetle-killed wood as possible in the short term for structural applications, we know that wood impacted by MPB loses its value as timber over time, and so wood that has been standing dead for extended periods cannot be processed into lumber, pulp or other advanced wood products. In the longer term, development of bioenergy applications may provide us with a cost-effective product that justifies harvesting and replanting activities. For example, if only 25 per cent of the MPB-killed wood was converted to ethanol, it could supply between five and ten years worth of BC’s gasoline requirements.

For the global forest industry, moving away from fossil fuels is an economic necessity, as volatility associated with fossil fuels has resulted in high energy costs for the industry in recent years. There is a need to extract additional values from our forest resource, and a need to accept ecosystem realities in forest industry practices. Biofuels and bioenergy, which are inherently carbon-neutral and work within the carbon cycle, represent a new model of business which all types of industry could follow.

A number of technological platforms for biofuel production exist and each should be explored to compare their effectiveness and their ability to produce value-added co-products. In all cases, the use of wood for biofuel production should be linked to bioenergy and bioproduct generation, creating a 'biorefinery' with multiple outputs. The biorefinery concept provides maximum economic and environmental returns by efficiently utilizing all components of the wood.

The size of the biofuel and bioenergy opportunity in Canada is huge and biorefinery technologies can and will bring about major changes to the sustainable energy future for our nation. These technologies have the potential to add long-term, sustainable jobs in rural, urban, and aboriginal communities. What is needed now is continued collaboration to create technical platforms for effective and sustainable use of bioenergy, and a strong political will for putting these platforms to work.


technorati bioenergy, biorefineries, research, cellulosic, biofuels, biomass, ethanol, employment

Will dead trees revive forest industries?

Whether or not global warming is responsible for creating the dry conditions that are conducive to the proliferation of bark and pine beetle infestations, there have been devastating blights in recent years affecting trees and wildlife throughout parts of Canada and the U.S.

Who in Southern California can forget the fearsom "Old Fire" that claimed 993 homes in an area surrounding Big Bear Lake in November 2003? Mornings broke with the fear that the fire would reach the bark beetle infested dead trees that surrounded the famous resort area. According to a website produced by the San Bernardino County Museum, if it had "the dry trees would burn faster and hotter than living trees within any given stand. Standing dead trees can burn to a crown fire. Whether or not the crown fire of a dead tree will be transferred to the surrounding living trees depends on the proximity of the live trees to the dead trees and the other conditions at the time of the fire."

As it was, the breadth of the fire devasted the habitats of flora and fauna of great variety - including many endangered species. The sun was blotted out with the release of carbon gases and particulate matter ending decades of relatively heathful air quality.

Removal of dead trees must become a priority if we are to reduce the kindling-like potential of the problem. Thinning dense forests and removing overgrown underbrush will serve to mitigate the threat of forest fires. The waste wood - unusable as lumber - would make a suitable source of biostock for clean biomass-to-liquids and biomass-to-electricity conversion facilities that could provide economic financing for the important work at hand.

That is where the declining forestry industries of pulp, paper and wood manufacturing have an opportunity. They are the experts at using wood waste as feedstock for renewable electricity facilities. New technologies would improve on the old combustion Tomlinson boiler models. They could build gasification and pyrolysis facilities to capture the greenhouse gas emissions and particulate matter. Some of the resulting syngas could be converted into biofuels, ethanol, and green chemicals to replace fossil fuels.

Here is a recent story from the Vancouver Sun showing that British Columbia is engaged in a RFP process to identify clean, wood-to-electricity solutions to fund the bark beetle infestation problem.

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Beetle-damaged pine forests eyed as electricity source
Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, March 09, 2007

The British Columbia government is looking to tap into the “enormous potential” of bioenergy through development of new wood-fired electricity generation projects in remote and hard-hit regions of the province.

Energy Minister Richard Neufeld and Forests Minister Rich Coleman announced today a “bioenergy call” assessing the potential of using wood fibre for power production.

The ministers envision development of northern B.C generating facilities fueled by beetle-killed pine and non-commercial and waste wood, helping the province achieve its stated goal of energy self-sufficiency by 2016.

Neufeld said there’s as much potential for power generation from wood fibre as a half-dozen major hydroelectric projects the size of the Site C dam proposed for the Peace River.

“Energy production is an innovative way to use mountain pine beetle-damaged timber,” Coleman said in a prepared statement. “It helps to recover the value of the dead wood and creates a viable energy opportunity.”
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One company that is providing a means for the clean conversion of wood waste to biofuels is Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation of Vancouver, British Columbia. Using emissions control fast pyrolysis technologies, they can convert dead wood into commercial grade BioOil for fueling industrial equipment and char which could be used to fertilize topsoil. They recently announced the commissioning of its biofuel plant in Guelph, Ontario, Canada that will use dry biomass as a feedstock.

Other contenders would include some of the many cellulosic ethanol technologies that are mentioned in the round-up published in the BIOconversion Blog.


technorati BIOblog, BIOstock, biomass, forestry, beetles

Raven Biofuels allies with Price BIOstock

Price BIOstock and Raven Biofuels announced the signing of a strategic alliance that will help them usher in the new era of biofuel biorefinery deployments. Raven expects to build several acid hydrolysis bio-refineries over the next five years. Each biorefinery is being designed to produce an initial capacity of more than 10 million gallons per year (10 MPGY) of ethanol and high value furfural chemicals.

I work as a Marketing Consultant for Price BIOstock. This project is the product of the sales efforts of Ken Day, Price BIOstock Canada Vice President.

What I especially like about the alliance is the emphasis on the use of waste construction wood and Mountain Pine Beetle infested wood to make biofuels. From the Raven Biofuels website:

Our first project is in Washington state and uses construction wood waste for feedstock. Our second project will be in British Columbia Canada and we expect to use pine beetle infested wood for feedstock. This feedstock is readily available and unusable for other applications.

Salvaging waste wood helps mitigate the impact of its decay that would otherwise add greenhouse gas emissions to our already saturated carbon cycle.

Here is the text of their joint press release, found on the CNN Money online report.

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Raven Biofuels Forges Strategic Alliance With Biomass Feedstock Experts at Price BIOstock

September 15, 2008: 07:00 AM EST

Raven Biofuels International Corporation (OTCBB: RVBF) ("Raven" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a strategic alliance with Price BIOstock Services, a division of Arkansas-headquartered The Price Companies, Inc. ("Price Companies") (www.pricebiostock.com), with the stated intent towards the development of definitive agreements on a project by project basis.

With over 40 years of operating history and $450,000,000 in fixed assets the Price Companies is one of the largest and most experienced wood processing companies in the U.S. offering 19 facilities nationwide under contract for many of the most respected manufacturing companies in America -- including International Paper, Rayonier, Weyerhaeuser, New Page, and Georgia Pacific.

Through their many association memberships and industry-wide relationships, Price recognized that the future of biofuels production will significantly exploit cellulosic biomass and has subsequently developed customized solutions for a broad range of dry biomass feedstock including wood, paper, municipal solid waste (MSW), tires, C&D (construction and demolition waste), and agricultural waste. Currently, Price operates 19 Bio-Mass (Wood Pulp Chip) state-of-the-art facilities that produce 14.6 million tons of pulp chips and 2.5 million tons of hog fuel annually. The BIOstock division offers an expanded set of services for managing biomass feedstock materials including consulting, procurement, systems design/engineering, and facilities management.

John Sams, Raven's President and Chief Operating Officer, commented, "The Price Companies are a long established and well managed organization. With the establishment of their BIOstock division they can provide innovative solutions specifically tailored to the needs of biofuels companies like Raven. Feedstock procurement and management is critical to efficiently operating our proposed refineries. Additionally, I feel that Price brings a lot to the table beyond their core offering and could ultimately accelerate Raven's growth strategy."

About Raven Biofuels International Corporation (OTCBB: RVBF)

Raven Biofuels is a developing global renewable energy company focused on producing ethanol from waste or biomass (cellulosic ethanol). Raven plans to build commercial scale refineries using a proprietary 2 stage dilute acid hydrolysis process to convert forestry and agricultural waste to transportation grade ethanol. The production of cellulosic ethanol could play a major role in national energy independence as it has in Brazil. Ethanol made from waste is a viable clean fuel that can play a part in reducing emissions that cause global warming and reducing independence on foreign oil. For more information visit: www.ravenbiofuelsinternational.com.

Contact:
Bakerview Investor Relations Inc.
1-888-525-7823 (RVBF)

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technorati biomass, forestry

Thinning trees to save ecology

640,000 acres.

That's larger than the state of Rhode Island and is, unfortunately, the current extent of the pine beetle infestation in Colorado as of February, 2007. There is no way to halt it and it will only get worse. The impact on the state's wildlife (not to mention the effect on tourism and the state's economy) is hard to imagine. Similar outbreaks risk forest fires of horrendous proportions in the San Bernardino mountains in Southern California and the much larger infestations in British Columbia.

Growing replacement trees will have to await the removal of dead ones to save wildlife. Finding an economically practical solution may require swift governmental action to spur private development of new solutions.

This ecological emergency requires forestry triage on a massive scale. The Rocky Mountain News carried the original story that led to this entry in the online BCO newsletter of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

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Colorado Seeks Market for Wood Waste from Forest Thinning

As ethanol-from-wood biomass plants open in Georgia, the state of Colorado questions the choice of location. Colorado has been suffering from a pine beetle outbreak for the past four years with 42 percent of Colorado's lodgepole pines infected. One of the largest factors for the outbreak, and one that if addressed could help mitigate the problem, is the accumulation of biomass in Colorado's forests and tree overcrowding. The lowest bid to thin one acre of forests in Summit Count, CO is $1600.

Gary Severson, executive director for the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, said "It's so expensive because there's no market for the wood. And at that price, there's simply not enough public money to thin the forests. The only way to do this is to find some way to add value to this material. With small-diameter lodgepole pine, there aren't a lot of options."

When Range Fuels was asked about its location choice of Georgia for its cellulosic ethanol plant, CEO Mitch Mandich explained that it was the difference between the trees as plantation crops and the already developed timber infrastructure Georgia has to offer. Georgia rain and soil conditions allow trees to grow to ten inch diameters within ten years, much different from Colorado's position. Lynn Young, a retired U.S. Forest Service public information director, explained, "It's too dry here, the soil's not deep and the trees are small - usually 6 inches to 8 inches in diameter."

Severson added - "What it's going to take is involvement of the private sector. What can we as government do? Cut red tape. Provide some incentives to make things possible, so people say 'Hey, I can make a buck at this.' Then the problem begins to solve itself. Until then, economic disconnect is the big problem."

technorati BIOblog, BIOstock, biomass, forestry

March 2007 Digest

Bridging the Gap to Biofuels


When it comes to energy, we are all stakeholders – whether we are producers, refiners, developers, educators, policymakers, marketers, regulators, environmentalists, distributors, farmers, foresters, or simply commuters... we are all consumers with a vested interest in future development of renewable energy in concert with environmental sustainability.

Even though there is a growing global recognition that something must be done to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate carbon emissions, the potential for endless debate over the means to these ends is threatened by delays. We need to act now.

The success of any mission to achieve 25x’25 or Twenty in Ten is more dependent on our willingness to communicate and work together than it is on our technical achievements. Why? I am convinced it will take collaboration between all stakeholders to develop and deploy these emerging technologies.

Having attended three important conferences this month, perhaps the most important lesson I can share is one for “bridging the gap” that I learned at 25x’25. When negotiating all parties must take an attitude of “Yes, if...” rather than “No, because...”

For example, “Will you agree...?”:
• “Yes, if you will guarantee...
• “Yes, if you can convince...
• “Yes, if you can match...
• “Yes, if you will commit...

Without the proper spirit of collaboration no compact between stakeholders will be sustainable – even if the technology is.

BIOstock Blog--------------
• Will dead trees revive forest industries?
• Why ethanol from wood makes sense
• The Canadian action plan against the Mountain Pine Beetle
• 25x'25 Summit pressures U.S. Congress to act
• Environmentalists and industrialists meet at the BioEnergy Wiki

BIOconversion Blog--------------
• Multi-prong approach enhances energy security
• ACORE wins BIG in Vegas
• So. California Air Quality (AQMD) looks at Cellulosic Ethanol
• BIO World Congress is bio-energized by cellulosic ethanol

BIOoutput Blog--------------
• Using fungi to produce ethanol & biodegradeable material

BIOwaste Blog--------------
• Producing hydrogen from wastewater and MSW
• Fortune looks at waste source reduction

Each month we provide a similar breakdown of article titles from our favorite "companion" site - Biopact Blog. This list is kept current and is accessible in the right hand column of each of the three blogs.

Please forward a link to this digest to anyone you know who would be interested in keeping track of change that will affect us all. They can add their name to the mailing list on the BioConversion Blog.