The Role of Biomass in Achieving Clean Power Plan Goals – A 2016 Workshop to Foster a Constructive Discussion
By Janet McCabe
Since issuing the Clean Power Plan (CPP), states and stakeholders have shown a strong interest in the role biomass can play in state plans to reduce carbon emissions under the rule. Many states are seeking to better understand how maintaining and building on their existing approaches to sound carbon- and greenhouse gas (GHG)-beneficial forestry and land management practices can yield biomass resources that will help them meet their CPP goals, and how to craft plans that will be federally approvable under the final CPP guidelines. To respond to this interest and to support state and stakeholder efforts to incorporate bioenergy in their CPP plans, we will be holding a public workshop in early 2016 for stakeholders to share their successes, experiences and approaches to deploying biomass in ways that have been, and can be, carbon beneficial.
The president’s Climate Action Plan and a range of the administration’s policies recognize that America’s forests and other lands must continue to play an essential role in mitigating the effects of carbon pollution. Biomass derived from land that is managed under programs that ensure the long-term maintenance of healthy forests can serve as an integral part of a broader forestry-based climate strategy, so the CPP expressly includes bioenergy as an option for states and utilities in CPP compliance. It reflects the fact that, in many cases, biomass and bioenergy products in the power system can be an integral part of state programs and foster responsible land management and renewable energy.
State flexibility is a key component of the CPP. It recognizes the unique circumstances of each state’s energy mix and approaches to energy efficiency and renewable energy. Many states already have extensive expertise in sound carbon- and GHG-beneficial forestry and land management practices, and the CPP’s flexibility will give states the ability to build in approaches to biomass and bioenergy unique to their forests and land management programs and policies. It recognizes the importance of forests and other lands for climate resilience – in addition to the carbon benefits of biomass – fostered by a variety of land use policies, renewable energy incentives and standards, and GHG strategies. Working with stakeholders, these states promote viable forestry and agricultural product markets, which help protect and preserve healthy and productive lands and contribute to the continued and improved management of these lands.
That is why the CPP creates a pathway for states to use biomass as part of their plans to meet their emission reduction guidelines, and we expect many states to include biomass as a component in their state plans. We look forward to reviewing plans that incorporate well-developed forestry and other land management programs producing biomass that can qualify under the guidelines laid out in the CPP, and we are confident that the CPP offers sufficient lead time and flexibility for states to develop approvable programs.
So a key goal of the workshop we’ll be holding is to provide an opportunity for states with well-developed forestry and land management practices to share their experiences. Another is to foster a constructive dialogue about how states can best include biomass in their compliance plans if that is a path they choose to follow. The workshop will showcase the constructive compliance approaches many states are already implementing or developing. And to prepare for the workshop, our first step is to reach out to key stakeholders to get ideas on the agenda.
We look forward to working with states and stakeholders to ensure that biomass continues to play an important role in accomplishing our climate change goals. Open lines of communication and sharing information helped shape the final Clean Power Plan, and continued constructive engagement will be vital for us to achieve significant climate and health benefits as we implement the CPP.
Steve Harrison
Nov 16, 2015 @ 16:13:49
The demand for wood pellets by European countries is already unsustainably stripping our Southeastern forests, and pushing this here in the US would raise the deforestation to an insane level. I strongly urge the EPA to spend some time in the field monitoring what’s already happening before throwing its support behind this.
Mike Surface
Nov 16, 2015 @ 16:27:54
Hi,
I was wondering if power from municipal solid waste (MSW) is considered renewable.
Thanks!
Anonymous
Nov 16, 2015 @ 18:02:26
Whatever you mean by biomass.. most of it is just firewood! Just keep those dirty firewood out of neighborhoods ! Just stop greenwashing firewood as renewable baloney! I fought with my die hard firewood burner/neighbor who does it everyday.. You just make NO distinction between heavy daily firewood users and occasional firewood users.. This is the point I am trying to make yet you ignore it.
Gumby
Nov 16, 2015 @ 18:03:28
Whatever you mean by biomass.. most of it is just firewood! Just keep those dirty firewood out of neighborhoods ! Just stop greenwashing firewood as renewable baloney! I fought with my die hard firewood burner/neighbor who does it everyday.. You just make NO distinction between heavy daily firewood users and occasional firewood users.. This is the point I am trying to make yet you ignore it.
Alan Muller
Nov 17, 2015 @ 10:43:55
This is a very misguided post. “Politics over science,” I suppose. Burning “biomass” only increases both climate-forcing emissions and emissions of health-damaging air pollutants. People need to be able to look to the EPA for credible guidance, not industrial propaganda….
James Quarterman
Nov 17, 2015 @ 11:26:49
Now that EPA knows this maybe they can share this with USDA. As Project Director for Agro Biomass Co-op, it is imperative that we finds ways of bringing more farmers into planting and harvesting biomass crops because Ag as we know it now is not destine to continue. Advance in Ag technology has force the commodity farming market to grow bigger farms. fewer farmers. If farming is to continue as an American way of life, we need new markets for our farmers and ranchers to compete – biomass is the only answer we have right now. So let USDA know, if it really want to help farmers and ranchers stay on the farms and ranches and in the fields producing the American way of life, then lets open this biomass market for them.
Being a farmer today in America today is just a better way of life if you can make a living at it. The challenges drive you – Being an American farmer is just a proud-full occupation – certainly it has its draw backs, but it gives you a life of freedom to enjoy what you do – just being an American farmer is probably I think the greatest job anyone can ask for. It just a good way of life, I hope someday that people will look back at me and realize that whatever we have is God, and God gave me the opportunity to take what we have and look after it and what little time I was here that I left it at a better place than when I started. God is in control – this is his place-Be Blessed
Josh Schlossberg
Nov 17, 2015 @ 13:25:15
Does the EPA believe in carbon neutral bioenergy?
Ellen Moyer, Ph.D.
Nov 19, 2015 @ 22:33:01
This article is incredibly misguided and ignores science. We need our trees alive and well to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and for a host of other reasons. Yet deforestation continues in our country. We should be taking pains to preserve and restore forests. Climate change is telling us that we need to stop burning things – this is the plain truth of our predicament. My Huffington Post article “Trees Are Our Climate Saviors” summarizes some of the science supporting a position of protecting rather than “managing” I find it reprehensible that EPA has climbed aboard the “forest management” bandwagon. “Biomass” energy may sound really cool but it is not, and EPA is irresponsible to be promoting such a destructive practice.
Caroline K-R
Nov 19, 2015 @ 22:57:40
Though the idea of biomass energy is intriguing, it is important to consider the possible implications. Burning biomass, unless diligently controlled, could produce harmful emissions. The companies that burn biomass must adhere to a strict process of planting trees in order to reduce the emissions released into the atmosphere.
One must also consider the possibility of over harvesting. Though regulations requiring companies to plant trees to replace those they cut down would be enacted, there is still the risk of noncompliance. It is important to address this possibility and take appropriate action to reduce the risk.
The agenda for the workshop should include possible legislation to control biomass harvesting in addition to regulations on emissions released from companies that burn biomass for fuel. Biomass energy could be environmentally efficient however it must be strictly regulated.
Odrii
Nov 20, 2015 @ 14:42:56
With many other truly clean source of renewable energy, I hoped support and funding would be given to solar, hydro, & wind and similar sources of energy instead of biomass. Not sure how deforestation and the burning of biomass would help mitigate climate change.
Doug
Nov 21, 2015 @ 19:14:27
Most biomass harvesting proposals would result in land with relatively low amounts of sequestered carbon relative to mature forests, even those managed for sawtimber, for instance. Cutting older forests and replacing them with short-cycle crops, will, over time sequester less carbon than those older forests, and increase carbon in our atmosphere.
julie mellum
Nov 23, 2015 @ 00:22:26
The EPA should know that burning wood and other biomass is by no means “carbon neutral”. Wood smoke and other biomass contains vast amounts of black carbon soot, the most dangerous form of pollution that is implicated in asthma attacks, heart attacks and a host of other environment-related health problems. With asthma as the number one source of absenteeism in our schools, it is a travesty to burn wood and other biomass. To add garbage to the mix and call it “renewable energy” is ludicrous. Wood combustion also accelerates climate change.
Frank Cincotta
Nov 23, 2015 @ 13:14:09
Incentivizing new biomass development is a step backward and burning wood pellets and trash for energy is is no way renewable. EPA, you got biomass all wrong.
Don Ogden
Nov 23, 2015 @ 16:15:48
Biomass is a biomess. It’s NOT renewable in any reasonable time frame given we’re in a CLIMATE CRISIS! And, it’s not clean, OK?
Catherine Andrews
Nov 23, 2015 @ 22:44:24
I agree that America’s forests and other lands must continue to play an essential role in mitigating the effects of carbon pollution. Our forests and other plants do this by sequestering carbon and providing oxygen through photosynthesis. Cutting down trees, transporting them, and burning them releases more carbon than they capture, thus creating more carbon pollution and reducing the amount of oxygen released into the atmosphere. Every effort must be made to prevent the degradation of our forests, which provide the best air filtration system on Earth. Burning forests and “crops” is a Faustian bargain we cannot afford to entertain.
The L’Anse Warden Electric Company, located in the village of L’Anse on the shore of Lake Superior, claims to be operating a biomass plant. It is allowed to burn creosote-treated railroad ties, PCP-treated railroad ties, chipped remove extra space tires and about 18% wood chips in its solid fuel mix. The hubris of the plant’s owner, Traxys, and the negligence of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, have put our small community and the Lake Superior watershed in grave danger.
Biomass is not a “tool.” Biomass is a life support system. Bio = life, mass = a body of coherent matter. Your statement “Biomass can serve as an integral part of a broader forestry-based climate strategy…” is true only if diverse forest ecosystems are allowed to thrive and protect us from our own folly.
Mike Leonard, Consulting Forester
Nov 29, 2015 @ 06:41:46
Biomass Improvement Cuttings and Forest Restoration
I’ve been a forester for 30 years and work as a consultant in my own business helping landowners manage their forest land. Here in Massachusetts, the most important work consulting foresters do is to prepare Forest Cutting Plans and develop Forest Management Plans for the Chapter 61 Forest Land Tax Program and/or the Forest Stewardship Program. The most important decision a landowner can make in regards to their forest land is when and how to harvest timber. The best way is to have a consulting forester who represents his or her interests develop a Forest Management Plan first and then have the forester prepare a Forest Cutting Plan which will carry out the goals of the Management Plan. In preparing a Forest Cutting Plan, the most important work for the forester is marking forest stands correctly for an improvement cutting, a commercial thinning, or a regeneration cutting. Proper thinning can double the growth rate of the higher quality trees while increasing the value of a landowners’ forest and property.
However, the vast majority of private forest land is in poor condition because of rampant liquidation cuttings over the last 1/2 century.
The best way to restore the productivity and species composition of these degraded woodlots is through biomass improvement cuttings.
For the past 10 years, I have employed mechanized timber harvesting operations that have conducted biomass improvement cuttings on my clients’ woodlots in the Quabbin region. These timber harvesting operations are examples of excellent forestry because they are: improving or restoring the productivity of woodlots some of which had been subject to past liquidation cuttings; generating jobs; providing a source of clean and renewable energy; and helping landowners improve their forest while generating some income for themselves. The beauty of a biomass improvement cutting is that the operators will take out most if not all of the low grade timber while leaving the high value trees. A conventional logging operation cannot afford to cut these low value trees because it costs the non-mechanized operator more to cut and process these trees than what he can get for them when they are sold and this often leads to destructive liquidation cuttings. So if we are to continue the massive job of improving and/or restoring the productivity and species composition of over 2 million acres of private forest land, we need more markets for biomass. And unlike the false promise of green jobs in other energy sectors, clean renewable biomass (including firewood, wood pellets, and chipwood) will always be made in America. We can generate thousands of new jobs while continuing the massive job of forest restoration. Without a viable and growing market for biomass, responsible foresters like myself will have more difficulty selling improvement cuttings leaving many people out of work and our forests in poor condition. Furthermore, if we don’t build anymore biomass plants here, our neighboring states will build more plants and the chipwood we produce here will be exported along with the jobs. So what will be gained?
Benefits of Forest Biomass Harvesting
Last spring I gave a tour of some woodlots where I had marked and supervised biomass improvement cuttings in Petersham. Here is part of the report I wrote about my Field Tour:
I. Benefits of Biomass Timber Harvesting
1. Foresters are able to mark all low grade timber regardless of size (2 inch DBH – 30 inch DBH) and quality (declining, mostly rotten, big multi-forked bully white pine, etc.) Since using these mechanized crews, I have had the most freedom to mark whatever I want and have had no problem selling it. Now I can practice the best silviculture possible where before I would get no bids for some of my timber sales.
2. Leaves much less slash behind in the woods after the timber harvesting operation is completed leaving a very attractive forest. Landowners like this far better than a conventional operation which leave most of the tops and a terrible looking mess. So when landowners like the forestry work, we can get more landowners interested in forestry and protecting their forest.
3. Promotes forests that are more resilient to climate change.
4. Promotes much needed oak regeneration.
Dharmendar Rai | best seo institute
Dec 02, 2015 @ 03:23:49
Janet McCabe
I was thinking about whether power from city strong waste (MSW) is viewed as renewable..
Dharmendar Ra
Leslie
Jan 15, 2016 @ 17:23:39
To Whom It May Concern:
When and where will this workshop for stakeholders be held?
Thank you,
Leslie
bantal mobil
May 23, 2016 @ 00:01:19
When and where will this workshop for stakeholders be held?