biomass epiphany

[Joe]

(posted to alt.forestry and cc'd to Mike Leonard)

I've recently had a biomass epiphany.

I think most foresters automatically follow the party line that it's great.
I didn't, I listened to the critics who I still agree with on other issues,
such as how state forests should be managed (with not many clearcuts and
with lots of reserves).

But, now I have changed my mind about biomass. I still don't think any and
all biomass is the greatest thing since a certain herb became popular in my
youth.... but a number of events have opened my eyes.

First of all-- where I practiced forestry until a few years ago, in the
western most county in Massachusetts (the Berkshires), there was no biomass
market. In Mass. as of now that market only exists in north central and
northeast Mass. where I moved to 4 years ago. Only 1 biomass plant, other
than a few in schools, hospitals, etc. is active now, in Fitchburg, a 16 MW
plant that is now 20 years old. In SE New Hampshire, in Portsmouth, there is
another, a bigger one, and several other small or medium sized in NH. There
is also here an on again off again pulp market- but more off than on.

Here, Mike Leonard, who most of you recall from past discussions here on
high grading, has been doing biomass harvests for several years and
promoting it- and fighting against the anti biomass Jihadists (my favorite
expression for them now). So, I went to see some of his work- he was nice
enough to offer several showings each year. I was incredibly impressed. Mike
now has a Facebook page showing these at:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.112260575520791.20405.107694529310729

The last one I saw was ongoing. I was amazed to see the machine take down a
huge, ugly, cabbage pine with several heads due to the white pine weevil.
This tree would otherwise have less than zero value. The only way to deal
with it would be to girdle it to kill it. But that machine just took it down
like it was a sapling. A few days later I happened to be recruising a forest
for its new 10 year plan and saw a white pine stand where I did a lot of
girdling of just such pines a decade ago- and it didn't look pretty. The
trees were dead, that's good, but now they're falling down and the stand
looks terrible, and there is hardly any regen. And, of course, those trees
will now rot and spew carbon into the air!

Also, the Manomet Report is beginning to be seriously challenged. Check out:
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/5528/study-points-out-inherent-flaws-in-manomet-woody-biomass-study.
Dr. Strauss argues very well that Manomet's debt/dividend model is just an
assumption- that there really isn't any debt, if the forests are well
managed. If you go to his web site, http://www.futuremetrics.net/, you can
then go to a page to download his full critique of the Manomet Report. When
I showed that around to the Mass. forestry community, the major critics
viscously attacked Strauss and me. A major anti biomass person called
Strauss "a moron and idiot" without saying why, other than just assuming
that you have to have this debt/dividend model, which the critic doesn't
even like- the critics says Manomet made assumptions so that the dividend is
so far in the future, farther than Manomet said, that the state should NOT
give renewable credits to biomass, at least for biomass plants only
producing electricity. I then said, "what about CHP biomass". But even that,
they hate so much- that even that is totally unacceptable to them. One of
the big critics has bitched that with significant biomass, "logging in the
state will go up 400%" to which I replied, "gee, that would be great!". One
anti biomass critic stated that even very, very small biomass would be
horrific, comparable to small Nazi ovens! Another said that all
biomass/forestry is a death machine. This lunacy was not evident to me early
on- at that time, I just wanted to be sure that biomass isn't going to
contribute much to global warming and I still think we can't necessarily
claim that burning wood is carbon neutral, at least not until we get all
forests under good mgt. and protect as much forest land as possible from
development- and, I agree that pure electric biomass is not the best
solution, but CHP is terrific, especially those plants that will produce
pellets, so that ordinary people in this region can afford to heat their
homes! But when I said that, the critics pounced all over me as a traitor,
since I was the only forester in New England giving them any attention.

Also, right along, I've been telling the anti biomass Jihadists, that I find
it hypocritical of them to be flying around the world in carbon spewing
jets, eating beef from carbon spewing industrial agriculture, spewing carbon
from their cars and trucks and buying their expensive toys from Asia which
get shipped here in carbon spewing cargo ships- but of course they respond,
"that's not relevant". Say what?

Furthermore, we are now finding out new info about the the most significant
critics who have fought the hardest against biomass in this state- but
that's a story I'm not going to discuss yet as it's premature. More later.
Joe

[Larry Harrell]

Good to see that you have seen the light that biomass production isn't
the goal, Joe. It is merely a nice by-product of good forest
stewardship. The anti-biomass folks have been spreading such colossal
lies like "30 million acres of forests will be cut as biomass, if they
get subsidies. My plan would be to offer the subsidies if, and only
if, the whole projects meets certain forest improvement guidelines.
Now is not the time to "play" with those guidelines, to increase
cutting. It is the way eco-groups "frame" questions and problems used
to convince otherwise good people that biomass is evil, destructive
and bad for our environment that adds to our forest problems. Yes, you
are correct that forests in the east have different issues than
forests in the west. I KNEW you would come around, Joe!

LH