CFE agenda 081417 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Woody biomass from urban wood waste, logging residues, and forest thinnings, for example, can be used to generate energy. Using wood to generate electricity provides potential benefits such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, healthier forests, and local jobs and other economic impacts. To estimate the amount of wood that could be available in a community, we include three sources: urban wood waste, logging residues, and pulpwood. While other woody biomass resources exist and could be added to the resource assessments, we include only these resources, for which cost and supply data are available. Urban wood waste is generated from tree and yard trimmings, the commercial tree care industry, road and utility corridor clearings, and green space maintenance. Logging residue is composed of the leftovers from forest harvesting, such as tree tops and limbs, and poorly formed trees. Pulpwood refers to small diameter trees (3.6 to 6.5 inches diameter at breast height) that are harvested for manufacturing paper, purified cellulose products (including absorbents, filters, rayon, and acetate), and oleoresin products (including pine oils, fragrances, cosmetics, and thinners). This profile sheet excludes secondary woody waste from sawmills and furniture makers, which is available but may already be used within the industry to produce energy. Economic factors, including fuel costs and the creation of local jobs, are major determinants of the feasibility of bioenergy projects. Assessing the economic availability of biomass requires learning about the delivered cost of wood, the quantity of available wood, and its geographic distribution. This information is then used to create biomass resource supply curves, which express price per unit of biomass at various levels of consumption. The following summary assesses the economic availability of wood resources for Buncombe and Orange counties in North Carolina. Cost Calculations The delivered cost of woody biomass to a facility is the sum of the amount paid to buy the wood from the original owner (procurement), the harvest cost, and the transportation cost. Although rail transportation is common on facilities located on major rail lines, woody biomass is typically transported by truck (and that is the convention used in this analysis). The cost of transportation depends on the time it takes a truck to travel from the harvest site to the facility. A simpler analysis could calculate transportation cost as a function of distance rather than transportation time. However, transportation costs per mile tend to decrease as road infrastructure improves. Haul times to the central delivery point in each county are calculated using a software program called ArcGIS Network Analyst Extension (Figure 1). Assuming that haulers drive the speed limit on the quickest route available to them, we calculate total transportation times for the forested areas around the delivery point, and then increase haul times (and thus costs) by 25% to account for delays, such as traffic and stops. These haul -time procurement zones delineate potential "woodsheds" or areas that can provide wood for a specific community or biomass user. If demand is established in more than one area in proximity, woodsheds can overlap, causing competing demand for biomass. The total delivered cost is derived from the sum of the procurement, harvest, and transportation costs for urban wood waste, logging residues, and pulpwood. This is calculated at 15- minute increments up to one hour from each delivery point. Delivered costs allow us to see the progression of the 2