Wood making comeback as power source : How will this affect pellet mills?

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toastyinri

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Hearth Supporter
Jan 5, 2006
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Rhode Island
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2009-10-13-wood-power_N.htm

By Traci Watson, USA TODAY
One of the world's oldest energy sources is making a comeback.
Across the USA, power plants are turning to wood to make electricity. The move is spurred by state mandates to encourage renewable power and by bills moving through Congress that require more renewable electricity nationwide.

Wood power's rise is "meteoric," says William Perritt, editor of Wood Biomass Market Report. One wood-burning plant started up in 2007, seven in 2008 and a dozen in 2009, he says.

Dozens more are on the drawing board. That includes three 100-megawatt plants, scheduled to start in 2012 that together would crank out enough juice to power up to 270,000 homes.

In 2008, wood-burning power plants were capable of generating roughly 6,700 megawatts or enough to provide power to about 6 million homes, according to the Energy Department. That includes, however, plants that supply power to wood-products factories that use waste wood to generate electricity.

Many plants now burn bark, twigs and other waste wood. If wood power grows as expected, whole trees will have to be cut down to fuel the plants, says Pete Stewart of Forest2Market, a forest-industry analysis firm.

Plants have promised to use waste wood, but "as soon as they get their permit and see how much it's going to cost to do that, they change their tune," he says. Stewart says it is generally more expensive to build a wood-burning plant than one powered by coal or natural gas.

Some environmentalists fear that the rise of wood power could devastate forests.

As the industry expands, "it's going to move quickly from waste wood to wood chips," says Scot Quaranda of the Dogwood Alliance, a forest-protection group. That would lead to "more large-scale clear-cutting, more conversion of natural forest to plantations and more endangered forests being logged," he says.

Bob Cleaves of the Biomass Power Association, an industry group, says that current laws and policies are sufficient to protect the environment.

Examples of the growth of this back-to-the-future fuel:

• A Tacoma, Wash., plant that opened in August burns leftovers from a neighboring paper mill. The power plant "takes advantage of a resource … that's being created anyway," says Paul Copleman of Iberdrola Renewables, which oversees delivery of the power to Sacramento.

• An Alexandria, N.H., plant reopened in January after being idle for 14 years. It sends its power throughout New England.

• A plant in Kenansville, N.C., was converted from burning coal to burning wood. It reopened in 2009 and sells its power to one of the state's largest utilities.

• A Snowflake, Ariz., plant burns dead trees from a nearby national forest to make power. "There are a lot of forests that need to be trimmed to protect them from wildfire," says plant manager Garry Stevens, and it "makes sense" to burn the trees weeded out.

Wood is especially attractive as a renewable fuel in the South, says Cleaves. Southern states lack ample sun or wind power, but they have broad stretches of forest and many paper and timber mills that generate waste wood.

Another plus: wood-burning boilers can churn out a steady supply of electricity. Solar power is only made when the sun shines, and windmills turn only when the wind blows.
 
Another plus: wood-burning boilers can churn out a steady supply of electricity. Solar power is only made when the sun shines, and windmills turn only when the wind blows.

I honestly think the future will be powered by a combination of multiple power sources; possibly even all three. All are renewable and the use of wind and solar would keep the demand for wood lower.

If this trend continues then we may see pellets rise in price.... probably also the cost of a cord of wood would go up as well.

Honestly though, the lumber industry is highly regulated (at least in Maine)... and I'm sure something like this would cause even more regulation possibly even at the Federal-level.

Clear cutting has a bad rap IMHO. All commercial clear cutting (again, in Maine) has to be replanted and then the land can not be clear cut again for a number of years
 
I would love to see those eco people transported back to the first, second, and in some cases third clear cutting of almost all the forest up here, wood is a crop, the animals can survive. A few years ago they tried to pass a law up here that would have required a permit to cut 1 tree down, it only would cost 2-3 dollars, but for the lumber industry it would have been the end.
 
rowerwet said:
I would love to see those eco people transported back to the first, second, and in some cases third clear cutting of almost all the forest up here, wood is a crop, the animals can survive. A few years ago they tried to pass a law up here that would have required a permit to cut 1 tree down, it only would cost 2-3 dollars, but for the lumber industry it would have been the end.

I'm surprised I didn't hear about that since I have relatives in the forestry industry. That would be seriously stupid.... too much regulation is never good; but then again if there was no regulation we probably wouldn't have any more woods in Maine.

Then again, we may be able to turn a single acre of trees into 30 acres in the future:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/vertical-diagonal-farm-in-new-york.php

I read an article a few years back that China was considering this but there plan was open skyscrapper style with slots in each of the floors to allow sunshine to hit all the floors.
 
It almost seems like the big oil and gas suppliers might be trying to keep us from going Green...prices have dropped...I'm still using pellets because I can keep my home more comfortable...oil would wave to drop alot lower for me to use it as a primary source of heat.
 
An unknown factor here is the economy as a whole and specifically wood demand when construction picks up.
 
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