Previously I promised to come back to the subject of whole trees.
Allan Ricketts asserted in the VLCIA meeting with concerned citizens
on 10 June 2010
that the biomass plant Wiregrass LLC proposed for Valdosta will never
burn whole trees because it would be economically unfeasible for it to do so.
While I have no doubt that Col. Ricketts is acting on the best information
given to him, there are reasons to be sceptical about what will happen
in the future.

1. The document VLCIA supplied as their best reference on CO₂
   and biomass,
   
   Biomass carbon neutrality in the context of forest-based fuels and products,
   by Reid Miner, NCASI, Al Lucier, NCASI, appears to depend for its analysis
   on harvesting whole trees for biomass.

2. At least one other proposed biomass operator in Georgia, Oglethorpe Power,
   asserts in a press release of May 7, 2009 regarding its purchase of land in Warren County, referring also to its site in Appling County and an alternative
   site in Echols County:

   The biomass plants will generate electricity by burning a woody biomass
   mixture expected to consist primarily of whole tree chips and chipped
   pulpwood, along with wood waste from saw mills and wood remaining in
   the forest after clearing.

   Why is it economical for Oglethorpe Power to burn whole trees but not
   for Wiregrass, LLC?

3. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, several organizations are
   
   petitioning the NC state PUC:

   NCFB and NCFA respectfully request that the Commission issue an Order
   finding that wood fuel, including wood chips from whole ttreees, whqualifies
   as a “renewable energy resource under N.C. Gen. Stat….

   (More on that here.)
   If burning whole trees is so economically feasible in North Carolina
   that the NC Farm Bureau Federation and North Carolina Forestry Association
   are petitioning the NC PUC to permit it, why isn’t it economically
   feasible for Wiregrass LLC in south Georgia?

Now burning whole trees in itself isn’t in my mind a lot different from
using them for pulpwood.
(Although both of those uses have other issues,
which I’ll come to in later posts.)
That’s not the point.
The point is that it’s a little hard to believe that it’s not economical
for Wiregrass LLC to burn whole trees as biomass for electricity
when a variety of other organizations think it is economically feasible
and are basing business plans and PUC petitions on it being profitable.

-jsq