It’s Electric! Wood chips generate over 3,000 megawatt hours of electricity!
Kristin Coons, Forester, Gasquet Ranger District, standing on top a massive wood chip pile. [Photo by: Kristin Coons, U.S. Forest Service]
After the 2023 Smith River Complex fire suppression efforts concluded, a major focus was to ensure Highway 199 was safe for motorists to travel on. As a result, fire weakened trees were felled. Trees marked as non-marketable or not suitable for firewood, were chipped and used for erosion control in strategic locations along the corridor, however, a substantial amount of chips remained (7,600 tons of wood chips).
Fortunately, after meticulous planning and collaborative efforts, the disposal and energy conversion of these wood chips has been successfully accomplished. Biomass One, a cogeneration powerplant played an essential role in this endeavor, utilizing commercial chip forest product permits to burn the chips locally, and thereby mitigating the fire hazard of spontaneous combustion while disposing of potentially pathogen-infected material in an environmentally friendly manner. The 7,600 tons of wood chips generated over 3,000 megawatt hours of electricity capable of powering 1800 average size U.S. homes for a period of 2 months.
The coordination of this massive operation was facilitated by CalTrans, in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service and local companies including Biomass One, LP, Bettendorf Trucking Co., and Tidewater Inc. By joining forces, Bettendorf Trucking Co. and Tidewater Contractors Inc. worked together to load and transport the chips to Biomass One in White City, Oregon. This coordinated effort positioned the project as the leading supplier of material for renewable energy production at the cogeneration plant during the months of March and April 2024.A total of 53 free use chip permits were issued to the general public and Tribal members, aiding in the removal of an estimated 116 green tons of material. Additionally, a new Forest Product Plan has been established for wood chips generated anywhere on the Gasquet Ranger District, ensuring a streamlined process for future public use.Thanks to all the help from the public, and coordination between multiple agencies and partners, most of the wood chips were distributed for public use or energy generation. CalTrans will handle the small chip pile that remains to ensure public safety and minimize disruption of operations at the curtain burner, which is slated to continue operations for another two months.Heavy equipment loading bucket loads of wood chips into Bettendorf Trucking Co. and Tidewater Contractors Inc. dump trucks to transport to Biomass One Cogeneration Facility in White City, Oregon.
[Photo by: Kristin Coons, U.S. Forest Service]
Earlier:
- Red Flag Warning Issued as Lightning Strikes Pepper the Emerald Triangle
- Powerful Lightning Storm Leaves Multiple Fires to Combat in Northwestern California
- Lightning-Sparked Wildfires Stretch Resources in Northwestern California; Head Fire in Siskiyou County Estimated Over 3000 Acres
- Wildfires Unleashed on Northwestern California: Thousands of Acres Covered by Flames, Evacuations Ordered Following Lightning Storms
- Lost Fire Near Orick Continues to Blaze Uncontained and Unnoticed in the Midst of Wildfire Overload
- Wildfires from Orleans to Orick to Hoopa United Under New Name and One Command
- From Hoopa to Siskiyou and Over to Orick–the Six Rivers 2023 Lightning Fires Current Situation
- Firefighters Battle Lightning Complex in Humboldt County
- Six Rivers Lightning Complex: Much More Active Yesterday and More Activity Expected Today
- Rainfall Offers Hope to the Six Rivers National Forest 2023 Lightning Complex
- After Recent Lightning Storm, Five New Fires Added to 2023 Six Rivers Lightning Complex, Bringing Total to 17 Fires
- Pearch Fire and Several Unstaffed Fires Remain Uncontained in the 2023 Six Rivers National Forest Complex
- 2023 SRF Lightning Complex Sees New Evacuation Orders as the Pearch Fire Remains Untamed
- Firefighters Act Quickly to Extinguish New Fire in 2023 SRF Lightning Complex (16,478 Acres, 20% Contained)
- No Additional Firing Operations Planned on the Pearch Fire as Firefighters Take Advantage of Moisture and Natural Barriers to Contain the 2023 SRF Lightning Complex
- Lightning Complex and Redwood Lightning Complex Have Burned 17,803 Acres and is 21% Contained
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Wasn’t that a chip truck that just recently went into the Trinity River?
It sure wouldn’t have been from that operation.
Need a few dozen biomass plants in commifornia.
I’d really like to see the figuring, from a disinterested but knowledgeable party, on how much fossil fuel is burned in the chipping of those trees, and how much in the dump trucks carrying them that far away (then travelling back) for burning. Perhaps the trucks and chippers are electric, fueled by the sun? Or perhaps the net carbon savings of such an electricity-producing operation are negligible, and the main point is to clean up the chip piles for the health and safety of the forest, regardless of climate-change impact– their use for fuel is a side benefit.
You beat me to it! Not trying to be cynical- I just am!! Lol. We have similar questions on our land and in our neighborhood and can’t find decent answers…Does chipping and then spreading out for slow composting (and possibly inoculating w/ mycelium for edibles) save the environment more than just burning our thinning products? Fire is fun but isn’t chipping and composting the better route? Need to thin the forest for fire danger but what to do with the piles of thinned material? Every option uses fossil fuels…but combusting all that carbon into the air doesn’t sound right if we are concerned about climate change, right?
Love it. Chips have a lot of water holding capacity as well. Hot composting can kill pathogens doesn’t need to be burnt. Or inoculation can outcompete pathogenic micros. My favorite is King Stropharia for food from chips
Thanks! King Stropharia are tasty!
Generally speaking, burning on site has the lowest initial input of energy but has the negatives of smoke production and immediate carbon release. Chipping/macerating on site does require initial energy inputs but has the advantage of no additional smoke production and much slower carbon release as well inputs into the soil carbon pool. Chipping and then hauling for biomass energy production is the least efficient but may still be desirable if the amount of chipped material is too large for onsite composting.
Biomass energy production is the most efficient when using onsite wood waste products (e.g. sawdust from a sawmill) or material otherwise diverted from landfills. The best option I’ve seen thus far was still in a prototype stage and that was hauling an onsite wood processing system to the woods and using chips onsite to produce biodiesel and biochar. That saves the fuel cost of hauling the chips to a mill.
Biodiesel production uses more energy than it produces. Just like ethanol and hydrogen production.
Not the system I read about, it uses volatilization of wood residue on the site to produce the biodiesel with biochar as the byproduct. It could then be used to fuel the machinery doing the work in the field. It isn’t intended to be a major production source of biodiesel.
If you’re using agricultural production to produce the feedstock for biodiesel, then yes, it would likely be a net user of energy.
That has to be refined before it can be used in modern engines. Not to mention the energy consumed in the process of making it and the carbon released.
Thanks, Tim! I know that RFFI (Redwood Forest something Institute)has been doing some pilot biochar projects. I don’t know how the results are coming along. I like the folks at RFFI but I am almost as suspicious of environmentalist claims as I am of logging companies LOL. It sounds like a long way to drive a biochar cooker to our remote hill and it sounds like a pretty involved process to make the biochar. I almost think using fossil fuel to make chips and then even just throw them around might help out the soil more. Our hill like most around here got logged out heavily in the 50’s/60’s and lost lots of it’s primal topsoil. Adding back while thinning for fire is my dream and we are hoping to “chip” in and get a neighborhood chipping project. But yes- chippers are expensive and now everybody is broke!
Biomass generators use carbon scrubbers much like coal power plants, which greatly reduce the amount of carbon that’s actually released into the atmosphere.
Probably less than in the manufacturing and maintenance of wind farms and solar panel manufacturing. Or the production of ethanol or hydrogen.
I don’t want to ruin a nice moment but I’m curious how much energy it took to create that energy? Like the trucking and building and maintaining all of the equipment it took to convert the logs into electricity.
Glen and other thinkers: Great comments and evidence of actual “thinking”. I am often disappointed by the simplistic reasoning and polarized comments so its nice to know that there are people out there that are aware of the complexities of the energy in,energy out equation. I particularly liked Farce’s “Not trying to be cynical- I just am!!” ; kinds zen like.
Keep on thinkin’!
We pay dearly for biomass electricity, considering the extremely high CO2 emissions and the air pollution, but it’s certainly better than nothing if the wood must burn anyway. Incinerating waste wood at biomass plants should be the last resort, but it’s convenient, so it’s like the default method. Worse yet, the growing biomass industry isn’t above cutting down carbon-sequestering trees in order to feed the boilers, and then they call it green. To complicate matters further, the science is not all in for the best way to minimize wildfire risk. Time is growing very short for figuring out how to reduce our emissions. Having to monetize everything we do doesn’t help at all because the future just can’t compete with the short-term.
I agree Martha. And this stuff doesn’t just go on in the daytime.
There are a lot of nocturnal emissions out there not being talked about.
Instead of adding more carbon to the atmosphere, couldn’t this wood be converted to biochar which would sink the carbon for up to 1000 years in the soil, as well as provide aeration, water and nutrient retention and filtering of toxics? There is a huge biochar plant in Medford.