Allegheny Chapter of Society of American Forester’s Conference

On February 14, 2008, as part of the Allegheny Chapter of Society of American Forester’s conference, I had the opportunity to listen to John Quigley of DCNR speak about PA’s Bioenergy and Carbon sequestration programs. In addition, Mr. Paul Roth spoke about carbon credits and Dr. Charles Ray of Penn State University spoke about the growing opportunity of bioenergy. According to Mr. Quigley, Pennsylvania is currently emitting 1% of the world’s pollution and is ranked third in the US for emissions pollution, which affects global warming. The key issues are the carbon trading (what does carbon look like, geoloycte sequestration (getting carbon out of smoke stacks to the underground), inventory resources, and testrial sequestrations (growing trees to get carbon out of air, using wood products). The market is rushing to find new biofuels with coal increasing 50%. By the year 2020, PA hopes to have 10% of its gas as ethanol and 20% of diesel and by 2022 the goal is 15% biofuel content. According to Mr. Quigley, using corn as a source of ethanol is a losing plan due to costs. There are three companies looking at wood and its byproducts as a source of fuel. There is an estimated waste of 6 million tons of wood each year that could be reused as fuel. Mr. Roth indicated that the trade commodity for forest landowners will be impacted. It is important to know that PA produces 320 million tons of carbon annually. All carbon trading in North America flows through one single company, the Chicago Climate Exchange. Dr. Ray discussed the biomass tree species as poplar, willow, sycamore, American chestnut and noted that a large volume of wood 200,000 – 500,000 tons of wood per year would be needed. Operations involving pulp require single species and strict chip specifications. Trees act as our solar panels. The speakers were very informative, knowledgeable and extremely supportive of their respective topic. They discussed several of my original findings regarding PA’s bioenergy efforts, such as the high cost of corn for ethanol, the use hardwoods as fuel sources, wood wastes, sawdust, wood chips, and the use of poplar, sycamore, American chestnut, and willows as good candidates for carbon sequestration to reduce greenhouse gases. If fast growing species for short rotation tree crops, are chosen as fuel sources new forestry jobs will be created. However, we must be diligent in the effort to not wipe out too many trees at any given time. Further study of using waste products of animals and trees seems worthy. We would encounter a win-win situation as we would lower our wastes dumped in landfills while having new products and lower dependence on foreign oil.

Pennsylvania’s Approach to Bioenergy/Ecosystem Services (Carbon sequestration)

Pennsylvania is actively involved in the development and research of alternative products for renewable energy fuels and carbon sequestration. The end result is better fuels without the dependence on foreign oil. Fuel gas, liquid fuels, and the production of steam and electricity are the goals. The efforts in Pennsylvania stem from farm crops, to wood products, and animal by-products (proteins, tissues, bones, fat, and manure). Many people are aware of the efforts to use corn as a source of ethanol production. On the other hand, few people know that in addition to corn, soybeans, canola, rapeseed, and crop residue are other plants being considered and tested for fuel production. From a forester’s perspective, hardwoods, grasses such as switchgrass, wood wastes, sawdust, wood chips, and the noxious weed known as tree-of-heaven are a few woody products being researched. Hybrid and yellow-poplar, sycamore, American chestnut, and willows are several trees being considered as good candidates for carbon sequestration to reduce greenhouse gases. From a natural resources professional’s point of view, these efforts can enhance our forest lands. As trees are utilized for energy, pests and diseases can possibly be reduced or eliminated, waste products from wood production will no longer be hauled to landfills, forests can be thinned to allow for new growth, and perhaps controlled burning operations can be reduced. Since some controlled burnings result in uncontrolled fires, using wood as the basis for additional fuel source is a positive step in eliminating the possibility of fire losses. These efforts will surely impact the forest industry as new businesses and opportunities will arise.

Websites
http://www.pabiomass.org/
http://www.ahs.dep.state.pa.us/newsreleases/default.asp?ID=4140&varQueryType=Detail
http://www.eesi.org/briefings/2006/Ag&Energy/5.22.06RegionalBiomass/SticklePresentation.pdf/