In a message dated 7/26/2010 7:09:35 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
DD : Dan Dimiduk comments
Dear Cornelio
The 'big future for biomass in the formal sector power generation sector'
was the idea that wood is renewable so it makes sense to plant and harvest
huge areas as a sort of slow farming of energy.
DD The big businesses always take the easiest, simplest way to profit. In
reality, they are better equipped to handle the more difficult processes,
such as recycling concentrated waste streams. Regulation should focus on
that. Not on limiting the small guys projects.
There are two problems emerging: people object to the entire idea when it
comes to actually planting and harvesting forests in the developed world,
and the energy equation is not perhaps as positive as initially hoped.
DD In the eastern United States, as elsewhere, trees grow weather we plant
them or not. The question is if we want nature to decide what is planted
or if we will decide. Nature tends to favor invasive and short lived species
following clear cutting that destroys the stumps.
Coppicing is cutting with the intent to regrow from the same root/
stump/ trunk. This practice is the best for many hardwoods as it accelerates
the regrowth tremendously and even produces better timber. On poor soils
such as strip mining sites, selected hardwoods such as locust can outgrow
other trees and rebuild the soil as well.
The idea that forests should not be cut at all is pretty ingrained in the
US
mental space even though the area covered by forests in the East has
increased enormously in my lifetime. That is why the deer population is so
high (and the number of crashes between them and cars). I think Dan D may
have something say about that.
DD All so true, but now the coyote population is exploding to harvest the
deer population explosion. Now we have coyote running in packs, in the
city, even though they are not traditionally pack animals. Remind those who
object to deer harvesting, that venison is better eating than dog meat.
The best use of harvested woods is to first produce timber from the
quality wood. Use the lower quality wood for chipboard (such as OSB) and then
residues from that operation as biomass fuel. Then recycle the used
demolition lumber into charcoal at the end of it's use cycle. In most areas,
due
to paper recycling, pulpwood is now in oversupply and hardly pays for the
hauling. The former pulpwood stream can be redirected to fuel biomass
combustion. Regulate that!
The biomass potential in the Eastern US is huge but getting it to happen is
not looking good.
DD Is it a co- incidence that a large amount of coal and now natural gas
from shale is produced here? The old guard still controls politics to a large
degree. It is no accident that alternatives that compete with " clean
coal" are finding more difficulty with new regulations than alternatives that
compete with oil. Isn't Mr. Obama from a coal producing state? I believe
that the carbon cap and trade bill is an end run around the coal producers
political power.
Austria seems to have achieved the right balance - I think they have two
wood fired generating stations now and they are probably the world leaders
in small wood burners, certainly on the research front. I am impressed
anyway.
In the rest of the world a lot of people want everyone to move away from
wood for all sorts of obvious reasons and I am left wondering if perhaps
processed wood is a best available option for some time to come. There is
increasing interest in what I can call artificial charcoal from processed
biomass as a cheap and non-wood alternative for peri-urban modernizing
areas.
DD Why is it that published trends always favor the usage of fuels with a
large middle man? Is there any studies on the efficiency of a single man
harvesting and utilizing his own fuel from his own land? I just don't see how
large operations can ever compete with that. Everyone seems to want some
process that requires a store bought devise to make the process more
efficient. How can hauling large amounts of biomass to a single site for
processing
be efficient unless a waste stream is involved?
What do you think??
DD They don't pay me to think, but I do it anyhow. Maybe that is why I see
the other side of the coin.
Best regards
Crispin
DD Crispin, I just happened to read a few Stoves E- mails and saw my name
mentioned. I drowning in E-mail from Deepwater Horizon, Unified Command
Center. That's what I get for sending an in idea for capping the gushing
Macondo well, to Transocean 10 days after the rupture. I just sent in an idea
to
airate the Gulf of Mexico in order to replace depleted oxygen. We'll see if
that flys.
Dan Dimiduk
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