Monday, August 15, 2016

My Turn: Sustainable truth about biomass

Came across this article, an opinion piece, referencing biomass harvesting in New Hampshire's forests. Very well written and to the point. I wanted to share it with my readers.



By BRAD SIMPKINS
For the Monitor
Monday, August 08, 2016

Recently, National Public Radio broadcast a segment on its popular Morning Edition program that was critical of using biomass – wood and pulp chips and other scrap wood – to generate electricity. Biomass power plants have been described as “carbon neutral” in an amendment to the energy bill now being debated in Congress, meaning the carbon emitted by these facilities is offset by regenerating forests. NPR quoted one academic who claimed biomass is not carbon neutral, calling burning wood for energy “unsustainable.”

This statement is not seeing the forests for the trees. Here in New Hampshire, we have a long history of sustainable forestry. Our forests continue to produce abundant hardwood and softwood lumber, wood chips and firewood, and they support a large and thriving forestry industry.

According to the most recent forest inventory statistics, the Granite State’s forests are getting older and increasing in volume. Indeed, the state is approximately 84 percent forested, including both public and private land ownership. We are, in fact, the second-most forested state in the nation, and as a state, we continue to grow more wood than we harvest.

Moreover, even as we are using biomass to produce energy, research from the U.S. Forest Service shows the amount of carbon stored in the above-ground portion of trees has increased in New Hampshire by over 4 percent between 2006 and 2012. Clearly, the use of biomass in our state is more than just carbon neutral; our forests are providing a positive benefit.

Biomass power plants are an important part of that sustainability. For one thing, they provide an important market for wood chips. In fact, with the recent closures of several paper mills in New England, biomass plants are often the only low-grade market available to many, if not most, of our tree farmers – professional foresters, loggers and landowners performing sustainable forestry.

These are not lumber-quality trees that are being used to produce energy but rather low-quality products, such as diseased or malformed trees, the upper branches and the wood scraps that result when sawmills produce lumber.

Strong markets help keep land in forests versus converting the land to nonforest uses, as it provides a source of income to the landowner. Keeping forests as forests is one of the most important things we can do, not only for carbon storage, but for a host of other good reasons, too.

Moreover, biomass plants here help support more than 1,000 New Hampshire residents, and according to a recent study, they generate more than $170 million annually in economic activity for our state’s economy. Most of those dollars stay local, too.

Let us also remember that New Hampshire has good forestry and best logging practices, which help sustain a healthy forest. Biomass power generation is a great New Hampshire success story. It’s one of the best ways we can become energy-independent using a renewable resource that’s right here in our backyard.

We are fortunate to live in a part of the world where trees grow prolifically and are very quick to reclaim any opening. While forest sustainability for energy may be an issue in some parts of the world, it is absolutely a viable, renewable and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels here in the Granite State, and should continue to be an important component of our renewable energy plan.

Thus, we should celebrate and support our biomass energy plants, which not only give us electricity but, in turn, support forestry and best forest management practices for the forests we love.

(Brad Simpkins is the director of the Divisionof Forests and Lands at the New Hampshire Department of Resources and EconomicDevelopment.)


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