From the Klamath Falls Herald and News
Trees thinned from the Fremont-Winema National Forests near Lakeview will be used in a new biomass electricity production project at the Collins Company Fremont Sawmill in Lakeview, according to a press release from Oregon State University.
"If this project works the way we anticipate, there will be many benefits, for forest protection, private industry, local jobs, water resources, fish and wildlife," said Hal Salwasser, dean of the College of Forestry at OSU. "But more than that, we believe we can establish a model for more efforts of this type that would be relevant to millions of acres in Central and Eastern Oregon that face similar problems."
A larger electrical production plant will be constructed, fueled by biomass from thinning operations in the nearby national forests, as well as sawmill wood byproducts.
The plant would feed more substantial amounts of electricity into the regional grid.
A sustainable supply of wood from small trees with little market value would be taken from these lands, some for lumber production and some for electricity.
Like many areas in the dryer region of Oregon, forests are suffering from overcrowding, decades of fire suppression, insect and disease epidemics, and other concerns that leave them highly vulnerable to catastrophic fire, says Salwasser. It's generally agreed that careful forest thinning can help reduce wildfire risks, improve forest health, and free up water resources for use by fish and other wildlife. But such approaches, which can cost $300 to $1,500 per acre, are often prohibitively expensive unless something can be done to produce revenue that offsets the costs.
In this case, that offset mechanism is going to be the new biomass plant, with the help of The Collins Companies.
"They already have a co-generation facility at their Northern California operation, using the same technologies and providing the same type of ecological as well as economic benefits," Salwasser said.
The cost of building the new electrical plant would be offset with the sale of electricity and steam from the plant. Lake County Resources Initiative and The Collins Companies are working with two power companies that finance, build and operate their own plants. The new plant will be located at the Collins Company, Fremont Sawmill, taking their older boiler off line and selling steam to the Fremont Sawmill for their kilns.
Besides the immediate benefits of reducing fire risks, there may be other payoffs.
A major wildfire would release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. But the controlled use of that same wood for lumber or electrical production would be positive in terms of "greenhouse gas" emissions. Future fires would not release the same amount of carbon dioxide, the wood that goes into building products stores carbon, and the biomass that goes into power production offsets the need to produce that energy from fossil fuels.
"If this works right, there could be a lot of benefits," Salwasser said. "Some will be very tangible, such as the production of wood products, electricity, and local residents who will be able to keep good paying jobs," Salwasser said.
"But we're also going to evaluate the whole range of environmental, ecological, wildlife and other payoffs from the project. For instance, there should be carbon sequestration benefits that have global climate implications, and might be turned into carbon credits you could sell."
Strategies such as this are one of the recommendations included in the recent Oregon Strategy for Greenhouse Gas Reductions that has been presented to Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
Collaborators on the project include OSU, Portland State University, The Collins Companies, Fremont National Forest, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Department of Forestry, Lake County Resources Initiative, conservation interests, and other groups.
An agreement committing partners to cooperate in the proposed thinning and construction of the new power plant should be complete within six months, Salwasser said, and work in the forest will begin soon after that.
This is the first Oregon Solutions project that the OSU College of Forestry has become involved in, he said, but others may follow in the future. Oregon Solutions grew out of the Oregon Sustainability Act of 2001. At first it was operated by the executive branch of state government, and now by PSU. The program promotes a new style of community governance based on collaboration, integration and sustainability. About 20 projects around Oregon are already under way.
