By Michael J. Zimmer

I like the fundamentals of the biomass footprint even more now this year. Wind is facing trouble with the PTC extension, turbine product availability, a nagging de minimis capacity factor, and need for transmission that isn’t being developed nationwide. Transmission constraints could strand many new renewable energy projects over the next five years, as occurred for cogeneration, small power producers and independent power projects during the prior decades.

Now is the time to diversify the renewables supply base with existing technologies that have more base-load attributes—such as geothermal, hydropower and biomass, including landfill gas and municipal solid waste. Biomass in particular offers great potential for increased expansion in the next five years.

The key to success for advanced biomass development will arise from the ability to lock up sufficient and reliable fuel supplies. Failure to do this will keep biomass from scaling up until non-cultivated, closed-loop fuels become competitive on an emissions-cost adjusted basis. The determining factors are political, structural and technical/agronomical at this stage.

The political issue comes down to GHG regulation and setting carbon costs. If the GHG regulatory calculus prices carbon under $50 a ton, it will be a long time before any alternative power sources can really compete with fossil fuels, particularly coal. Until carbon emissions credits reach $50 a ton, coal plants won’t sequester carbon, but likely will just buy credits in a compliance regime. That’s exactly what occurred after enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, when major scrubber investments and more capital intensive strategies were postponed for a dozen years or more.

The technical issue arises from the difficulty of securing firm fuel supplies. A closed-loop solution could project biomass ahead of wind and solar in many ways, making it the least-cost renewable supply option with better operating characteristics. But I’m hearing more discussion bemoaning the possible environmental costs of increasing reliance on cellulosic energy sources. What happens after 10 cycles of harvesting switchgrass, poplar and kudzu, without any serious fertilizer input? A natural biome replaces humus nutrients with necrotic material from the previous growing season. If we’re burning that material, the humus will disappear and eventually the soil will turn into sand.

However, by aggregating supplies under a regional “hub” approach, a closed-loop system can allow careful management of growing biomass areas. And of course biomass fuels from such sources as forest thinnings, sawdust and bark from private and government properties could be aggregated by rural communities. Rural development funds to supply clean, untreated lumber for biomass power production could revitalize local forest industries. And federal and state lands can contribute feedstocks from efforts to cull overgrowth and avoid forest fires.

Additionally, biomass power plants with waste-heat capture equipment can provide thermal energy for drying, processing or other industrial or commercial purposes. This enhances the community tax base, prompts a new feedstock industry, increases local jobs and contributes to the local economy.

From a public-policy perspective, the critical factor will be for lawmakers to include supply chain and logistics support in energy legislation, to create a closed-loop biomass fuel industry and provide proper scale to capture the potential of biomass power. Inordinate focus on creating incentives for supply, without anticipating the complete logistics of transportation, storage, handling and distribution, is a fatal flaw of many of our national energy strategies for all of our fuels and power strategies. Correcting this flaw will allow the industry to harvest the true potential of dispatchable biomass power.

Michael J. Zimmer is Of Counsel with Thompson Hine LLP in Washington, D.C.

Posted: June 26th, 2008 under biomass, carbon regulation, renewables.
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