Woody Biomass for Bioenergy and Biofuels in the United States—a Briefing

Executive Summary Forests are expected to have an important role in climate change mitigation under future climate change policy. Currently, much of the interest in forests centers on the opportunity to sequester carbon as part of a cap and trade policy. In addition to sequestering emitted carbon, forest resources reduce carbon emissions at the source when substituted for the fossil fuels currently used to generate heat, electricity, and transportation fuels. Woody biomass can be used to generate heat or electricity solely or in combination in a combined heat and power plant. Currently, there is significant investment being made to improve the efficiency of bioenergy production from woody biomass and the use of combined heat and power (CHP) plants is a significant component of that effort. One challenge to widespread adoption of CHP plants by the electrical sector in the U.S. is the current general paucity of U.S. centralized heating districts (with some important exceptions such district heating systems in Manhattan, NY and St. Paul, MN). Centralized heating districts have historically been more commonplace in Europe and there CHP plants often have ready access to consumers of hot water and steam. The technology to convert woody biomass to ethanol is established, but no commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plants are currently in operation. As an energy feedstock, woody biomass can be used alone or in combination with other energy sources, such as coal. Current U.S. annual energy consumption is about 100 quadrillion (10 15) BTUs. About 2 percent of the energy consumed annually in the U.S. is generated from wood and wood-derived fuels. Of the renewable energy consumed (including that from hydroelectric dams), 27 percent is generated from wood and wood-derived fuels. The majority of bioenergy produced from woody biomass is consumed by the industrial sector— mostly at pulp and paper mills using heat and/or electricity produced onsite from mill residues. 2 Department of Energy baseline projections indicate that wood and wood derived fuels will account for 9 percent of the energy consumed in 2030. Climate change policies that promote bioenergy production could lead to greater future woody biomass energy consumption. One dry ton of woody biomass can generate about 17.2 million (10 6) BTUs of energy. A number of existing studies report the " available " amounts of woody biomass. The definition of " available " in these studies ranges from reporting all biomass to reporting only biomass available at a …