The timber industry produces tons of wood residues each year. Residues include anything from the limbs and bark that my come off of timber in the process of logging and transportation, to the debris and sawdust left behind after production of things like lumber and plywood. There is also a practice known as “right-of-way clearing” that occurs around power lines. All vegetation directly beneath the lines is removed, as well as in a region close to the lines on both sides known as the easement zone, tall growing, invasive, and dead or diseased trees and vegetation are removed (shown below).
Both woody residues and the material products of right-of-way clearing typically have gone to waste, but with the increasing popularity of biomass as the “future” of renewable greener energy, there is a possibility that
these can be of some use. These can all be burned as biomass, meaning we can take products that we have been wasting and create energy out of it. There is actually a plant in Dorchester County SC that will run solely on woody residues. This, in theory, will create more jobs, as someone will need to collect and transport the residues, as well as save the County money, estimated at $300,000 annually. Statewide in SC, 1.6 million tons of residues are produced by the logging industry, providing a wealth of potential fuel. There are also other things that can be used as biomass fuels, including switchgrass, corn husks and stalks, and municipal waste (garbage). Beyond the residues, there is also predicted to be an increase in jobs due to the growth of the logging, trucking, and forest industry in general. The growth of the biomass industry has potential to create jobs, as well as help move us away from our heavy use of fossil fuels to generate power for our homes. Purely focusing on the economy and use of energy here, as many of the energy companies would like us to, it appears to be a feasible alternative to coal (or purely coal, as there are some plants that may use a mixture of coal with the woody biomass) plants. However, the long-term environmental impacts may shed a different light on this.
References:
http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_biomass.html
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/1198/wood-residue-to-fuel
http://www.atcllc.com/learning-center/trees-and-vegetation/
http://www.mississippipower.com/topic_renewable/biomass.asp
Images:
http://caffreyconstruction.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/transmission_right-of-way.jpg
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/531719/thumbs/r-SAVANNAH-RIVER-BIOMASS-large570.jpg