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Pacific Northwest Forest Inventory and Analysis
About this page
This page summarizes the project "Evaluating opportunities for biomass processing facility siting and economic feasibility of landscape-scale fuel treatment" ongoing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research (PNW) Station. Links to publications on analyses conducted to date can be found below. In Summer 2010, we will add links to the BioSum 3.0 software currently in beta test by several clients and at the PNW Research Station.
Landscape-scale deployment of mechanical thinning of western forests to reduce fuel accumulations, as called for by the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, has been slow to materialize, in large part because of the limited availability of funds to subsidize such activities, the high costs of these labor-intensive treatments, and the low to nonexistent commercial value of the majority of the trees removed in such operations. Construction of facilities that would convert biomass to energy is seen as a prospect for generating new markets for small-diameter wood, potentially contributing to expansion of fuel treatment possibilities. Answering the question of where to construct such facilities, and the appropriate scale at which to do so, depends on, among other things, the location and quantity of the resources upon which they will draw and the cost of transporting harvested material across the landscape. Biomass plant investors and operators, fuel managers, state and private foresters, and community planners are keenly interested in answers to such questions.
The BioSum analysis framework was developed to combine forest inventory data representing an analysis region, a treatment cost model, a fuel treatment effectiveness model, and a raw material hauling cost model to explore alternative landscape-scale treatment scenarios that achieve a variety of management objectives (Fried et al. 2005). Raw material volumes generated by mechanical treatments designed to reduce canopy fuels are estimated by simulating such treatments using data derived from forest inventory plots; treatment costs are estimated via the Fuel Reduction Cost Simulator (Fight et al. 2006); gross product values are calculated as the product of modeled harvest quantities and local product prices; and a variety of treatments, developed in consultations with local silviculturists and fuels management experts, are simulated to assess treatment effectiveness and net and gross treatment costs (Fried et al. 2003, Fried and Christensen 2004). Candidate sites for building processing facilities can be simulated and evaluated with respect to economic feasibility (Fried et al. 2005), or the framework can be extended via mixed-integer optimization to jointly select the best treatment for each acre and the best places to site bioenergy capacity (Daugherty and Fried 2007).
Products and tools
Forest Inventory and Analysis BioSum has been applied to a 25-million-acre region of Oregon and California and throughout the states of Arizona and New Mexico in support of research studies and articles (e.g., Barbour et al. 2008, Bilek et al. 2005), presentations to Washington Office, regional and forest staffs, other scientists, forest and fire managers, and the biomass-to-energy community. The FIA BioSum simulation software, which provides a user-friendly, automated, integrated analysis environment and all the needed model components to conduct BioSum analyses for any area in the United States for which FIA plot and road network data are available, is in beta release and documentation; sample data sets and a user tutorial are nearing completion.
Results and Applications
Under a range of policy scenarios with different objectives in the Oregon and California regional analysis, removal of considerable amounts of commercial-size trees is needed to accomplish fire hazard reduction goals when objectives are centered on either maximizing net revenue or maximizing treatment effectiveness. Even when the objective is to minimize merchantable volume, about two-thirds of the removed weight would be in saw logs.
Tops and limbs from merchantable commercial conifers and whole trees of hardwoods and noncommercial conifers are major sources of sub-merchantable wood for which there is essentially no market but bioenergy. Assuming a 10- year implementation and depreciation of the biomass plants constructed to support fuel treatment, and treatment of all acres for which treatments would achieve fuel reduction benefits, the study region is capable of annually producing $590 million in net revenue, yielding 6 to 12 million green tons of biomass and 840 million to 1.2 billion cubic feet of merchantable wood. Over a decade, the region could support treatment of 2.8 to 8.1 million acres while providing bioenergy capacity of 496 to 1009 megawatts.
Analysis with a range of forest bioenergy-facility capacities revealed robustness in the optimal spatial distribution of bioenergy facilities. This robustness depends on the extent of the transportation network relative to the sources of woody biomass and on the ability to change plot-treatment combinations to define different biomass collection areas. Custom analyses have been conducted in support of biomass plant capacity decisions (in Lakeview, Oregon), forest practices policy development (by the California Dept. of Forestry and Fire in California), and regional analysis of opportunities to attract bioenergy investment capital (in New Mexico).
Awards and Recognition
DIRECTOR’S AWARD FOR FIA EXCELLENCE for fiscal 2002, USDA Forest Service. For outstanding research in the development and implementation of the BioSum model to assess the economic and fire risk impacts of treating stands across broad landscapes.
INFORMS 2004 Best Paper in Forestry Sponsored Sessions, awarded by Institute for Management Science and Operations Research, Section on Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment. Presentation by J.S. Fried and P.J. Daugherty, “Joint Optimization of Fuel Treatment Selection and Processing Facility Siting for Landscape-Scale Fire Hazard Reduction,” judged best of 25 papers presented at the 2004 INFORMS meeting forestry sessions.
Jeremy Fried, Jamie Barbour, and Roger Fight (retired)
We gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the National Fire Plan, the PNW Research Station, the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program and the Western Forest Leadership Coalition.
1. Woody biomass supply model development. Energy and Biosciences Institute.
Research Publications and Literature Cited
Barbour, R.J.; Fried, J.S.; Daugherty, P.J.; Christensen, R.; Fight. R. 2008. Potential biomass and logs from fire-hazard reduction treatments in Southwest Oregon and Northern California. Forest Policy and Economics 10: 400-407.
Science Delivery Publications
Oliver, M. 2009. Bioenergy from trees: using cost-effective thinning to reduce forest fire hazards. Science Finding 117. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 6 p.
Jeremy Fried (jsfried <at> fs.fed.us) and Jamie Barbour (jbarbour01 <at> fs.fed.us)
USDA Forest Service - Pacific Northwest Forest Inventory and Analysis