Carbon reduction, renewable energy and less dependence on foreign oil have quickly become almost dog-eared topics amongst national pundits.
Douglas County's history as timber capital may seem diametrically opposed to such conversations, but some don't think so.
Douglas County Commissioner Joe Laurance has called his county “the Saudi Arabia of biomass,” organic material from plants and trees.
If that's true, there's a sea of splintery crude and opportunities to reap.
The use of biomass for energy and heat goes back to whichever caveman first discovered fire. Biomass is coming back into vogue as the country searches for energy to power it through the future.
Discussion on those opportunities and the possible pros and cons of amping up the old energy source to meet current demand will be on tap at 12:30 p.m. this Tuesday as the Lunch Bunch hosts a discussion of “Forest Biofuels” at the Roseburg Country Club
Three panelists will discuss the topic from their respective fields, which include chemical engineering, soil science and biomass.
Jim Long helped coordinate the event and was excited Thursday by the more than 30 people planning to attend, as well as the breadth of interests they represent, from wood products to finance to community development.
He expects more than 50 will eventually show up.
“I keep emphasizing a community discussion,” he said. “We have options, we have resource people to help us explore each of those options and we want to create a base for decision making.”
The discussion is the fourth in a series of public panels on Energy Options in Douglas County. Earlier panels focused on the smart electrical grid, transportable nuclear power and technologies to generate electricity from ocean waves.
Jim Archuleta will discuss the biomass project he's working on at the Umpqua National Forest.
Archuleta is a soil scientist with the U.S. Forest Service at the Toketee Ranger Station and is currently involved in biomass research with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Idaho, the University of Idaho and University of Montana.
On Tuesday he'll discuss the project, which included fast pyrolysis demonstrations in Douglas County last summer. Fast pyrolysis is the process of quickly heating and cooling organic matter to produce oil, char and gas.
Researchers are working on ways to use the otherwise unmarketable trees, slash and other brush that will benefit both the forest and the community.
“We're looking at it as kind of a grass roots initiatives,” Archuleta said.
The oil could be used as a substitute for petroleum and the char could be used as a soil amendment to pipe nutrients from downed trees back into the soil to restore the health of a forest, he said, adding that finding a marketable way of using the fuel will also reduce wildfire hazard.
The demonstrations this summer used chipped slash from the forest. This coming June, a larger transportable biomass processing plant will come back to the Umpqua, likely the Lemolo Sand Shed, and spend 20 days processing about 1 ton a day.
“We're lousy with (slash),” Archuleta said. “Ultimately we'll be targeting a 15-tons-a-day operation. Right now we're just looking at a step up from the work table.”
Researchers are also looking at the financial component.
Archuleta said USFS's involvement is to help figure out how to get the biomass in a form that's easy to move for future private businesses to process. Right now that transportation is a major drawback, limiting production to transportable operations with small capacity.
Long said as a small woodland owner he was especially interested in how Oregon could make better use of forest waste.
On another front, Long is part of the Umpqua Bio Alternatives Cooperative. Now in its third year, the organization has since processed waste oil from restaurants and is beginning to process bio-oil from windfall fruit blackberries and grapes, distilling the oil into ethanol.
The biomass oil and char has piqued UBAC's interest, but the group is still looking into it, he said.
He also said the co-op has been informed that there are distribution options beyond producing biomass products, as the federal road system is interested in using bio char to improve soil and plant growth along road cuts.
Archuleta said, aside from the tightened time frame and the cleaner emissions, energy from biomass isn't that much different than petroleum-based energy — it is or once was organic matter.
“What we're doing is hopefully shortening up the amount of time between the capture of photosynthesis and the use for our energy needs.”
Copyright 2010 Swift Communications
