Biofuels and Adirondack Forest Jobs
The Adirondack Research Consortium will sponsor a biofuels market development conference Wednesday, February 17 in Saratoga Springs.
The day-long meeting will focus on the potential of this emerging industry in the Adirondacks and North Country, with an emphasis on business creation. Topics include biomass market supply and demand, policies affecting biomass energy markets, project finance perspectives, and technology. Experts will discuss these issues from a developer’s perspective.
Several Adirondack institutions, including the Wild Center, Paul Smith’s College and a few schools have announced intentions to switch from oil to wood-based heat and/or power. The weak economy and lack of start-up capital has stalled some initiatives, however. Paul Smith’s College trustees this year tabled a proposal to build a wood-chip co-generation plant as cost projections came in millions of dollars higher than initial estimates.
Biofuels are derived from plants, sometimes corn and switchgrass; in the Adirondacks biomass almost always means wood. Although this region still identifies forest products as a mainstay of its economy, in reality very few people work in logging anymore. Select hardwood and spruce logs are exported, often to Canada. Paper mills that ring the Adirondack Park have either shut down or no longer get pulp from local logs, with a couple of exceptions.
Foresters say biofuels have the potential to revive Adirondack logging if a critical mass of demand can be established. Low-quality trees that once went to pulpmills could be ground into chips or pellets instead. (Forest ecologists are also weighing the benefits of the carbon neutrality of wood fuels vs. the ability of uncut forests to store greenhouse gases.)
The conference program, registration, and accommodation information can be found on the Adirondack Research Consortium’s Web site, adkresearch.org.
Wood chips photograph from Wikimedia Commons
3 Comments:
Redirecting forestry products in a way that shifts dependence off oil is one part of a good idea. But there are lots of questions aren't there? If you create demand for "low quality trees" as an energy source, don't you end up with fast growth tree farms? There are thousands of acres set aside in many states that are fast growing tree farms aka monocultures. Is this the goal? Where do you grow these and can you grow enough or will there be excess demand to cut "high quality wood" for chips or mulch as well? (Thinking of the Cypress mulch problem in the southeast.)
This conference sounds like a great idea and ARC a wonderful way to pursue simple questions like the simple ones above - all from a layman's perspective. But if this is one tool in the energy independence toolbox and we're decreasing consumption and pursuing other alternatives, I can imagine one of the hardest things is figuring what the ideal size of this market/economy needs to be, over all and in this region.
This could help businesses associated with hunting since forest regrowth would increase deer numbers and the probability of hunting sucess. Over time, this would increase hunting tourism.
Best would be to grow the industy to a sustainable size to prevent the monoculture scenario associated with a biomass "business". Keep it local and only to supply the ADKs with energy - don't sell beyond. Maybe just offset energy costs of local schools - freeing $ for edu. Use as a learning opportunity... I could go on...
This might also help businesses accosiated with hunting since the regrowth after cutting will increase deer numbers and the hunters will follow.
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