FEEDSTOCK¦ 542 billion Btu and accounting for 39 percent of the biogas potential from the entire 49, the report says. Still, Idaho is experiencing an increased interest in woody biomass utilization and already has three wood-fired power plants, with another on the verge of securing a power purchase agreement, Crockett says. “Our biggest resource is wood,” he says. According to task force reports, the state’s forest biomass, including thinning and residues, amounts to about 1.3 million dry tons annually, enough to generate about 130 MW. The report points out, however, that the material is at logging sites and would need to be harvested and transported. The report recommends the state help spur development of woody biomass facilities through creation of a business tax credit, expansion of the Fuels for Schools program, creation of a biomass removal incentive, an increase in Forest Service funding for forest restoration, a change in the federal definition of biomass, and an increase in community support. Idaho is also the sole Pacific West state without an RPS.
In addition, Idaho is home to a number of citizen working groups pushing for the use of the available woody materials, Crockett says, including one that spans four counties, another in the central part of the state and one in the north. “We’re hoping to try to get those groups working together if we can,” he says.
Washington Wipes Out Waste Such teamwork is almost perfected in Washington, where many state agencies are forging ahead with strategies aimed at increasing biomass use. The most recent biomass inventory for the state found it produces about 16.4 million tons of underutilized dry equivalent biomass each year, capable of producing more than 1,700 MW, about 50 percent of annual residential electricity consumption. Not surprisingly, forestry makes up 49 percent of that total, but is complemented by crop residues, animal waste, food processing residues and municipal wastes. “What we’ve demonstrated is there’s a lot of material out there, but what we also know is it’s not really organized,” says Mark Fuchs of the Washington
Department of Ecology Waste 2 Resources program and author of the report, “Biomass Inventory and Bioenergy Assessment: An Evaluation of Organic Material Resources for Bioenergy Production in Washington State.” “This industry is ripe for entities to come in and organize.” Work is being done to collect broadly distributed feedstocks at centralized locations, he says, but that chore is just beginning. Fuchs' assessment does not put an economic factor on collection of biomass material and roughly one-third of it already goes through some sort of system and would need further refining to recover energy nutrients, he says. The state is now home to 13 significantly sized wood-fired facilities, 12 of which are CHP, according to Peter Moulton, senior energy policy specialist for the state Department of Commerce. Following forestry, municipal waste accounts for 24 percent of the 16.4 million tons; field residues come next at 14 percent; and animal waste represents 11 percent, according to the report. Fuchs makes note of the fact that a 2005 study by the U.S. DOE and USDA, “Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bio-
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JANUARY 2011 | BIOMASS POWER & THERMAL 31