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These stories concerning forest biomass in the Pacific Northwest appeared recently:
Wyden hits Obama administration on biomass rules
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/12/wyden_hits_obama_administratio.html
Lakeview biomass plant: Right place, right time
(Klamath Falls - Herald and News © 12/12/2010)
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Indexed Dec 12 2010 3:02AM (Article ID 493673864)
oth construction and operation of the Lakeview plan. Lakeview is a great project that enjoys local support, state support and support from the environmental community. It generates jobs and improves forest health. The Lakeview Biomass Cogeneration Plant is the right project in the right place at the right time. About the author Steve Jolley has lived and worked as a forester in southern Oregon
John Day spared new EPA rules
The Bulletin, December 11. 2010
Surely the community of John Day is breathing a sigh of relief this week. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has decided to delay by a year implementation of clean air rules that threatened to close Grant County’s newest business before it ever opened.
The business, a wood-pellet and brick manufacturing plant, is being built by Malheur Lumber Co., which is owned by Prineville’s Ochoco Lumber Co. It’s being financed in large part by a $4.8 million federal stimulus grant and will directly supply a dozen or so permanent jobs in a community that sorely needs them. It also will provide a means of dealing with waste from badly needed Malheur National Forest thinning projects, officials say. The plant currently is undergoing its final quality control testing before operations begin.
Until EPA’s change of heart, it faced the possibility of being built only to have much of the market for its products yanked out from under it. The agency’s proposed rules dramatically cut allowable emissions from solid fuel boilers, which would use the plant’s products. According to an article published in The Bulletin earlier this year, the new standards were aimed at such things as the PGE’s coal- fired energy facility in Boardman and not the small boiler at the Burns hospital, which burns pellets in a highly efficient boiler designed in Germany.
In announcing the delay, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, noted that had the new rules gone into effect, only about 12 percent of American solid-fuel boilers would have been able to meet them. Loss of a market for forest waste could have cost the forest products industry alone as much as $7 billion nationwide, his office said.
Over the course of the coming year, EPA will have a chance to revise its rules, and it should take advantage of the time to do just that.
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Boardman bio-refinery a test run for big business http://djcoregon.com/news/2010/12/08/boardman-bio-refinery-a-test-run-for-big-business/ ZeaChem Inc. will annually produce 250,000 gallons of fuel-grade ethanol from woody biomass at the new bio-refinery.
Lakeview OR biomass proponents make case:
www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/12/biomass_project_holds_promise.html
Boise State explores potential for biomass briquettes:
www.biomassmagazine.com/articles/5148/biomass-briquettes-turning-waste-into-energy
Kevin Weeks
Public Information Officer
Oregon Department of Forestry
(503) 945-7427