Community Bio-Energy Reserve
Proposal: Reducing the Wildfire Threat,
Framing the Bio-Energy Potential and
Creating Opportunities for Contractors
WSCA Annual Conference, AGM and Trade Show
February 2-4, 2011
Delta Grand Okanagan Resort and Convention Center,
Kelowna, BC
Robert W. Gray, Fire Ecologist, R.W. Gray Consulting, Ltd.
Wildfires in the Wildland-Urban Interface
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How do we reduce their destructive potential?
Is there a way to fund fuels management that is revenue neutral or even
profit generating?
What policy/regulation changes are needed?
Filmon Firestorm Report: Fuels and Forest
Practices
Central issues:
• changes to forest policy,
•
Licensee involvement in solving the WUI
hazard issue,
•
How to treat private land hazardous
fuels,
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Finding an economical solution to the
removal/treatment of small-diameter
and dead wood,
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Building “programs” to manage fuels
over the long-term.
Provincial Response to Filmon: Fuel
Management
• Set up Strategic Wildfire Prevention Program Initiative
under Union of BC Municipalities,
• Under SWPPI provided partial funding for:
– Community Wildfire Protection Plans,
– Fuel treatment pilot projects,
– Operational fuel treatments.
• SWPPI provided up to $15,000 of 50-50 in-kind for CWPP
development,
• Initially provided 50% of the funding for fuel treatments if
no MPB-killed trees involved, and 75% if MPB-killed trees
involved (later adjusted to all funded at 75%),
• As funding started to run out the program only funded the
treatment of high hazard stands as identified on PSTA map,
• No strategy for treating private land.
Additional Funding Sources
Local government was encouraged by WMB to seek out
any and all sources of in-kind funding for fuel
treatments. Since 2004 these have included:
• Natural Resources Canada Mountain Pine Beetle
Fund,
• Community Adjustment Fund
• Job Opportunities Program
How well has the SWPPI addressed the
central issues?
Forest Policy:
• Forest policy in BC did not change in the wake of the 2003 fire
season and the Filmon Report (AAC for the WUI has not
changed),
• Timber/fiber production (maximization) is still the primary
objective driving forest management in the WUI in BC,
• Hazard reduction is not the primary objective,
• Significant silviculture impediments still persist:
– stocking standards do not take into consideration the long-term need
to reduce wildfire hazard,
– preferred tree species does not take into consideration the long-term
need to reduce wildfire hazard.
Licensee Cooperation:
•
Local government is in the
role of advocating for the
treatment of hazardous
stands adjacent to their
communities that are under
license to private timber
companies,
• Licensees are hesitant to work in the WUI for a number of reasons:
• poor wood quality,
• substantial constraints,
• expensive public consultation,
• high treatment standards (hazardous fuels).
Operational Fuel Treatments
Merchantable
wood involved
Unmerchantable
wood involved
Licensee leads
Local government
leads
Local
government/UBCM
fund clean-up
LG has to cover
cost/risk of thinning
operation
Local government
pays stumpage to
crown
Local
government/UBCM
fund clean-up
Local
government/UBCM
fund treatment
If small amount
of merch. treat
as unmerch.
Treating private land:
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Large proportion of interface lands surrounding communities is private; most are
small landowners, some own large holdings,
Many landowners are absentee landowners,
No federal, provincial, or local government grants available to treat hazardous
fuels on private land,
Few options available to local government to “encourage” landowners to treat
their land:
•
education campaigns, including FireSmart and Firewise have limited, shortterm success,
•
hazard abatement by-laws.
Treatment costs can be prohibitive
due to poor quality wood, and low
volumes coming off small lots,
Larger lots fall prey to predatory
“high-grade” loggers leaving a
greater hazard after the treatment.
Adding value to small-diameter trees and dead wood:
• Large proportion of the hazard fuels issue is comprised of small-diameter
trees and downed wood,
• In many cases this stand structure does not fit the profile of the local
licensees manufacturing facility,
• Provincial government has encouraged local government to develop
bioenergy solutions using salvage licenses, OLC, mill waste, and landing
piles as feedstock,
• Economies of scale not considered in provincial solutions,
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Local government cannot gain
access to sufficient predictable
quantities of feedstock to support
private investment in bioenergy
industry.
Researchers have concluded that
feedstock “supply” is the single
greatest issue affecting bioenergy
feasibility.
Building fuel management programs:
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43,000 ha of fuel treatment completed out of 1.8 million ha of WUI (2%),
$50+ million spent on CWPP’s and operational fuel treatments,
As of December 2010: UBCM funds completely depleted,
As of March 2011: CAF, JOP and NRCAN funds depleted and programs
terminated.
•
Provincial approach was “project”
based, not “program” based; each
treatment unit was approached in
isolation of other units vs as part of
a landscape-level solution.
Building fuel management programs:
Implications for contractors and communities
• Companies can’t invest in personnel (enhanced skills training) and
equipment,
• Companies can’t retain their best personnel,
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As grants have dried up workers have had to move to new regions despite
their home and community still a risk,
Need entrepreneurial solutions from the small business sector to
advance the bioenergy sector but this won’t happen until the supply of
material is freed up.
Resolving Critical Issues: The Provincial Program
Small
Wood
Economics
Private
Land
Hazards
Forest
Policy
Solving the WUI
Wildfire Hazard
Issue
Fuel
Mgmt
Programs
Licensee
Involvement
Solution: WUI Bio-Energy Reserve
•
Recognize WUI as having different management goal than rest of landscape,
•
If local government responsible for their own safety they should
manage the WUI,
•
Delineate the boundary of the WUI based on a combination of fire
behavior and economics,
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Long-term, consistent funding is required to initially treat fuels plus
maintenance,
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Local government to use sale of fiber (sawlogs, pulp, and hog) to fund
long-term fuels management program.
Forest Policy Changes/Licensee Involvement
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Amend existing forest management legislation to recognize the WUI as having the
over-arching goal of hazard reduction. This will lead to changes in practices that
are currently at odds with this goal, such as: changes in required stocking density,
preferred species, and long-run contribution to the AAC, and stronger emphasis on
fuels management,
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AAC will drop significantly before leveling off at a much lower rate. This is in
accordance with the need to drastically reduce hazards and maintain them over the
long-term,
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Reality is, even though the WUI is in the AAC calculation it is not contributing
because the licensees are not operating there,
Tenure arrangement doesn’t have to change – existing licensee can remain,
however, the following must take place in accordance with new legislation:
• Cut level in the WUI must increase dramatically with the goal of completing a
first pass through the WUI in 10 – 20 years vs several hundred years,
• Licensee must treat all stands regardless of the profile they require for their
manufacturing facility,
• Post-harvest fuels must be cleaned-up to a much higher standard than is
currently accepted by the MoFR,
• All stumpage goes back into fuels treatments in the WUI.
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Solution to Private Land Issue
• Tied to local government access to feedstock and development of
bioenergy industries,
• With ability to pay a fair market price for chips private land owners can be
encouraged to treat their land – greater likelihood of breaking even or
making a profit,
• Local government can consider stronger action now that an economical
solution is available – by-laws with penalties that are more than the
treatment cost.
Adding Value to Traditionally Unmerchantable
Material
• Small-diameter trees, dead-downed wood, and other waste material from
sawtimber harvest (boles, limbs, tops) has value as a source of energy
(thermal or electric),
• Financial viability is dependent on a number of factors including:
volume/ha, mix of sawtimber and hog material, hauling distance, and the
end user (electricity generation, densified wood product, district heating
system),
• Economies of scale are critical as is access to long-term supply,
• WUI forests contain large quantities of unmerchantable material close to
communities – Province needs to make this material available to local
government in order to encourage investors in bioenergy industries,
• Chicken and egg dilemma – need material to encourage investment to use
the material.
WUI Fuels/Biomass and Bioenergy: Two
Approaches
Province “encouraging “ local government to get involved in
the new bioenergy field.
Passive, “Opportunistic” Approach
– demand driven
“Supply”
Active, “Directed” Approach
– supply driven
“Demand”
Passive, “Opportunistic” Approach
• Start with the desire to use biomass as an energy source or as
a product; initiative starts from the “demand” side,
• Convert publicly-owned buildings to bioenergy or build new
publicly-owned buildings and use bioenergy to heat and/or
power them,
• Develop manufacturing of bioenergy products for local,
regional and international sale, i.e., briquettes, pellets,
biochar, biodiesel, etc.
• Reliant on the availability of cheap chips and hog fuel,
• Feedstock sources include mill waste, landing piles, land
clearing waste, subsidized fuel treatment waste, etc.
Passive, “Opportunistic” Approach
Issues with this approach:
• Starts from the “demand” side, not the “supply” side,
• Annual predictability and availability of feedstock depended on the
viability of other industries; end users are not in control of
feedstock source:
– In the case of sawmill mill waste, if the sawmill stops manufacturing
sawtimber there is no source of mill waste,
– In the case of land clearing, if the local real estate market or availability of
developable land goes down there is no land clearing waste,
– In the case of interface fuel treatments, if the availability of government
subsidies goes down there is no waste material generated,
– landing piles are only available if there is heavy, local forest industry
activity; if not, there is no landing pile waste available.
“Active”, Directed Approach
• Encourage bioenergy in order to solve an existing biomass issue;
initiative starts from the “supply” side,
• Determine the scale of the biomass issue, i.e., volume of biomass,
where is it, how fast does it accrue, etc.
• From the biomass “inventory” analysis determine how many users
(thermal heat) and industries (bioenergy products) can be
developed,
• Feedstock is predictable and available because the end users
control the feedstock source,
• With this approach bioenergy can be used to solve an existing
biomass accumulation issue, such as:
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Interface fuels,
Dry forest/grassland ingrowth and encroachment,
Municipal landfills,
Agricultural waste.
Building “Programs”
• Fire and fuel management programs are dependent on access
to consistent funding,
• Revenue from biomass operations provides funding to fire
management program,
• With consistent funding local government can hire staff
(foresters with appropriate fire skills) and develop long-term
plans,
• Local contractors carry out biomass harvest operations as well
as fuels work,
• Energy industry more recession-proof than traditional forest
industry.
Silviculture Contractor Opportunities
Feedstock procurement:
• Small-scale harvest operations (in-woods),
• Grinding/chipping and hauling chips,
• Storage of whole logs for future chip supply,
• Agroforestry:
– Planting deciduous,
– Fencing,
– Irrigation systems
Fuels management:
• Slashing, piling and pile burning,
• Firebreak and fuelbreak construction,
• Broadcast burning,
• Mastication,
• Plantation thinning/spacing,
• Pruning.
Resolving Critical Issues: The WUI Reserve
Private
Land
Hazards
Small
Wood
Economics
Forest
Policy
Solving the WUI
Wildfire Hazard
Issue
Licensee
Involvement
Fuel
Mgmt
Programs
East Kootenay’s
Case Study
Three-Phase Approach to a Solution to the WUI
Issue
• Inventory analysis – suspect that the current forest inventory
significantly underestimates the volume of unmerchantable
material,
• Biomass-energy business model – generic model used to
perform spatial optimization of energy facility location and
economic analysis,
• Apply inventory analysis and business model to WUI
landscape around Cranbrook, Kimberley, and St. Mary’s Indian
Reserve.
Forest Inventory Prediction
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High variability in stand structure
combined with low overall value requires
a predictive model vs an actual
inventory,
Breakdown in volume/ha by species and
diameter class,
Volume and characteristics of sawlog
component,
Volume and characteristics of
unmerchantable component.
Biomass-Energy Business Model
• Inventory existing public
buildings that could
benefit from a conversion
to biomass heat,
• Analyze economic
feasibility of carrying out
conversions,
• Analyze potential for
district heating
opportunities,
• Investigate potential future
thermal heating
opportunities (i.e.,
subdivisions, new schools,
etc.),
• Inventory infrastructure for
industrial-scale heating
product manufacture.
Case Study Analysis
Simple problem:
Community has 50,000 ha of
hazardous fuels:
– Approximate chip volume is 42
bdt/ha = 2,115,000 bdt,
– Community would like to see
WUI hazard reduced in 2
decades (2,115,000 bdt/20
years = 106,000 bdt/year).
Conduct comparison analysis:
• Economic implications of the
current provincial approach,
• Economic implications of the
proposed solution.
Analysis focuses on providing answers to the following questions:
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How many facilities (thermal heating systems, densified wood
manufacture, CHP, etc.) will it take to meet this goal?
Where will future supply of feedstock come from?
What is the volume and value of chip material that can come off the area
long-term as part of hazard maintenance?
What is the volume and value of sawtimber coming off the area?
What is the net value of sawtimber/chip harvest/year (this profit funds
the fire/fuels management program)?
How many fulltime and part-time jobs are created by the program?
What is the overhead cost savings to the community by converting to
biomass heating systems?
What is the net profit to the community from the sale of power, heat, and
chips?
What is the value of carbon credits sold to the Pacific Carbon Trust (profit
for the community)?
What is the net value of provincial tax receipts under this approach vs
under the current subsidized approach?
Thank You
Treatment Costs Under Provincial Approach
Example: 100 ha stand
• Machine mastication @ $2500/ha = $250,000, $62,500 of which
has to be provided by local government,
• Machine thin and grind @ $4500/ha = $450,000, $112,500 of
which has to be provided by local government,
• Manual slash/pile/burn @ $5,000+/ha = $500,000, $125,000 of
which has to be provided by local government,
• Broadcast burning in the WUI @ $1,000/ha = $100,000, $25,000
of which has to be provided by local government.
• Mastication and machine tactics should be followed by broadcast
burning; combined treatment costs range between $350,000 and
$600,000 - $87,500 to $137,500 of which has to be provided by
local government.