Waste Wood is an Untapped Energy Source in W.Va.

The Mountain State is the third-most forested state in the U.S. and some say it could be a prime source of energy.

Story by Walt Williams
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CHARLESTON -- West Virginia is famous for its vast coal formations, but there is another energy-producing resource that it has in abundance.

The Mountain State is the third most-forested state in America. Some 12 million acres — or 78 percent of the total land area — are forested, with most of that land in private hands.

No one is proposing cutting down all the trees to burn for energy, but there may be enough waste left over from timber harvests to generate a significant amount of electricity.

"That's a big advantage we have in this state: We have a lot of wood, and we have a lot of electrical generating capacity," said Shawn Grushecky, assistant director of the Appalachian Hardwood Center at West Virginia University. "Biomass" is the term used to encompass a range of organic, energy-producing products, from wood waste to crops such as switchgrass. Millions of dollars for the development of biomass energy were tucked away in the federal stimulus bill passed by Congress earlier this year.

West Virginia hasn't received any stimulus funding for biomass development, but other states have. The bill also included tax credits for investments in biomass and other renewable energy products. The 2008 Farm Bill also set aside $15 million a year until 2012 for forest biomass projects, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

So far, the state has seen very little development of forest biomass as an energy source despite what at first might seem like some significant benefits. Wood is a renewable resource: sections of forest cut down will grow back. The fuel being used also is the waste from existing timber operations, so no trees are being cut down solely to burn for energy.

Wood is a carbon-neutral resource, Grushecky said. That might seem ironic given coal itself is nothing more than fossilized plant material, but the carbon those ancient plants absorbed have been buried for millions of years, he said.

Wood waste, on the other hand, releases carbon the plant absorbed as it grew. Carbon dioxide is released when the wood is burned, but it is offset by the growth of new plants, Grushecky said.

Biomass will never be able to replace fossil fuels as an energy source. Instead, advocates see it as one part of a diversified renewable energy portfolio that could help supplement solar and wind power.

But just how much potential energy is there in the state's forest biomass? The answer depends on several factors. A major hurdle is the existiing market for wood chips and saw-dust, which are turned into pellets for packaging.

"A lot of people are producing pellets and exporting them to European markets, where they are very popular," Grushecky said.

That still leaves millions of tons of waste material that is not used, such as small branches. It is this material that could be burned for energy.

Marshall University economist Christine Risch calculated how much biomass potential West Virginia has as part of research into what a state energy portfolio would look like. She estimated waste biomass could power a 20-megawatt power plant, which is small compared to many coal-fired plants.

Transportation could be an issue because energy producers need to figure out how to get that waste product to the plants, she said.

"And (the costs) would vary over their life of the plant," she added.

Grushecky noted that other states already generate a significant portion of their power from biomass. On average, New Hampshire generates 180 megawatts of electricity from the energy source a year while Maine generates 362 megawatts.