This week, Biomass Magazine held its December content planning meeting.

I’d like to have fall before I start thinking about winter, but that’s the way of the monthly magazine world.  

December is our conversions, cofiring and colocation issue, one of my favorites. Last year, the cover story was based on my trip up to Thunder Bay, Ontario, to visit Ontario Power Generation’s newly converted Atikokan Generating Station. 

While I don’t think there have been any biomass conversion stories quite as grand as that one over the past year, the stories we’re planning are going to be compelling, timely and relevant.

Passage of the Clean Power Plan is arguably the biggest story of this year for the biomass power industry. It’s taken some time to absorb the rules, ask questions, recognize vague language and determine whether or not the rules are favorable and provide opportunity for the industry, but it seems that things look good (to brush up, read the last several Biomass Magazine columns of the Biomass Power Association).

And…of course. We’re (still) waiting on the EPA’s biogenic carbon framework. The panel working on the framework has made it clear they are not taking policy (CPP) or its timing of it into consideration—rather, it is focused solely on getting the science right. That’s great, but it’s paramount to the industry that it comes soon. As BPA President Bob Cleaves said to me a few months ago, “That train is leaving the station.”

We haven’t yet decided if we’ll write another article on the CPP specifically, but the option is on the table. If we don’t, the story we choose will certainly be relevant. We're really interested in understanding what routes the power utilities are planning to take and how (and if?) they are viewing biomass in their path forward.

Another story we’re proposing is what’s going on in the U.K. with its renewable policy (which has led to an explosion of small- and large-scale biomass fuel conversions and cofiring). It’s tough to maintain a good grasp on what’s going on while living other side of the world and trying to keep up with our own nation’s policy cluster, but in the October issue of Biomass Magazine, columnist Neil Harrison of the U.K. Wood Heat Association does a great job of explaining some of it. This is something we’ll be following up on and further exploring, along with some great project-specific examples of conversions and colocations in the biogas and advanced biofuel sectors.

I look forward to wrapping up the December issue, which will bring to an end what we believe is going to be Biomass Magazine’s most successful year to date.