I read the proof of this Biomass Magazine issue while aboard a train in Sweden, headed southwest to tour an integrated sawmill and pellet plant. The landscape was dotted here and there with active logging sites, and while reading Senior Editor Ron Kotrba’s page-20 cover story, “Workhorses of the Woods,” I was quite literally comparing photographs of what I found in the feature to what I was seeing in Sweden’s woods. We chose Kotrba’s feature as our cover story because heavy logging equipment is the epitome of the tip of the spear when it comes to biomass harvesting, this month’s area of focus. The efficiencies Kotrba describes in his feature revolutionized forestry, and along with it, woody biomass-derived energy production.

As chance would have it, I also passed some stands of willow, or energy coppice, as it’s more commonly called there, and Managing Editor Anna Simet’s page-28 story details the efforts underway at New Holland to purpose-build a forage harvester optimized for this promising feedstock. I was pleased to see some larger stands of coppice in Sweden, and recognized that in a globalized bioenergy economy, a growing market for this equipment there, or anywhere, will provide leading OEMs all the incentive they need to commit research and development budgets to the challenge. This sentiment was echoed by New Holland’s Doug Otto when he told Simet, “Woody crops are a new thing that haven’t taken off everywhere, so we’re trying to help drive the market.”

For anyone who missed this year’s International Biomass Conference & Expo, we’ve included a robust photo spread of this year’s event that begins on page 13. Our traditional association executive roundtable found our industry working to reimagine itself a little in the face of prolonged ultra-low energy prices, as well as the industry’s ongoing challenge of managing intermittent federal and state policy support. During the pictured general session, I found myself thinking again and again about one of the foundational values of biomass energy, and its unique ability to provide always-on, baseload and dispatchable and renewable heat, power and fuel. No other renewable can make the same claim, and while I’m not in a big hurry to argue against other forms of renewable energy, I do believe it’s time to return to this argument as the drumbeat of our industry’s advancement.

 

Author: Tim Portz
Vice President of Content & Executive Editor
tportz@bbiinternational.com