[Gasification] Forbes.com: The New New Fuel

[Richard Haard]

Bob - just a few ideas for you

Interest in softwoods as a biomass alternate energy source is the  
reason why I hang around here. Almost 10 years now I have been  
propagating willows from seed and have made some selections of my own  
as candidate for short rotation biomass crops. I am especially  
impressed with Scouler willow (Salix scouleriana) which I have  
isolated 5 strains out here in PNW. It is a plant that also occurs in  
your area as it is native from Alaska to Manitoba to Mexico.

There is a excellent set of literature on the topic of willow coppice  
from Canada, New York, Netherlands, and GB. The problem is  
transportation of chips to the use location. I have put my focus on  
what I could do with willow groves within 1 mile of our farm and what  
I might do to use mostly manual labor for harvest and strictly on  
farm energy needs. Our energy needs would be met by 15 acres of  
coppice (60 acre farm) according to my estimate for energy needs of  
irrigation pumping in summer and product refrigeration in winter/ 
spring.We have not yet seen the right gasification or pyrolysis  
technology for our application and electrical power and diesel fuel  
now is too cheap. Worth the waiting and watching though.At my scale  
other uses for candidate species as byproduct is also important. In  
Great Britain years past coppiced willow stems were used to make  
baskets for market crops, for Aspen, cordwood and saw-logs would be  
an excellent cash crop. For us our willow is used as a riparian  
restoration tool as coir logs and live stakes.

The diversity of willow species increases with latitude hence boreal  
forest species are much more numerous than further south.There are  
other plants in the Salicaceae that would also be excellent  
candidates. These are cottonwood and aspen. In selecting a plant for  
cultivation you must consider habitat preferences. The willows and  
cottonwood prefer moist habits. You would not use willow or aspen in  
steppe sage. For high cold desert, I would consider rabbit-brush. It  
occurs in your area in dry sites, you could have a zero irrigation  
perennial crop that produces diesel. http://plants.usda.gov/java/ 
profile?symbol=ERNAN5

In am interested in scouler willow because it occurs in drier sites  
than other willow species.  In Yukon Territory, and other places we  
have aspen parkland habitats where these softwoods occur on drier  
sites, although with significant winter precipitation as snow.

There are other reasons to use Salicaceae. These plants are  
ecological pioneer species, upgrading nutrient and organic matter  
poor soils to productive soils with their ecto and endo mycorrhizae.  
This is significant because these plants make their own fertilizer.  
Alder (Alnus spp) is another plant that makes nitrogen fertilizer.

I have a preference to use native species that have natural  
colonizing ability rather than a male only clone or an exotic species  
that can escape and become a pest as has the basket or crack willow.  
(Salix fragilis)

We have some 5 year old willow groves now and are planting this  
spring another 5 acres for purposes other than biomass energy. Lastly  
an agroforestry planting of deciduous trees has the potential for  
understory plantings with herbaceous species that use the spring  
light before the canopy fills out and in fall after leaf fall such as  
Ginsing and some other medicinal and also food plants like nettle  
(Urtica sp).

Your program would have to be climate and soils adapted but is worth  
the effort to study.

Rich H, Bellingham, Washington
On Nov 9, 2007, at 7:23 AM, Bob Stuart wrote:

> I am quite interested in the question of how many BTU / year can be
> produced on an acre, especially with a short growing season.  I've
> heard that softwoods have an advantage at  gathering rays at the ends
> of the season.  I was quite tempted to plan a gasifier based on straw
> until I realized that the annual production  from a woodlot is far
> more consistent.  I am located at the edge of the northern boreal
> forest, on the Great Plains of NA.
>