11.1

Biomass Demand in the United States

There will be a sharp increase in biomass demand over the next several years in the United States. Biomass has emerged as the top candidate in renewable energies. The expected further increase in global biomass demand cannot be ignored. Biomass from trees and woody plants forms the source for over 8% of the world’s total energy mix. At the end of September 2011, 467 wood bioenergy projects were operating in the United States.

Based on the number of new or planned wood energy facilities, I expect to see a significant growth in wood demand between 2011 and 2015. In the United States, wood demand from pellet plants, wood energy plants, and cellulosic biofuel pro­jects could increase by almost 100 million tonnes annually. Still, the degree and main source of the demand will vary between regions in the United States.

About half of the new demand is projected to occur in the southern regions of the United States as a result of both pellet and energy production. For instance, the largest utility of Europe, RWE in Germany (www. rwe. com), is transforming itself into a supplier of renewable energy and in July 2011 the company opened the largest woodpellet production plant in the world in the state of Georgia with an annual pellet capacity of 750 000 tonnes. All the pellets are shipped to its own boilers in Europe. Thus, the biggest demand increase in the United States is expected to come from woodpellets being exported to Europe.

The prospective pellet demand from Europe is so much more promising than domestic demand due to the fast expansion it is currently seeing, and the fact that European countries are more established in terms of feed-in tariffs and carbon markets. As a result, wood demand is predicted to see an increase of as much as 80 million green tonnes across Europe from 2007 to 2015. Much of that growth is going to happen in the United Kingdom, which will not be able to meet its own projected need.

All of the utilities in Europe are planning to use 1.5-2 million tonnes of woodpellets by 2014-2015. Already today they import the largest portion from woodpellet plants in Canada and the United States.

Second Generation Biofuels and Biomass: Essential Guide for Investors, Scientists and Decision Makers, First Edition. Roland A. Jansen. r 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Published 2013 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

The southern United States has a sustainable and steady supply of timber, and the climate allows year-round harvesting, unlike northern regions that have to deal with wet weather slow downs. It also has fast timber rotation and a close proximity to Atlantic ports, which gives it a competitive advantage over areas such as Oregon or British Columbia that have to transport products down the west coast and through the Panama Canal to export to Europe.

Within the United States, the northeast has the largest biomass demand due to electricity generation. Almost half of the new and announced electricity generating projects are in the north. It is already the major use of wood for bioenergy in the region. In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Ohio, wood is one of the most important renewable sources of electricity.

The biggest obstacle to expand the use of woody biomass is ignorance of the general public and environmentalists, who do not want to see any tree cut. Most people do not understand that a forest also needs to be cultivated, and trees need to be pruned and sometimes chopped to make way for new trees. A forest without care starts to rot, the quality of the trees goes down, and general decay will set in.

11.2