Biomass supply curves for western juniper in Central Oregon, USA, under alternative business models and policy assumptions

Lauer, Chris; McCaulou, Jeff C.; Sessions, John; Capalbo, Susan M.

doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.002

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…While we used $60 per ton as an example in our case study, any cost threshold can be applied to determine not only the amount of biomass available but also the location of that biomass on the landscape. In contrast to other regional and landscape-based models and estimates [41,42], our model and estimates are spatially explicit and applicable on tactical and project scales. They also facilitate landscape scale analyses, providing the flexibility and detail needed to address stand-level forest management scenarios and procurement planning for industrial facilities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Geospatial Approaches for Efficiently Mapping Forest Biomass Logistics at High Resolution over Large Areas

Hogland

Anderson

Chung

2018

IJGI

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Adequate biomass feedstock supply is an important factor in evaluating the financial feasibility of alternative site locations for bioenergy facilities and for maintaining profitability once a facility is built. We used newly developed spatial analysis and logistics software to model the variables influencing feedstock supply and to estimate and map two components of the supply chain for a bioenergy facility: (1) the total biomass stocks available within an economically efficient transportation distance; (2) the cost of logistics to move the required stocks from the forest to the facility. Both biomass stocks and flows have important spatiotemporal dynamics that affect procurement costs and project viability. Though seemingly straightforward, these two components can be difficult to quantify and map accurately in a useful and spatially explicit manner. For an 8 million hectare study area, we used raster-based methods and tools to quantify and visualize these supply metrics at 10 m 2 spatial resolution. The methodology and software leverage a novel raster-based least-cost path modeling algorithm that quantifies off-road and on-road transportation and other logistics costs. The results of the case study highlight the efficiency, flexibility, fine resolution, and spatial complexity of model outputs developed for facility siting and procurement planning.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Geospatial Approaches for Efficiently Mapping Forest Biomass Logistics at High Resolution over Large Areas

Hogland

Anderson

Chung

2018

IJGI

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“…In many studies, incentive has been used in a broad sense to include favorable government policy, tax credits, shared business interests, and improved operation schemes . In this study, incentive is defined in a much narrower sense as the payment biomass producers receive excluding nutrient replacement and all of the operating costs of field operations such as biomass harvest and collection .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In another study, Golecha and Gan developed an optimal contracting structure between biorefineries and biomass suppliers by finding the trade‐off between different components of biomass cost including farm‐gate cost, biomass transport, incentives to suppliers, nutrient replacement, and financial impact (loss) to the biorefinery due to inadequate biomass availability. In other studies, the impact of the biomass supply and farm participation rate on the performance of the biomass supply chain has also been investigated …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel risk analysis methodology to evaluate the economic performance of a biorefinery and to quantify the economic incentives for participating biomass producers

Wang

Ebadian

Sokhansanj

et al. 2018

Biofuels Bioprod Bioref

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In this paper, a novel risk analysis methodology is presented to evaluate the economic performance of a biorefinery given the volatility in the market price of the final product and the variability in the biomass delivered cost. In addition, potential economic incentives for participating biomass producers are quantified for different farm participation rates. The Monte Carlo simulation model, IBSAL-MC, is used to estimate the biomass delivered cost distribution, and a modified risk heat map is used to visualize the expected return on investment (ROI) for various combinations of the market price of the final product and the biomass delivered cost. The developed methodology is applied to an under-construction cellulosic sugar facility located in Sarnia, southwestern Ontario. Four farm participation rates of 20% (base-case scenario), 30%, 40% and 50% are studied. The results show that the expected annual ROI for the basecase scenario is estimated to be 1.3%. As the farm participation rate increases, the expected annual ROI increases from 1.3% at 20% farm participation rate to 3.4%, 4.6% and 5.1% at 30%, 40% and 50% rates, respectively. At high sugar market prices ($375-$525/tonne), the overall expected annual ROI increases to 9.5%, 11.4%, 12.6% and 13.0% in 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% farm participation rates, respectively. In this case, the economic incentives to share with biomass producers are estimated to be $14.10/dry tonne (dt), $15.77/dt and $16.33/dt by increasing the farm participation rate from 20% to 30%, 40% and 50%, respectively.

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“…This attention has been motivated by growing recognition of the role semiarid ecosystems may play in controlling interannual variation and longer-term trends in the global land carbon (C) sink (Strand et al, 2008;Poulter et al, 2014;Ahlström et al, 2015;Sleeter et al, 2018). There is also interest in the potential for dryland vegetation to provide bioenergy feedstock (Ansley et al, 2012;Lauer et al, 2015;Chen et al, 2016) and linkages between biomass and landscape fire dynamics (Romme et al, 2009;Archibald et al, 2018) alongside interactions of vegetation cover and land degradation processes (Hochstrasser et al, 2014;Puttock et al, 2014;Cunliffe et al, 2016b). Across the southwestern USA, juniper-dominated and codominant communities are both widespread, and expanding in extent (Manier et al, 2005;Hulet et al, 2014), in part due to human activities (Soulé et al, 2004;Briggs et al, 2007;Van Auken and Smeins, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees

et al. 2020

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Across the semiarid ecosystems of the southwestern USA, there has been widespread encroachment of woody shrubs and trees including Juniperus species into former grasslands. Quantifying vegetation biomass in such ecosystems is important because semiarid ecosystems are thought to play an important role in the global land carbon (C) sink, and changes in plant biomass also have implications for primary consumers and potential bioenergy feedstock. Oneseed juniper (Juniperus monosperma) is common in desert grasslands and pinyon-juniper rangelands across the intermountain region of southwestern North America; however, there is limited information about the aboveground biomass (AGB) and sapwood area (SWA) for this species, causing uncertainties in estimates of C stock and transpiration fluxes. In this study, we report on canopy area (CA), stem diameter, maximum height, and biomass measurements from J. monosperma trees sampled from central New Mexico. Dry biomass ranged between 0.4 kg and 625 kg, and cross-sectional SWA was measured on n = 200 stems using image analysis. We found a strong linear relationship between CA and AGB (r 2 = 0.96), with a similar slope to that observed in other juniper species, suggesting that this readily measured attribute is well suited for upscaling studies. There was a 9% bias between different approaches to measuring CA, indicating care should be taken to account for these differences to avoid systematic biases. We found equivalent stem diameter (ESD) was a strong predictor of biomass, but that existing allometric models underpredicted biomass in larger trees. We found SWA could be predicted from individual stem diameter with a power relationship, and that tree-level SWA should be estimated by summing the SWA predictions from individual stems rather than ESD. Our improved allometric models for J. monosperma support more accurate and robust measurements of C storage and transpiration fluxes in Juniperus-dominated ecosystems.

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Biomass supply curves for western juniper in Central Oregon, USA, under alternative business models and policy assumptions

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

New Geospatial Approaches for Efficiently Mapping Forest Biomass Logistics at High Resolution over Large Areas

New Geospatial Approaches for Efficiently Mapping Forest Biomass Logistics at High Resolution over Large Areas

A novel risk analysis methodology to evaluate the economic performance of a biorefinery and to quantify the economic incentives for participating biomass producers

Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees

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