Reader Response: "What to Burn, Thermal Coal or Bio-Coal" misses the mark in key areas

By Larry Sullivan, ArborGen Inc.

Kudos to Tim Sklar for his excellent article “What to Burn, Thermal Coal or Bio-Coal,” which examined the potential to replace coal with bio-fuel alternatives.  However, I believe that Mr. Sklar has undervalued the potential for woody biomass due to several assumptions that mischaracterize current market conditions.

One example where biomass plays an important role in power generation is the pulp and paper industry.  Today, a substantial amount of electrical power generation originates in pulp and paper mills around the US and
Canada.  Like petroleum refiners, the pulp and paper mills cannibalize some small fraction of their raw materials (trees) to produce steam.  In turn, the steam is used for both processing purposes and generating electricity which is also used in the mill.

Mr. Sklar contends that only bio-coal can be used as a drop-in substitute when, in fact, today many plants around the world fire with both coal and wood chips.  Yes, modern pulverized coal boilers need to turn wood into torrefied pellets (bio-coal), but there are still many older boilers that have been modified for wood chips and coal.

Next, Mr. Sklar, states, “there will be limits in availability of woody biomass….”  The DOE’s recently released Billion Ton Update* differs stating that there is 37% more woody biomass available today than found in the 2005 Billion Ton Study.  The author also states erroneously that no crops are being planted for power generation today.  In fact, there are many cases of trees and grasses being planted today for closed loop power generation with more being established every day.

Although Mr. Sklar does an excellent job of addressing the need for better market signals in order to adopt biomass for pulverized coal boilers, his narrow focus ignores some of the broader potential for woody biomass as a source of base-load electrical power.

*U.S. Department of Energy. 2011. U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry.  R.D. Perlak and B.J. Stokes (Leads) ORNL/TM-2011/224. Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Oak Ridge, Tn. 227.