Description

ANNOTATION: The FIA BioSum modeling framework that incorporates Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot data, a transportation cost model, a treatment cost accounting module, a log valuation model, and a crown fire hazard evaluator and was applied to a 28 million acre study area of western Oregon and northern California. It was shown that with four 50 MW biomass-fueled power plants strategically distributed over the study area, up to 5.3 million acres could be effectively treated with net revenue of 2.6 billion dollars, a merchantable yield of 9.5 billion cubic feet, and a biomass yield of 79 million green tons, if net-revenue maximizing fuel treatments are selected. ABSTRACT: Utilization of small diameter trees is viewed by many as the key to making landscape-scale fuel treatment financially feasible. But little capacity currently exists for utilizing such material and capacity of sufficient scale to have a significant impact on the economics of small diameter removals will only be added if predictable feedstocks can be assured. The FIA BioSum modeling framework that incorporates Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot data, a transportation cost model, a treatment cost accounting module, a log valuation model, and a crown fire hazard evaluator was applied to a 28 million acre study area containing 6200 FIA plots spanning the Eastern Cascades, Southern Cascades, Klamath Mountains and Modoc Plateau ecosections of western Oregon and northern California. Up to nine fuel treatment prescriptions with a high likelihood of producing a substantial reduction in crown fire hazard were simulated for each plot, and 221 potential biomass processing sites were considered. With four 50 MW biomass-fueled power plants strategically distributed over the study area, up to 5.3 million acres could be effectively treated with net revenue of 2.6 billion dollars, a merchantable yield of 9.5 billion cubic feet, and a biomass yield of 79 million green tons, if net-revenue maximizing fuel treatments are selected. If merchantable volume minimizing treatments are selected instead for these 5.3 million acres, net revenue would be negative 2.6 billion dollars, merchantable yield would be 3.6 billion cubic feet and biomass yield would be 75 million green tons. With the constraint that every acre generate positive net revenue, only 2.6 million acres would be treated, even if the net revenue maximizing treatment is selected.