Dec 9 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Eve Byron Independent Record, Helena, Mont.

A standing-room-only crowd packed a meeting room at the Helena Regional Airport Monday to learn more about the potential to turn wood into energy, but not all who attended left convinced it is an economical idea.

Janice Grosfield, who operates DS Jr. Trucking out of Drummond, is quite interested in learning more about the biomass industry, which generally involves turning scraps of wood into energy.

Recent efforts include a school projects, including one in Townsend, that uses wood chips to heat schools and will save the school district $1.3 million in 30 years.

Another option involves using wood to create electricity, as touted during a lunchtime demonstration of a mobile Biomax heat and power system.

She also watched with interest a video presentation from St. Paul, Minn., of a downtown energy system that successfully generates heat and electricity from biomass for a number of buildings.

But Grosfield was openly skeptical as to whether this can be cost-effective in a state like Montana, where it's a long way to bring the type of wood products to locales where they can be transformed from chips to energy.

"There's a lot of potential there, but economically, I don't think it's feasible right now," Grosfield said. "I also have to wonder why, if it is so good, that every government building isn't using this? Using biomass for those buildings would be a good kick-off to all this."

Mike Garrity, executive director of the environmental group Alliance for the Wild Rockies, also worried about the impacts to air quality from biomass burning, and whether it might lead to more logging in the forest.

"If we want to focus on renewable industry, it would be much more economical to look at investing in conservation, wind and solar energy," Garrity said. "All three are more economical and less environmentally harmful."

Despite those concerns, people throughout Montana, including those at private and public industries, are continuing research into ways this might be affordable, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Duane Harp, a district ranger for the Helena National Forest who organized Monday's workshop, noted that the forests are full of dead and dying trees due to recent mountain pine beetle epidemics.

Converting them to biomass is a better alternative than letting this "resource go up in smoke," he said.

"These trees are a renewable resource that can help us reduce our dependency on fossil fuels," Harp said. "This also can reduce hazardous fuels in the forest and help with forest restoration."

Harp added that people from all over Montana, and from a wide range of occupations including construction, city management and the forest industry attended the workshop.

"I'm sensing an incredible amount of enthusiasm for this," Harp said.

"Biomass" from trees can be anything from wood pellets and cordwood for stoves for smaller buildings or wood chips for larger buildings or school campuses.

Many of these products come from slash, or tree tops and branches that can't be used for commercial lumber and often are left in the forest in piles after a logging project. Biomass also is generated when trees are cut for power lines or subdivisions, and residuals from manufacturers like post and pole plants and sawmills.

State Forester Bob Harrington with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, noted that more than 100 million tons of waste wood are produced each year.

Emerging technology also can turn those wood residuals to gas that fires a boiler, drives an engine or turbine, or runs a fuel cell. It also can be liquefied into biofuels for transportation.

But logistics can make this time consuming and expensive, noted several of the event's speakers.

Numerous efforts are under way to find out how to cheaply get the slash from the middle of the forest nearer to roads, or how to bring equipment into the forest that can economically turn the logging byproducts, or trees not able to be used for lumber, into biomass for schools, homes and even large industries.

Still, momentum is building for biomass, said Angela Farr, the biomass utilization coordinator for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

"I think there is more interest, given the number of people in this room, then ever," Farr said. "I think there are a lot of challenges ... and some are still afraid, but others have embraced it."

Harrington said that Helena is "ground zero" in the beetle epidemic in Montana, so it's only natural that people here are in the forefront of discussions on what to do with those dead trees.

The situation need not be as bleak as some make it out, he added.

"We need to come together as Montanans and Americans and capture this opportunity in front of us," Harrington said.

"...Logging can not and will not take care of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, but we can capture the economic value in the forests and the trees."

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