Wood Ethanol Could Help Prevent Forest Fires
Making ethanol from wood could help prevent forest fires.
The Wisconsin State Journal did an interview with Chris Risbrudt, director of the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, about that potential. Risbrudt says ethanol is a possible solution to thinning the smaller trees that lead to forest fires.
Q: So U.S. forests need to be thinned?
A: Yes. That’s one reason we spent $1.3 billion fighting forest fires (last) year in the Forest Service; because nature is trying to remove that biomass and get back to the amount it should have. If we thin it to prevent or reduce the impacts of wild fire, it costs us $1,000 per acre because we’re not making many products out of that stuff. We’re trying to figure out how to make products out of that so we can reduce the cost of thinning national forests down to zero.
Q: What products are you working on that would come from that surplus biomass?
A: Ethanol is the big one we’re working on right now. It’s got huge potential. But trees are made up of three major components: lignan, which is the glue, hemicellulose and cellulose. And they’re just sugar molecules strung together.
But (with) the way the tree puts them together, it’s very hard to take it back apart efficiently, so we’re working on that. In fact, the Department of Energy is also working on it, funding projects. They call it the recalcitrant cellulose problem. It just doesn’t want to break down back into sugar very easily.
Q: How close are you to a solution?
A: We’ve patented a strain of yeast called pichia stipitis and licensed it to a company called Xethanol Corp. and they’re building plants right now to make cellulosic ethanol.
Risbrudt says it’s not commerically profitable yet, but they are working on it.
5 Comments »
C. Scott Miller
The waste and expense of forest fires is one thing.
Another HUGE factor is the amount of greenhouse gases (Reactive Organic gases, CO, NOx, and SOx), and particulate matter that are released as a result of forest burnings and wildfires (see Forest Newswatch chart at http://biostock.blogspot.com/2006/11/forest-industry-bio-solutions-to.html ).
We need to thin forests and remove bark beetle infested trees because it is the environmentally responsible thing to do. The forests that burn wipe out any perceived gain in carbon sequestration for the forests that don’t. ( http://biostock.blogspot.com/2006/11/forests-carbon-stinks.html )
fires » Wood Ethanol Could Help Prevent Forest Fires
[...] Original post by Cindy Zimmerman [...]
Denny Haldeman
Only you can prevent forests!
It is amazing that forests evolved over millions of years, sequestered carbon, developed amazing biodiversity and habitat and cooled the planet before feller bunchers, dozers, and ethanol plants came along. Thank God we arrived just in time to save forests by removing them, putting them in our gas tanks and sending wildlife into oblivion. Scams like this give new meaning to that old motto “put a tiger in your tank”. De-foresters got us into this mess and it is doubtful that they can fix it by mangling what’s left of native forest health.
Luke Starr
Yes nature is able to take care of itself, but that is only when man does not interfere in any way. The plain and simple fact is we need and require wood and timber bi-products, they are in almost everything you use and eat every day so therefore we need to manage these forests for the highest yields which involves thinning, leaving the remains of pre-commercial thinning on the ground posses a large threat to the forests as fuel on the ground and since we are not allowed to implement prescribed burns we need to get all the carbon out or risk fires hotter than nature intended her trees to withstand causing more destruction to habitat than logging or thinning. So don’t complain about what we do in the forest without thinking about the fact that you use our products in every facet of your life.
Luke Starr
OSU CoF
mechadrone
what is trees is important to us
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