Biomass Study Challenged
Noted forester Robbo Holleran weighs in on the study done by the Manomet Center for Conservation Science commissioned by the state Department of Energy Resources (DOER) in December of 2009. Mr. Holleran believes "The whole stand analysis from the Manomet study is based on faulty premises."
Following is an exerpt from the beginning of Mr. Hollerans letter to Phil Giudice, Commissioner, DOER. The full letter can be downloaded in PDF format at the end of the initial text.
100 Cambridge St. #1020
Boston MA 02114 July 7, 2010
Dear Mr. Giudice,
I have been a consulting forester in southern Vermont for the past 28 years, and am applying for a forestry license in Massachusetts (fully certified in New York). I am a graduate of University of Maine at Orono (B.S. Forest Management, 1982). I am also a director of the Northeast Regional Forest Foundation and the Vermont Forest Products Association, and president of the Vermont Forestry Foundation. I currently manage about 35,000 acres mostly in southern Vermont, but also some in each adjacent state.
I have read with interest the Manomet biomass study, and I find a number of biases and problems with it. I‟m sure you have had to get a quick education in forestry language to interpret the report and the comments. I will try to organize these thoughts in paragraph form:
They emphasize the total amount of sequestered carbon in the forest instead of the rate at which atmospheric carbon is changed into biomass. This is always going to lead to the conclusion to “cut less and cut less often”, as promoted by Bill Keaton of UVM, who they cite authoritatively. Bill Leak, on the other hand, with more than 50 years of research on the function of local forest ecosystems, has minor citations about irrelevant details, like the number of seedlings required to regenerate northern hardwoods. A quote from Dr. Leak, to be brief, is “Good forest management is good carbon management” I would think it prudent to have a sit-down interview with Dr. Leak to get his perspective on these issues, as he is a leading authority on the function of northeastern forests. You should also be familiar with a report titled “Bioenergy and Greenhouse Gasses” by Dr. Gregory Morris of Berkeley CA, in 2008. This is a major work that comes to very different conclusions than the Manomet study. Interestingly, they give Morris a brief citation as a “regional” study of no consequence, so they know it exists and chose to ignore it. This is the summary conclusion from the Morris report:
“Bioenergy production reduces atmospheric greenhouse-gas levels by enhancing long-term forest-carbon sequestration and by reducing the greenhouse-gas potency of the carbon gases associated with the return of biomass carbon to the atmosphere that is an intrinsic part of the global carbon cycle. These greenhouse-gas benefits are provided in addition to the benefit common to all renewable energy production of avoiding the use of fossil fuels. The value of the greenhouse-gas offsets that are expected to become available in the next several years should improve the competitiveness of energy production from biomass and biogas resources in the marketplace of the future.”
Morris further states “The results and conclusions are applicable to the greenhouse-gas implications for biomass and biogas energy production across the country and beyond.”
The whole stand analysis from the Manomet study is based on faulty premises...
Click Here To Download The Full Letter