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For Massachusetts, our Low-Price Biomass scenario (assuming removal of 15 green tons in silvicultural treatments with biomass) yields a harvest share for forest biomass chips of about 33% (this figure includes whole-tree chips from tops and limbs produced in harvesting industrial roundwood). Thus, relative to the northern New England experience, it appears that our scenario would represent a reasonable upper bound for expected outcomes. With assumed biomass removal rates of 20 green tons per acre, the forest biomass harvest share in Massachusetts would increase to 38%, which would seem high, particularly when considered in the context of differences in parcel size, attitudes, and social factors among the states. However, this share will depend on other factors that could favor a higher share in Massachusetts including: the availability of low-value timber on forest stands that are being harvested; and, the extent of alternative outlets for pulpwood along with the relative strength of demand and prices for pulpwood and biomass fuel. Given these uncertainties, we have reported the likely biomass harvest as a range from 150,000 to 250,000 green tons per year, thus spanning the estimates (184,000 and 235,000 tons) provided above. 3.2.4 HIGH-PRICE BIOMASS FROM PRIVATE TIMBERLANDS How much would forest biomass supplies increase if bioenergy plants could pay higher prices for stumpage? As demand and prices increase, more wood can be supplied from private lands by increasing the volume of wood removed from sites that are already under harvest for industrial roundwood, diverting wood from other end-use markets (such as pulpwood) to biomass, and increasing the number of acres being harvested. This scenario is intended to provide perspective on the upper bound for forest biomass production if bioenergy demand and prices increase beyond the level established in the Low-Price Biomass scenario. It is not reasonable to specify an absolute maximum for biomass supply since supply is an economic concept that depends on timber prices (and a host of other factors). Thus, we need to specify a “high” biomass stumpage price, and then consider how private landowner harvests might respond to this price level. Forest biomass volumes could still increase beyond this level, but it would be increasingly difficult to due to biophysical, economic, and social constraints and increasingly unlikely due to macroeconomic and energy constraints. The amount that bioenergy plants can afford to pay for wood is a function of the prices they receive for their output. In order to determine a biomass stumpage price in this limiting case, we have assumed that the increase in demand for biomass comes from an expansion in electric power capacity (this assumption does not, however, restrict the usefulness of these results for other types of bioenergy). We have considered several electric price scenarios and selected $20 per green ton as the real biomass stumpage price that would reflect the high end of projections for electricity prices. A biomass stumpage price of $20 per green ton would be consistent with a significant increase in the price of electricity. Although we have not modeled the dynamics of the harvesting and transport sector, it would be reasonable to assume that these costs would also increase in the near term due to the limited supply of loggers, foresters, machinery, and equipment; thus, delivered wood prices would likely rise well above $50 per green ton. However, we would anticipate that harvesting and transport costs would subsequently retreat with increasing competition and new investment in harvesting machinery and equipment. If these increases in wood costs were fully incorporated into the price of electricity, the impact would be as follows: a $20 per green ton increase in delivered wood prices (from $30 currently to $50) would equate to an increase of 3.2 cents per Kwh; delivered wood prices of $60 per green ton would translate to an increase of 4.8 cents per Kwh; and $70 per green ton would equate to an extra 6.4 cents per Kwh. There are a variety of other scenarios that could lead to the produc- tion of much higher volumes of forest biomass fuel supplies. A key factor distinguishing these scenarios are those in which exog- enous factors affect biomass demand directly (examples would be increasing energy production or high export demand for biomass fuel) and those that stimulate other commercial timber production (examples would be housing policy or local product promotion) and increase biomass production as by-product. Generally, biomass prices will rise in cases where there is direct demand stimulus; however, if biomass production rises as a by-product of expanded sawtimber production, biomass prices will remain low. We have assumed that higher biomass demand drives this scenario for two reasons: 1) we are primarily interested in energy policy, and whether forest biomass supplies would be adequate to support an expansion of bioenergy capacity; and 2) the probability of a substantial increase in sawtimber production seems fairly remote.36 There are several issues that need to be considered in gaining an appreciation for how much biomass could be harvested from private lands in Massachusetts if biomass stumpage prices were to rise substantially. These include: BIOMASS SUSTAINABILITY AND CARBON POLICY STUDY • How large is the operable land base, or in other words, how much land should be excluded from potential harvesting due to biophysical constraints or lack of landowner interest in timber production? MANOMET CENTER FOR CONSERVATION SCIENCES 45 NATURAL CAPITAL INITIATIVE 36 Although lumber production is likely to recover from the recent downturn, we are aware of no studies that project the lumber industry in this region (or in the U.S. North in general) to move above the trend levels of the past decade. Although the sawtimber inventory is rising in Massachusetts, there appear to be few other competitive advantages that would promote an expansion of the sawmilling industry: 1) maturing timber has not resulted in increasing sawtimber harvests in the past two decades; 2) sawmills are closing in Massachusetts, not expanding, and lumber capacity has contracted sharply over the past decade; 3) there are questions about sawtimber quality due to age and years of partial cutting for sawtimber production; 4) there is plenty of “cheap” timber in competing areas of North America and the world and this is especially true over the coming decade due to delays in timber harvesting that have occurred as the result of the housing debacle of 2007−2010.PDF Image | NATURAL CAPITAL INITIATIVE AT MANOMET
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