Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Estancia, NM-An independent group for citizen-scientists submitted to the state its own biomass availability study for a proposed electricity power plant in Estancia. When realistic limitations on areas harvested and clearcutting were applied the study found only about 3-5 years of fuel would be available. The findings contradict an earlier assessment commissioned by Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) that claimed enough fuels to run the facility could for 45 years. The independent assessment was submitted to Secretary of Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources, Joanna Prukop, by the citizens group as she reviews a lower decision to reject a renewable energy production tax credit application by Western Water and Power Production Limited, LLC (WWP).

“The Estancia biomass plant is not a renewable energy source,” said Bryan Bird, Public Lands Director at WildEarth Guardians, “This new biomass assessment shows that it might operate at fullcapacity for 3-5 years, not the 20 years required for the renewable tax credit.”

The proposed biomass plant will operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and 52 weeks per year, consuming about a half a million tons of chipped forest annually (55 tons per hour). The electricity plant would require 400 to 500 thousand tons of chipped forest per year or 40 to 50 truck loads a day.

A PNM estimate of 21 million tons of dry biomass physically available within a 50 mile radius of the plant includes all the forests, regardless of tree type in the Sandias, Manzanos, and Gallinas mountains as well as all of the lower-elevation piñon-juniper. To operate for 20 years, the plant would need to consume 38% of these forests and to operate for 30 years, 58% would have to be cut and delivered to the facility, assuming no restrictions on harvest.

“To be realistic, no state or federal agency would entertain any form of clear cutting or heavy harvesting required to run the biomass plant for 20 years,” Said Bud Latven a Tajique resident and co-author of the report. “The idea that there’s enough biomass to fuel the plant without doing injury to the forests is ludicrous.”

The citizen’s independent analysis of biomass availability included critical limitations not incorporated in the PNM study. In summary, there are 1.28 million acres in total of piñon-juniper forests within a 50-mile radius of Estancia, assuming none have been cut in recent years. From the science, a reasonable figure of 14.5 tons per acre of biomass is available from thinned piñon-juniperforests. If every acre of piñon-juniper in the 50-mile radius were aggressively thinned, with 75% removal, the plant might be fueled for 7.5 years and 45% removal would result in just 4.5 years of production.

The citizen’s analysis demonstrates that only a fraction of those acres will actually be available for thinning. Excluded were lands recently thinned, reserved lands such as national parks and wilderness areas, 1/3 of private lands due to access, covenants, aesthetics, etc., roads and streams and then applied limits on over-harvest and large tree cutting. The result: the biomass plant could operate at full capacity for just 3 to 5 years.

For a copy of the independent biomass assessment and more information on the proposed forest biomass plant in Estancia go to: biomassinfo.blogspot.com