Advocating Biomass Energy

Federal Tax Policy »

The Role of Tax in National Energy Policy

In the absence of a national energy policy, tax incentives can be an important tool to ensure that the right mix of energy sources is deployed and supported across the country. The tax system can help promote energy diversity, reduce carbon emissions, eliminate waste, and, in the case of biomass, promote healthy forests. Biomass is one of the few renewable energy sources whose fuel must be purchased, and whose operations rely on a sizable and dedicated team of workers. Many of its benefits would not be realized without the same federal incentives that are available to other energy technologies. For that reason, we believe that renewable energy tax incentives should continue to play a key role in promoting a diversified mix of renewable energy resources by adhering to the following principles:

Renewable electricity tax incentives should be made permanent so that baseload power like biomass—with long development timelines—is fully promoted. Short-term extensions favor intermittent power at the expense of baseload power. The traditional short-term nature of Congressional extensions for Section 45 has resulted in the development of far fewer open-loop biomass facilities than other renewable sources whose build time is much shorter. To remedy this, Congress should permanently extend Section 45. Without this permanent extension, the full potential of biomass (and the attendant public economic and environmental benefits) will not be realized. 

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in September of 2022, extended credits for biomass over 10 years, with tax parity for all renewables beginning in 2025. We will continue to advocate for tax credits for biomass power as the IRA is implemented.

The Code should better encourage the modernization/refurbishment of older open-loop biomass facilities, including for the purpose of utilizing steam and heat generated by creating electricity, and the re-purposing of retired coal facilities to burn open-loop biomass. The Code should also recognize the forest health benefits of biomass facilities, and allow biomass power producers who are actively engaged in wildfire risk reduction efforts to qualify for the PTC beyond the 10-year credit period for a new facility. Developers report that the IRS’s traditional rule used to define new facilities is quirky to apply and should be replaced with a simpler rule such as requiring at least fifty percent of the value of a new project to be attributable to new equipment.

Conclusion if properly implemented, tax policy can play an important role in the promotion of a diverse renewable energy policy without causing market distortions. Preserving the status quo places the Nation’s energy security at risk by leaving utilities (and ratepayers) dangerously reliant on the commodity risk of natural gas or the vagaries of solar and wind.

Biomass & Forest Management »

Across the US, public and private lands are in need of better management to: (1) eliminate catastrophic fires, (2) promote new growth, and (3) maximize carbon sequestration.

The status quo exacerbates wildfire risk and adds harmful CO2 and methane emissions. To ensure the health and safety of our forestlands, we need to maintain and enhance management practices. Biomass power can be an important element of forest management. BPA members purchase forestry residues, agricultural byproducts, and other organic materials to use as fuel for power generation. Importantly, biomass facilities provide a market incentive to clear brush and dead trees that otherwise have little or no value.

Many federal lands, particularly in the West, are in urgent need of clearing. More than 100Nearly 150 million trees across California alone—many of which are located in the federally-managed Sierra, Stanislaus and Sequoia National Forests—are dead, due to continued drought and bark beetle infestation. As many as 90,000 acres in the state qualify as “high hazard zones,” with trees ready to topple over or catch fire, posing significant risk to residents, tourists, homes, and infrastructure. Some of the hardest-hit areas have as many as 14,000 dead trees per square mile. On top of that, the U.S. Forest Service budget that could contribute to clearing out lands in the highest-risk areas is increasingly consumed with fighting fires. In 2017, more than $2.5 billion went toward fire suppression, a number that is projected to rise over the next decade.

Tree Mortality Viewer
Dark red: Zone 1, highest hazard areas
Light red: Zone 2, high-hazard materials
Blue dots: Biomass facilities required through California’s BioRAM program to take on increasing levels of high-hazard fuels. Map Courtesy U.S. Forest Service

Using Biomass as a Fire Prevention Tool, The U.S. Forest Service and the biomass power industry have an existing, strong partnership in place through an MOU to promote the use of energy from wood. Fully funding the Forest Service will enable the agency to expand its public-private partnership to work with biomass power facilities to remove hazardous fuels from federal lands in California and elsewhere. Despite the readiness of biomass facilities to take on hazardous fuel from U.S. forests for electricity generation, the expense of transporting the fuel to facilities remains an obstacle. A program with the following elements would enable biomass power facilities to assist the U.S. Forest Service and private landowners with much-needed land management by targeting the highest-priority land clearing with the lowest-value fuels:

1. Identify and document areas and lands with hazardous fuels that are at the highest risk of fire—whether wildfire or open pile burning.
2. Verify that there is no higher value use for the fuel so that the program does not cause market distortion.
3. Share the cost with biomass facilities, up to $310 per bone dry ton (BDT), for transportation of fuel to a biomass power plant, with payment to the plant.

Carbon Accounting »

Recognizing the Carbon Benefits of Biomass There are a wide range of environmental benefits from converting biomass to electricity. Some biomass feedstocks, like wood from pallets or other waste material, climate benefits, since their use avoids the release of methane caused by decomposition.

Other forms of biomass—such as logging residues, forest waste, and non-merchantable wood—also provide what EPA calls “carbon benefits,” provided the biomass is sourced sustainably. Still, other sources of biomass are organic waste products, like rice and oat hulls and nutshells, which take considerable time and space to decompose.

Using them for biomass is a resourceful way to dispose of them. In 2017, BPA commissioned a study by Professor Madhu Khanna of the University of Illinois and Professor Puneet Dwivedi of the University of Georgia. The two professors compared the lifecycle emissions of a biomass power facility in New Hampshire with a similar-sized combined cycle natural gas facility. They discovered that using biomass power rather than natural gas would reduce carbon emissions by 115% over 100 years.

The benefits of using biomass as a transportation fuel to charge electric vehicles are also striking. The EPA has stated that replacing gasoline with electricity from biomass can result in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 96%.

Since 2011, EPA’s Science Advisory Board has been deliberating on the appropriate accounting methods to measure biogenic emissions. Even though biogenic emissions generate CO2 on a gross basis, the science is clear that when the lifecycle benefits of biomass are calculated, the net emissions from biomass are considered negligible, “neutral” or in the case of waste biomass even “negative.” Our industry supports efforts that apply widely accepted science in treating biomass power as a carbon-friendly source of energy.

• • Bioenergy fuels recycle carbon that is already part of the atmosphere in a three step cycle: Biomass absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows. When biomass burns for heat or power, it simply releases the same CO2 it absorbed in the forest. The basic cycle of growth, combustion and regrowth is carbon neutral.
  • Burning fossil fuels releases geologic carbon into the atmosphere that has been trapped under the Earth’s surface for millions of years. Unlike using biomass for energy, burning fossil fuels adds additional carbon to the atmosphere.