In the U.S. South, emerging wood bioenergy industries will change the way we think and talk about the wood fiber supply chain. 

The paradigm has already begun to shift and which energy and environmental policies will push the boundaries even more.

The vocabulary of energy production is as familiar to the ear of the Louisiana timberland owner as the language of land management. In fact, there are very few places in which landowners need to know as much about oil and gas, mineral, and hunting leases as they do about harvest schedules.

In much of the South, this vocabulary is expanding once again. Emerging wood-to-energy industries will very likely change the way we think and talk about the wood fiber supply chain.

While Louisiana has yet to see significant bioenergy influx, much of the South has. Take, for instance, two of Louisiana’s neighbors. In 2008, four companies announced plans for independent power plants (IPPs) in the eastern part of Texas. These plants, if they are successful, will produce 260 MW of electricity and use approximately 2.6 million tons of wood fiber per year. Mississippi, though lagging behind Texas, is starting to see movement as well, with Indeck Energy announcing a new pellet fuel plant and Raven Biofuels and Price BIOstock announcing a joint venture to build an ethanol biorefinery that uses wood and wood waste in the Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone.

With all this activity sweeping across the South, Louisiana cannot be far behind. As bioenergy capacity grows, the supply and demand paradigm will shift. Bioenergy companies will begin by sourcing raw materials with low demand as a way of reducing their risk of fluctuations. As a result, they will begin by looking for woody biomass (wood fuel or hogfuel), construction and demolition (C&D) debris and sawmill residuals. These methods are unlikely to generate either the quantity or quality of raw materials that they need to fuel their operations. For instance, virtually all mill residuals are under supply agreements already.

Woody biomass will continue to be difficult and costly to remove from forests, partly because loggers—undercapitalized to begin with—will not be able to finance the equipment needed to harvest this material. With the housing market struggling, there is a dwindling supply of C&D debris. When housing recovers, however, plants will need to be sited closer to urban areas to take advantage of this debris.