Introduction to Harvesting, Processing, Storage and Delivery

Large chipper loading biomass
into a chip van at the landing

Compared to other available woody biomass sources in the forest, recovering unused residues from conventional sawlog and pulpwood logging operations has the greatest potential for providing biomass for energy production (Perlack and others 2005). Of the total forest biomass available nationally, over 40 million tons per year are logging residues. These logging residues can be augmented by removing wood from energy plantations and by harvesting trees that are otherwise non-merchantable due to size, species, or form, as well as dead and damaged trees from any number of agents like insects, disease and natural catastrophes. More information about this is in the Biological and Environmental Sustainability, Bioenergy Production from Southern Forests, and Supply of Forest Biomass sections. However, with the prices available for biomass products circa 2006, it is a challenge to make a harvesting operation profitable - see the section on Feedstock Production.

This section of the Encyclopedia of Southern Bioenergy will synthesize what we know about forest harvesting and transportation practices with primary focus on bioenergy products. In many cases, bioenergy products will be the least valuable products that can be commercially produced in our southern forests. Also, this section deals specifically with the cost factors associated with harvesting operations. Issues dealing with other aspects of the economics of bioenergy production and utilization can be found elsewhere in the Economics and Utilization sections. The Biological and Environmental Sustainability section deals specifically with the many important ecological considerations of producing forest products, including bioenergy. Finally, links are provided in this section to other encyclopedia pages that discuss conventional harvesting systems.

This harvesting and transportation section assumes that a market for bioenergy products exists and deals primarily with the question of where, when and how to harvest biomass that can then be transported to utilization centers some distance from the harvest site. Woody biomass products can take on several different forms which each have their own storage and cost considerations. Many harvesting systems are available to recover biomass. These systems will be reviewed in terms of cost and productivity factors associated with harvesting, pre-processing (chipping or bundling), drying, transportation, and storage.

This section of the Encyclopedia of Southern Bioenergy will comprehensively discuss all operations along the value chain from in-woods harvesting through pre-processing and transport to storage in the following sections.