TITLE:
Ancillary Impacts of Harvest Residue Pelletization
AUTHORS:
Ryan Jacobson, Shahab Sokhansanj, Dominik Roeser, Jason Hansen, Bhushan Gopaluni, Xiaotao Bi
KEYWORDS:
Bioenergy, Harvest Residues, Mobile Pelletization, High Moisture
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Sustainable Bioenergy Systems,
Vol.11 No.3,
September
23,
2021
ABSTRACT: This paper analyzes the implications on employment,
taxation, and wildfire fuel reduction costs when using mobile pellet mills to
remove biomass and reduce wildfire fuels.
Wildfire suppression costs in British Columbia have exceeded the set
budget in 9 of the last 10 years and the province has only reduced the fuel
load on a fraction of the high-risk hectares. Using a novel high-moisture
mobile pellet mill allows the production of 89,000 tonnes of wood pellets each
year for a price of $293 . Each tonne produced also provides
$546 in additional benefits from employment, taxation, and reductions in the cost to perform fuel treatments.
The presented research found that 11 employees are needed to operate a
mobile pellet mill, with total employment of 242 for 22 systems across BC. The
assessed system can also avoid $5.5 million in employment insurance payments.
The 22 systems also provide $323,000 in taxable profits and $524,000 from
income taxes from employees. Fuel treatment with the researched systems costs
$1112 . A cost-benefit analysis shows that the
system provides $2.97 in benefits for every dollar invested.