California needs biomass energy to meet its wildfire goals. Its projects keep going South

Arbor Energy is, essentially, a poster kid of the benignant of biomass vigor task California keeps saying it wants.

The state’s extremity is to trim wildfire hazard connected 1 cardinal acres of wildlands each year, including by thinning overgrown forests, which is expected to make astir 10 cardinal tons of wood discarded annually. Arbor hopes to instrumentality that waste, blast it done a “vegetarian rocket engine” to nutrient energy, past sequester each of the c the process would make underground.

California has billed Arbor — and the fistful of different likewise aimed projects it’s financed — arsenic a win-win-win: wildfire mitigation, cleanable vigor and c sequestration each successful one.

Yet, aft Arbor initially won authorities fiscal backing for a aviator task successful Placer County, the El Segundo-based company’s California ambitions fell through, similar galore biomass projects earlier it.

Instead, it’s heading to Louisiana.

California, biomass vigor advocates say, has struggled to get past its distrust of the technology, fixed accepted biomass’ checkered past of clear-cutting forests and polluting poorer communities. Further, the state’s strict permitting requirements person fixed residents tremendous powerfulness to veto projects and created regulatory headaches.

But galore biology groups reason it’s an illustration of California’s biology and wellness protections really working. If not done carefully, bioenergy projects tally the hazard of emitting c — not sequestering it — and polluting communities already grappling with immoderate of the state’s dirtiest air.

“When you look astatine biomass facilities crossed California — and we’ve done Public Records Act requests to look astatine emissions, violations and exceedances ... the world is that we’re not successful immoderate benignant of idealized pen-and-paper drafting of what the instrumentality does,” said Shaye Wolf, clime subject manager astatine the Center for Biological Diversity. “In the existent world, determination are conscionable excessively galore problems with failures and faults successful the equipment.”

There are simpler and safer uses for this wood waste, these critics say: fertilizer for agriculture, wood chips and mulch. It whitethorn not supply carbon-negative vigor but comes with nary of the risks of bioenergy projects, they say.

The Center for Biological Diversity and others advocator for a much “hands-off” attack to California’s forests and impulse absorption of the wildfire situation chiefly done location hardening, evacuation planning, prescribed burning and defensible-space vegetation management. But occurrence and ecology experts accidental much than a period of occurrence suppression has made that unrealistic.

However, the sweeping forest-thinning projects these experts accidental are needed volition outgo billions, and truthful the authorities needs each root of backing it tin get. “Our bottleneck close present is, however bash we wage for treating a cardinal acres a year?” said Deputy Chief John McCarthy of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, who oversees the agency’s wood products and bioenergy program.

In theory, the people of next-generation biomass vigor proposals popping up crossed California could assistance money this work.

“California has an unthinkable opportunity,” said Arbor main enforcement and co-founder Brad Hartwig. With the state’s leftover biomass from wood thinning, “we could marque it fundamentally the person successful c removal successful the world.”

A batch of wood with obscurity to go

Biomass vigor archetypal took disconnected successful California successful the 1980s aft tiny pioneering plants astatine sawmills and food-processing facilities proved palmy and the state’s utilities began offering favorable contracts for vigor sources they deemed “renewable” — a class that included biomass.

In the precocious ‘80s and aboriginal ‘90s, the authorities had much than 60 operating biomass plants, providing up to 9% of the state’s residential power. Researchers estimation the manufacture supported astir 60,000 acres of wood attraction to trim wildfire hazard per twelvemonth astatine the time. But biomass energy’s heyday was short-lived.

In 1994, the California Public Utilities Commission shifted the state’s accent distant from creating a renewable and divers vigor premix and toward simply buying the cheapest imaginable power.

Biomass — an inherently much costly endeavor — struggled. Many plants took buyouts to unopen down early. Despite California’s repeated attempts to revitalize the industry, the fig of biomass plants continued to dwindle.

Today, lone 23 biomass plants stay successful operation, according to the manufacture advocator radical California Biomass Energy Alliance. The authorities Energy Commission expects the fig to proceed declining due to the fact that of aging infrastructure and a mediocre bioenergy market. California’s wood and wildfire enactment are trying to alteration that.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom created a task unit to code California’s increasing wildfire crisis. After convening the state’s apical wildfire and wood scientists, the task unit rapidly came to a daunting conclusion: The much than a period of occurrence suppression successful California’s forests — particularly successful the Sierra Nevada — had dramatically accrued their density, providing fires with ample substance to detonate into raging beasts.

To lick it, the authorities needed to rapidly region that other biomass connected hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of acres of wildlands each twelvemonth done a operation of prescribed burns, rehabilitation of burned areas and mechanically thinning the forest.

McCarthy estimated treating a azygous acre of onshore could outgo $2,000 to $3,000. At a cardinal acres a year, that’s $2 cardinal to $3 cardinal annually.

“Where is that going to travel from?” McCarthy said. “Grants — possibly $200 cardinal … 10% of the full thing. So, we request markets. We request immoderate benignant of mode to wage for this worldly and successful a nontraditional way.”

McCarthy believes bioenergy is 1 of those ways — essentially, by selling the slightest valuable, borderline unusable vegetation from the wood floor. You can’t physique a location with conifer cones, needles and twigs, but you can powerfulness a bioenergy plant.

However, portion biomass vigor has surged successful Southern states specified arsenic Georgia, projects successful California person struggled to get disconnected the ground.

In 2022, a bid by Chevron, Microsoft and the oil-drilling exertion institution Schlumberger to revive a accepted biomass works adjacent Fresno and affix c seizure to it fell done aft the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requested the task retreat its licence application. Environmental groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and residents successful adjacent Mendota opposed the project.

This year, a sweeping effort supported by agrarian Northern California counties to process much than 1 cardinal tons of biomass a twelvemonth into wood pellets and vessel them to European bioenergy plants (with nary c seizure involved) successful effect died aft facing pushback from ticker groups that feared the project, led by Golden State Natural Resources, would harm forests, and biology justness groups that disquieted processing facilities astatine the Port of Stockton would worsen the aerial prime successful 1 of the state’s astir polluted communities.

Arbor believed its destiny would beryllium different.

Bioenergy from the crushed up

Before founding Arbor, Hartwig served successful the California Air National Guard for six years and connected a Marin County hunt and rescue team. He present recalls a communal refrain connected the job: “There is nary rescue successful fire. It’s each search,” Hartwig said. “It’s looking for bodies — not adjacent bodies, it’s teeth and bones.”

In 2022, helium started Arbor, with the thought of taking a antithetic attack to bioenergy than the biomass plants shuttering crossed California.

To recognize Arbor’s innovation, commencement with ember plants, which pain fossil fuels to vigor up h2o and nutrient steam that turns a turbine to make electricity. Traditional biomass plants enactment fundamentally the aforesaid but regenerate ember with vegetation arsenic the fuel. Typically, the fume from the vegetation burning is simply released into the air.

Small item of the 16,000-pound proof-of-concept strategy being tested by Arbor that volition pain biomass, seizure c dioxide and make electricity.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Arbor’s solution is much similar a tree-powered rocket engine.

The institution tin utilize virtually immoderate signifier of biomass, from wood to sticks to conifer needles and brush. Arbor heats it to utmost temperatures and deprives it of capable oxygen to marque the biomass afloat combust. The integrated discarded separates into a flammable state — made of c monoxide, c dioxide, methane and hydrogen — and a tiny magnitude of coagulated waste.

The instrumentality past combusts the state astatine utmost temperatures and pressures, which past accelerates a turbine astatine overmuch higher rates than emblematic biomass plants. The resulting c dioxide exhaust is past sequestered underground.

Arbor portrays its solution arsenic a flexible, carbon-negative and cleanable device: It tin run anyplace with a hookup for c sequestration. Multiple units tin enactment unneurotic for other power. All of the c successful the trees and twigs the instrumentality ingests ends up successful the crushed — not backmost successful the air.

But biomass watchdogs pass erstwhile attempts astatine exertion similar Arbor’s person fallen short.

This biomass process creates a dry, flaky ash chiefly composed of minerals — fundamentally everything successful the archetypal biomass that wasn’t “bio” — that tin see dense metals that the dormant plants sucked up from the aerial oregon soil. If cultivation oregon operation discarded is used, it tin see nasty chemicals from wood treatments and pesticides.

Arbor plans — astatine slightest initially — connected utilizing woody biomass straight from the forest, which typically contains little of these unsafe ash chemicals.

Turning wood discarded into state besides generates a thick, achromatic tar composed of volatile integrated compounds — which are besides communal contaminants pursuing wildfires. The institution says its gasification process uses precocious capable temperatures to interruption down the troublesome tar, but researchers accidental tar is an inevitable byproduct of this process.

Grant Niccum, left, Arbor pb systems technologist and Kevin Saboda, systems engineer, astatine the company‘s trial tract successful San Bernardino. Biomass is fed into this constituent and past compressed to 100 times atmospheric unit and burned to make a synthetic gas.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Watchdogs besides caution that the mathematics to find whether bioenergy projects sequester oregon merchandise c is analyzable and finicky.

“Biomass is tricky, and there’s a cardinal exceptions to each regularisation that request to beryllium accounted for,” said Zeke Hausfather, clime probe pb with Frontier Climate, which vets c seizure projects specified arsenic Arbor’s and connects them with companies funny successful buying c credits. “There are examples wherever we person recovered a task that really works connected the c accounting math, but we didn’t privation to bash it due to the fact that it was touching Canadian boreal wood that’s old-growth forest.”

Frontier Climate, on with the institution Isometric, audits Arbor’s exertion and operations. However, critics enactment that due to the fact that some companies yet enactment the merchantability of c credits, their assessments whitethorn beryllium biased.

At worst, biomass projects tin decimate forests and merchandise their stored c into the atmosphere. Arbor hopes, instead, to beryllium a best-case scenario: improving — oregon astatine slightest maintaining — wood wellness and stuffing c underground.

When it each goes South

Arbor had initially planned to physique a impervious of conception successful Placer County. To bash it, Arbor won $2 cardinal done McCarthy’s Cal Fire programme and $500,000 done a authorities Department of Conservation programme successful 2023.

But arsenic California fell into a shortage successful 2023, authorities backing dried up.

So Arbor turned to backstage investors. In September 2024, Arbor reached an statement with Microsoft successful which the exertion institution would bargain c credits backed by Arbor’s sequestration. In July of this year, the institution announced a $41-million woody (well implicit 15 times the backing it ever received from California) with Frontier Climate, whose c recognition buyers see Google, the online outgo institution Stripe and Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook.

To fulfill the credits, it would physique its archetypal commercialized installation adjacent Lake Charles, La., successful portion powering adjacent information centers.

“We were precise excited astir Arbor,” McCarthy said. “They beauteous overmuch walked distant from their assistance and said they’re not going to bash this successful California. … We were disappointed successful that.”

But for Arbor, relying connected the authorities was nary longer feasible.

“We can’t trust connected California for the wealth to make the exertion and deploy the archetypal systems,” said Hartwig, lasting successful Arbor’s plant-covered El Segundo office. “For a batch of reasons, it makes consciousness to spell trial the machine, amended the exertion successful the marketplace elsewhere earlier we really get to bash deployments successful California, which is simply a overmuch much hard permitting and regulatory environment.”

Rigger Arturo Hernandez, left, and systems technologist Kevin Saboda unafraid Arbor’s proof-of-concept strategy successful the company’s San Bernardino trial tract aft its travel from Arbor’s office successful El Segundo. The alloy framework was welded successful Texas portion the valves, tubing and different hardware were installed successful El Segundo.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

It’s not the archetypal next-generation biomass institution based successful California to physique elsewhere. San Francisco-based Charm Industrial, whose exertion doesn’t impact vigor generation, began its sequestration efforts successful the Midwest and plans to grow into Louisiana.

The American South has little stringent logging and biology regulations, which has led biomass vigor projects to flock to the area: In 2024, astir 2.3% of the South’s vigor came from woody biomass — up from 2% successful 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Meanwhile, that fig connected the West Coast was lone 1.2%, continuing connected its dilatory decline.

And, dissimilar successful the West, companies aiming to make wood pellets to vessel overseas person proliferated successful the South. In 2024, the U.S. produced much than 10.7 cardinal tons of biomass pellets; 82% of which was exported. That’s up from virtually zero successful 2000. The immense bulk of the biomass pellets produced past twelvemonth — 84% — was from the South.

Watchdogs pass that this deficiency of guardrails has allowed the biomass manufacture to harm the South’s forests, pollute mediocre communities surviving adjacent biomass facilities and autumn abbreviated of its clime claims.

Over the past 5 years, Drax — a institution that harvests and exports wood pellets and was moving with Golden State Natural Resources — has had to wage Louisiana and Mississippi a combined $5 cardinal for violating aerial contamination laws. Residents surviving adjacent to biomass plants, similar Drax’s, accidental the operations person worsened asthma and routinely permission a movie of particulate connected their cars.

But operating a accepted biomass installation oregon shipping wood pellets to Europe wasn’t Arbor’s founding extremity — albeit powering information centers successful the American South wasn’t precisely either.

Hartwig, who grew up successful the Golden State, hopes Arbor’s exertion tin someday instrumentality to California to assistance concern the solution for the wildfire situation helium spent truthful galore years facing head-on.

“We’ve got an involvement successful Arkansas, successful Texas, each the mode up to Minnesota,” Hartwig said. “Eventually, we’d similar to travel backmost to California.”