Executive Summary
Introduction
Climate change is contributing to a forest health crisis in California, with a tree mortality emergency that resulted, according to the Mortality Task Force, in over 130 million dead trees in 2017. This fuel supply has contributed to catastrophic wildfires throughout California, releasing record amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. There is a pressing need for an economical and climate-sensitive strategy to thin the forests reducing the risk of wildfires, while also addressing the state’s environmental and clean energy goals. The state's current forest fire management practice aims to protect human life and communities but focuses heavily toward prescribed burns. For example, felled trees have been hauled to localized log landing sites and burned. This practice is expensive, limited, and creates additional problems, such as air quality issues, the release of large amounts of black carbon and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and fails to harvest the energy stored in the timber.
Additionally, California’s utility grid is vulnerable to catastrophic ecological and weather-related events such as the Camp Fire that ravaged the northern portion of the state in November 2018. It is crucial to provide alternative energy solutions that can feed into the grid (thereby reducing strain), and function in off-grid and emergency environments.
This project offers a solution that uniquely addresses a range of California’s energy, climate, and air quality goals. The Powertainer is a 150-kilowatt modular biomass gasification electrical generator developed under this project. It represents one of the few on-demand electrical generation technologies that can meaningfully address this range of challenges. During the project period, the project team designed, tested, validated the performance of the Powertainer, and used the technology to generate renewable electricity from fire remediation material, demonstrating its ability to lower air emissions when compared to the open burning alternative, while meeting applicable Shasta County air quality standards.
Alternative energy solutions have the prospect of helping to reduce Californians’ energy costs by reducing the use of centralized power plants and municipal-scale generation. Biomass energy is unique among other technologies by converting biomass waste streams into a renewable energy source. As the state’s population and gross energy consumption rises, it is necessary to create a parallel power generation strategy that supplements the utility grid ensuring the state can produce sufficient power.
The effects of climate change have contributed to extreme drought and the tree mortality crisis. The research derived from this project helps address these challenges and advances California’s clean energy policies.
The Powertainer also contributes to the following policy objectives:
- Senate Bill 100 (California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program [Chapter 312, Statutes of 2018])
- Senate Bill 350 (Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015 [Chapter 547, Statutes of 2015])
