New Energy Risk Included in Report: Advancing Collaborative Action on Forest Biofuels in California

Matt Lucas participated in a working group addressing climate change, wildfire risk, and environmental justice to contribute to this report published by the Joint Institute For Wood Products Innovation.
Read the full publication here.

Low-carbon and carbon-negative fuels from non-merchantable forest biomass can help California attain its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets and offer an opportunity to support sustainable forest restoration activities to reduce wildfire risk. Development and deployment of these innovative wood products can help the state of California increase the pace and scale of forest restoration efforts, strengthen regional capacity, support innovation, reduce vulnerability to wildfire, and promote carbon storage in long-lived products, including geologically sequestered CO2. These fuels can also play a pivotal role in California’s world-leading ambition to address climate change.

Yet successful commercialization of low- and carbon-negative fuels from forest biomass is far from certain, despite existing policy support. Fundamental challenges relate to the inability to secure long-term feedstock contracts from public lands, exclusion of forest biomass from public lands under the federal Renewable Fuels Standard, supply from municipal and agricultural biomass markets, and a lack of biofuels infrastructure situated near California’s forested communities. Without meaningful effort from relevant state and federal policymakers, California risks missing the opportunity to develop and deploy these fuels.