MANUFACTURING
Every summer and fall for the past decade , California ’ s wildfires have been getting larger and more destructive . Eight of the 10 largest forest fires in California history have occurred in the last five years . The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reports that in 2021 , wildfires burned more than 3 million acres and destroyed 3,629 homes . These included the Dixie Fire , the second largest in state history , which consumed just shy of 1 million acres , more than 1,500 square miles .
Scientists blame two things for the rise of the megafire . First , global climate change , which fuels wildfires , drought and insect infestation , has dried out forests everywhere , killed more than 100 million trees in the Sierra Nevada and given birth to weather systems that feed infernos . Second , is the overabundance of forest fuels resulting from the mismanagement of wildland . Policies enforcing the practice of extinguishing every wildfire removed nature ’ s system of managing the buildup of fuels , both standing dead trees and accumulated biomass on the forest floor . One solution to this problem is forest thinning — the harvest of unmarketable trees and other woody biomass . Wildland managers are also increasing the use of prescribed burns , which seek to bring back a practice that indigenous people throughout the West employed for millennia to prevent fuel from accumulating .
The California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force is part of a $ 1 billion effort to fundamentally change the ways forests throughout the state are managed . It involves all of the land management agencies managing California ’ s forest — state , federal and tribal — as well as representatives of private
“ This represents not only a real big improvement over petroleum , but a big improvement over most of the projects that are on the market making renewable diesel or renewable jet fuel .”
COLIN MURPHY Biofuels expert and deputy director of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy , Environment , and the Economy
forestland owners , including logging companies and individuals . Its mission is to establish “ healthy and resilient forests that can withstand and adapt to wildfire , drought and a changing climate .”
One of the primary ways the task force is working to achieve that goal is through forest thinning . Its published plan includes a directive to use this harvest to help “ build a sustainable wood-products market in California .” Because this wood has no value as lumber , there have been hopes , in the three years since the task force convened , that it might be used as a source for biofuel . In recent years , several companies in Northern California have developed technologies that can do just that — turn wood waste into fuel .
West Biofuels ’ Woodland Development Center is at work turning wood chips into syngas ( synthetic gas ), which can be converted into liquid fuels or energy . West Biofuels also uses biomass to make ethanol and methane .
Working with the California Energy Commission , UC Davis , the Sacramento Metropolitan Utilities District and other partners , West Biofuels is developing technology specifically designed to turn biomass residue from sustainable forest management practices into renewable electricity . The company is also building a modular system that can be deployed directly to the sites where forest fuel reduction projects are taking place .
The biggest player in the global woodwaste biofuel business is Aemetis , based in Riverbank in Stanislaus County . It signed a $ 1 billion deal to provide sustainable aviation fuel to Delta Air Lines in October 2021 and a $ 1.1 billion deal with American Airlines in December . The company uses woody biomass to manufacture fuel that cuts the carbon impact of air travel , which is responsible for putting more than 800 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year . Its biomass technology has the potential to provide the sustainable wood-products market California needs to turn forest fuels into a viable clean energy industry .
An emerging industry
When Aemetis Chairman and CEO Eric McAfee was 14 years old , his grandmother gave him and his brother 400 acres of land east of Fresno , and the boys started a company . In their teenage years , McAfee recalls , he and his brother Mark grew McAfee Farms to 2,200 acres of agricultural land producing row crops . They built a dairy farm and eventually put in 520 acres of almond orchards . While helping run the farm , McAfee attended Merced College and Fresno State . He went on to receive post-graduate certificates from Stanford and Harvard universities . Over the next couple of decades ,
52 comstocksmag . com | January 2022