Some California lawmakers want the woody biomass from forest thinning efforts to be used for electricity generation, after four years of catastrophic wildfires bathed the West Coast in smoke, with rural disasters choking major urban areas.

The normally good air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area, for instance, was among the worst in the nation during last summer’s massive fires that burned more than 4 million acres.

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D), who represents the wealthy San Francisco suburbs near where the SCU Lightning Complex of fires burned almost 400,000 acres in August and September, argued for biomass during Wednesday’s hearing of the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee, which approved a measure that could give bioenergy a boost.

Sierra Pacific Industries operates five cogeneration facilities in California that use woody biomass from forest thinning and sawmill operations, including this plant in Shasta County. | Sierra Pacific Industries

“I am a diehard environmentalist and have one of the strongest environmental records in the legislature, and yet we have to be real about what is happening,” Bauer-Kahan said. “We are having to thin our forests because, as we all know, one of the largest emissions sources right now is our wildfires, and the toxic air that is coming into all of our communities, whether you live in one of these high fire [threat] zones or not, is poisoning our children. And so we’re doing the work to prevent that, and that is leading to biomass.”

The black carbon and other particulate matter from wildfires are far worse than the relatively small amount of pollutants released by biomass plants, she and others contended.

California law requires the state to rely entirely on clean energy and renewable resources by midcentury. Although biomass is classified as a renewable resource, environmentalists have opposed it because burning wood and agricultural waste emits pollutants, as does burning methane from the mountains of manure produced by California’s large industrial dairies.

Two major environmental groups, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, initially opposed the measure that Bauer-Kahan and other urban Democrats supported. The groups removed their opposition to Assembly Bill 322, introduced by Assemblymember Rudy Salas Jr. (D), only after he agreed to remove a proposal to dedicate a large chunk of the state’s renewable energy research funding to biomass projects.

Before it was amended, AB 322 would have required the California Energy Commission (CEC) to allocate at least 20% of its Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) funding to biomass research and innovative startup projects. The EPIC program dispenses about $130 million each year, meaning biomass could have received $26 million annually, significantly more than the CEC has allocated previously.

Woody biomass fuels the 44-MW Mt. Poso Cogeneration faciliity in Bakersfield, Calif. | DTE Energy

Getting rid of the spending requirement means the bill only asks the CEC and the California Public Utilities Commission to consider biomass projects in future funding cycles. Some lawmakers on the committee, both Democrats and Republicans, strongly disagreed with the decision.

“A whole lot of people just spoke on a bill that no longer exists,” Assemblymember Bill Quirk (D), also from the San Francisco Bay Area, said after a round of public comment. “We’re just basically going to politely ask, which I’m sure will not mean a whole lot.”

Forest biomass is typically the most expensive fuel for generation. It cost about $200/MWh, compared with $50/ MWh for solar power in 2019, the CPUC reported.

Transportation is a major factor. “The maximum viable haul from the forest to the biomass power plant is 50 miles to be financially feasible,” the energy committee’s analysis of AB 322 said.

That cost is a main reason biomass has never become a major power source in California.

The CEC said there were 79 biomass and waste-to-energy power plants operating in 2019, producing less than 3% of in-state generation. Most of the plants are small, with nameplate capacities ranging from 2 to 32 MW, and only a half dozen use woody biomass for fuel.

Total capacity of bioenergy in California declined from 1,301 MW in 2014 to 1,289 MW in 2019, with 10 plants idled, the CEC reported.

Quirk acknowledged the cost hurdle, but he said biomass research and demonstration projects are needed for forest management and wildfire prevention.

“The problem I see is that it’s not just a matter of generating electricity,” he said. “The problem here is what you do with the biomass and what the alternatives are if you don’t do this. It becomes extremely expensive to, say, take it and compost it somewhere. Is that what we’re going to do?”

Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders announced a deal Thursday to spend an extra $536 million to accelerate forest management and other fire-prevention efforts.

With the state focused on wildfire fuel reduction, it needs a plan to deal with millions of tons of forest debris or face larger problems down the road, Quirk said.

“This is not just an energy issue; this is a much wider environmental issue,” he said.

Assemblymember Jim Patterson, the Republican vice chair of the energy committee, said he was disappointed the bill had been weakened. Patterson’s district encompasses much of the burn area from last summer’s 380,000-acre Creek Fire, which started in September 2020. It was the biggest wildfire in state history that was not part of a larger complex of fires.

“Most of you know I’m a rate hawk, and I’ve been one since being vice chair here,” Patterson said. “But I think my colleague [Quirk] raises a very important point: that there is more to cost than merely the creation of the electricity.”

Like others, Patterson said he would vote for the weakened bill in hopes that it would prompt more interest in using biomass generation as part of the state’s wildfire prevention efforts.

“My hope is that it will begin a conversation, and I hope that the regulatory agencies that are going to make these decisions will take the comments seriously of members here, and also ask the real tough question about what happens if we don’t,” Patterson said.