California’s Hub for Biomass Supply Chain and Market Development
Between 2021 and 2026, the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI) led a statewide pilot program on regional biomass coordination and supply chain development. This website is the central hub for information about the program.
Our Goals
Fund five (5) pilot projects to develop regional solutions on coordinating biomass supply and encouraging new market development. Each region is expected to focus on the following:
Establish…
reliable access to woody feedstock through a variety of feedstock aggregation mechanisms and organizational innovations.
Improve…
feedstock supply chain logistics within each target region through an institutional arrangement with the structure, authority and resources to aggregate and initiate long term feedstock contracts.
Explore and assess…
market opportunities of potential woody biomass businesses in each target region.
Increase…
feedstock aggregation on all relevant land types, including private and non commercial land, especially where opportunity exists to produce community fire resilience benefits.
Explore…
innovative tools and concepts to improve feedstock supply chain logistics, market research data, and develop guidance for biomass utilization on private and noncommercial lands.
Pilot Regions
Summary
California’s landscape is changing. From 2018 to 2021, more than 21 million acres of productive forest land burned in CA; this includes more than 1.5 million acres of high-severity fire. California has chosen to play an active role in how these changes will reshape our natural and working lands by creating an action plan to unify the vision and priorities across agencies, sectors, and governments to address systemic issues facing the forest restoration sector. Since 2018 billions have been invested in treating our landscapes to accomplish these goals.
However, as treatments increase, markets for the material removed from forest restoration and fuel reduction activities have become overwhelmed, and in some cases, are absent altogether. Entrepreneurs and project developers looking to serve these regions by creating product solutions encounter persistent issues and regular barriers to development. The LCI Woody Feedstock Aggregation Pilot Program works to address some of the biggest and most complicated aspects of building regional biomass supply chains and statewide tools to enable new businesses to succeed.
These include:
- Proving a long-term supply of material in order to obtain needed financing for multi-million dollar processing facilities or wood product campuses
- Researching new ways public dollars can be leveraged to build a more efficient supply chain
- Integrating the various business support tools and research that has been created for new businesses to better plan, forecast, and strategize around regional biomass utilization
Importantly, this program will not regulate nor replace existing businesses; and would be voluntary and technology agnostic.
Frequently Asked Questions
Additional questions? Please contact Michael Maguire at michael.maguire@lci.ca.gov
Biomass is considered to be the small diameter trees (<12in diameter at breast height (DBH)), tree tops, limbs, and understory brush. Additional biomass sources from agriculture, sawmill residue, and urban+construction sources are relevant to this program as well. Reach out to the regional point of contact to see if there are opportunities to further engage on these biomass sources.
No. This program is a market-enabling program that attempts to look at the regional and market-level barriers that restrict new biomass-consuming businesses from starting. In additional regional coordination on the subject, we also focus on a number of statewide concepts that attempt to reduce friction with real-time data on available markets and reducing long-term risk to feedstock contracts through legal and financial mechanisms.
Indirectly, yes. The pilot program operates on the assumption that building new business closer to forest treatments will lead to better financial viability. However, the program will not purchase equipment, land, or physical biomass material. By acting as a regional convenor, and in some cases, broker for biomass, the program aims to reduce risk to business and infrastructure development.
No. It will not regulate nor replace existing businesses. It will also be voluntary and technology agnostic. Currently, California primarily relies on bioenergy facilities to support forest restoration projects. There is strong evidence to suggest that next-generation technologies that convert biomass to renewable fuels will lead to better economics, however, there are no manufacturers currently operating in California.
For state-level updates contact the LCI program manager Michael Maguire. For regional updates, find the regional contact listed on the regional webpages located at the top of the menu bar.