Woody biomass utilization policies: State rankings for the U.S.

ScienceDirect.com
Received 5 May 2011. Revised 2 March 2012. Accepted 5 March 2012. Available online 2 April 2012.
by Zhimei Guo, , Donald G. Hodges, Timothy M. Young
Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, Knoxville, TN 37996-4563, United States

Most state governments have adopted state programs and laws recently that provide fiscal incentives and non-fiscal supports for renewable energy projects in the hope that they will encourage the establishment of new bioenergy industry and economic growth. This research analyzes the disparity in the strength of state government incentives in the use of woody biomass. A woody biomass policy index was created through scoring and weighting different categories of policies based on the potential effects on site location decisions. Results indicate that as of 2008 Iowa, North Carolina, and Washington provided the strongest incentives, whereas Wyoming, Mississippi, and Virginia offered the weakest support to the bioenergy industry using woody biomass. This index is not only helpful for new business investors in making siting decisions, but also for state policy makers considering new woody biomass relevant legislation to spur the bioenergy industry.


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Report: Few states ready to tap wood heat potential

Biomass Power & Thermal
By Anna Austin February 17, 2011

The Alliance for Green Heat has released a report that finds that while the use of wood for heat in many states is rapidly increasing, most states do little or nothing to promote and manage it.

In the report, the alliance grades all states on categories which include policies that help reduce wood smoke, promote the cleanest appliances and restrict the most polluting ones, and provide educational information on best wood heat practices.

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Europe Lagging U.S., China on Biofuels Use, Novozymes CEO Says

Bloomberg
By Alex Morales - Jul 29, 2010 6:01 PM CDT Thu Jul 29 23:01:00 UTC 2010

Europe is lagging the U.S., China and Brazil in developing biofuels for transportation because of a lack of political direction, Novozymes A/S Chief Executive Officer Steen Riisgaard said.

Brazil aims to displace 10 percent of global gasoline use with ethanol by 2020; China is testing corn-based ethanol in nine provinces; and the U.S. has set fuel standards requiring ethanol use, said Riisgaard, whose companies is the world’s biggest maker of enzymes used to refine biofuels.

“Brazil knows what it wants to do,” Riisgaard said in an interview at Bloomberg’s office in London. “In the United States, similarly, they have a renewable fuels standard -- they know what they want to do. You go to China: the government knows what it wants to do. They have a plan. You come to Europe and there’s not this kind of political direction. We don’t know what we want to do.”

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States with Renewable Portfolio Standards

U.S. Department of Energy

Select a state on the map below for a link to an explanation of the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for that state published by the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy (DSIRE).

A renewable portfolio standard is a state policy that requires electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. Currently there are 24 states plus the District of Columbia that have RPS policies in place. Together these states account for more than half of the electricity sales in the United States.

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