Life Cycle Assessment Report
West Forest LLC, has undertaken the development of a composite wood panel production facility in northern California. As part of this initiative, and in collaboration with TSS Consultants, SIG joined the project to conduct a comprehensive greenhouse gas (GHG) life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis for specific wood products
Low-Risk Bioenergy Can Be A Critical Climate Solution
A group of bioenergy experts, including several members of the SIG Team, are pushing for its use to comply with the newly final Clean Power Plan claiming low-risk versions of the energy source offer a host of benefits ranging from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to restoring degraded lands. Read their full opinion piece here.
Planning And Implementing Fuel Treatments To Reduce Fire Hazard And Restore Healthy Wildlands And Forest Communities
California landowners, land managers, and planners are acutely aware of their region’s exposure to wildfire and its associated hazards. Local, state, and federal efforts to moderate fire behavior with fuel treatments have dramatically expanded as wildfires have increased in size, severity, and community impacts.
Approved: SIG’s Methodology For Estimating Reduced Emissions From Megaffires
In March, the Climate Action Reserve’s Climate Forward program approved SIG’s Reduced Emissions from Megafires (REM) forecasting methodology. This methodology provides a novel mechanism for funding essential forest health projects by generating Forecasted Mitigation Units (FMUs) for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoided by reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires. Such funding will pave the way for reducing fuels and increasing forest resilience.
Can You Fight Climate Change By Burning Wood? It’s Complicated
Wood grown in the United States is being ground up, dried out, pressed into pellets, and shipped to Europe, where power plants burn it to make electricity.
Is this good for the planet?
With Biomass Energy, The Carbon Savings Are In the Details
Biomass energy, Michael Moore’s new documentary Planet of the Humans faces criticism from environmentalists for using outdated data and simplistic analyses on renewables.
Preventing California’s Catastrophic Wildfires Requires Careful Forest Management
In 2015, the world experienced the strongest El Niño year on record, and forest fires tore through homes, businesses and lives in many parts of the world – one of which was California. That year 150,000 acres burned in the state, costing over USD $1 billion in insurance claims.
SIG Working In Kenya On Biomass Supply Chain
Dr. Thomas Buchholz, Senior Scientist at SIG, will be in Kenya this spring to provide assistance in biomass supply chain management to the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). He is collaborating with the Strathmore Energy Research Centre based at Strathmore University in Nairobi on this task. KTDA is in need to provide a more secure, cost-effective, and sustainable fuelwood supply over the long-term. To meet those needs, KTDA is looking at various alternatives and monitoring programs for their currently small-scale farmer based fuelwood sourcing strategy. Dr. Buchholz leads the Forest and Agriculture domain at Spatial Informatics Group.
Wildfire Most Important Factor In Carbon-Payback Period For Forest Biomass Energy Projects
SIG co-developed software to remotely monitor gold mining activity in Colombia. Illegal mining is a driver of deforestation and this project aims to empower authorities to respond quickly and appropriately. CoMiMo, which is available for desktop in both English and Spanish, uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to identify threatened areas.
