Technical and economic status of wood energy feedstock production

We update the technical status of wood feedstock production and highlight areas where the technology used to produce energy crops has changed since publication of an earlier paper. Most of the research findings presented earlier still hold, but the target dates for achieving them are in the distant future. We estimate current delivered costs in the range of about $2.30/GJ in the Pacific Northwest to a high of about $3.30/GJ in the Midwest cornbelt. Elsewhere costs are about $2.60 to $2.90/GJ. Increasing productivity and lowering harvesting costs can reduce delivered costs by about $0.50/GJ in the Northeast, Southeast, and Lake States, $0.70/GJ in the Midwest cornbelt, and $0.40/GJ in the Pacific Northwest. Whether woody crops become viable commercial commodities in the $2.00 to $2.40/GJ price range depends on a number of circumstances related to price and performance comparisons with conventional fuels.