Wood supply short; Power plants, fuel cited
By Karen Dandurant
kdandurant@seacoastonline.com
July 03, 2008 6:00 AM
PORTSMOUTH — Those hoping to use wood instead of home heating oil this winter might have a problem finding any to burn.
Demand, fueled by rising oil prices, is going through the roof. And, adding even more pressure, some say, Public Service of New Hampshire's new wood-fired Schiller Station is also gobbling up low-grade wood. The power company, however, says it is also being squeezed and paying more for the wood it burns in its boilers.
As more people are rushing out to buy wood stoves, those in the industry say that for a number of reasons, there is a shortage of wood to buy. New stove owners may find it impossible to buy anything but green wood, if they can even find that.
Frank Borman, Rockingham County Extension forester at the University of New Hampshire's Cooperative Extension, said there are several reasons firewood is fast becoming scarce.
One reason is the market for low-grade hardwood chips for wood-burning power plants like Schiller Station.
"That adds competition because now it's being chipped on the landing site, blown into semi-trucks and shipped to plants, because with the high price of diesel fuel, it's just not economical to make a lot of deliveries."
Borman said the cost of diesel raises the cost of operation for those cutting and delivering wood.
"They need to spend more money to get to the saw mill or to buyers," Borman said. "That leaves a very small profit margin."
Don Dubois, owner of Dubois Tree Service in Manchester, agreed. He said the wood chip industry is eating up all the firewood.
"They are paying $38 a ton for wood chips at the power plants," Dubois said. "Loggers are chipping everything they get their hands on. There's people who call me three times a day, and I don't know where to get it. I buy it from a guy who owns a pulp mill who's selling his wood for chips. He also barks his wood for mulch."
Martin Murray, spokesman for PSNH, which owns Schiller Station in Newington, said the company's wood comes from an entirely different supply source and he has not heard that its wood-burning boilers were cutting into the residential market.
"If it's true, it's a new twist," Murray said. "What we're burning in Newington historically has been that portion of the tree that would not be used for residential sale. I think we get the unwanted wood at the top of tree, above the portion used in the pulp market.
To be sure, Murray checked with Dick Despins, Schiller's plant manger.
"He agreed with my point that we're really not seeing any hint that we are cutting into the market for residential wood," Murray said. "I think this is really more a question of increased demand, but our wood does not come from the dealers who split the wood and sell it to residential customers. We get it from commercial loggers who invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment."
Murray said his plant has been affected by an increase in price.
"We can trace it to some degree to the slowdown in construction and home starts," Murray said. "A good, healthy portion of our wood source comes from the clearing of areas for wood, and that is used to build homes. A portion of what's left over is used as chips for us and the higher grade sawdust is used by the wood pellet industry. The decline and diesel prices have impacted saw mills and so we have to pay more to get it here."
Another part of the reason is the cutting of firewood or low-grade wood on a wood lot is not economical for the person cutting it or for the property owner unless they have higher grade saw timber to go along with it, Borman said. "We've seen a decline in the prices paid for quality woods like white pine, red oak and birch so a lot are not harvesting wood because of the price. As a result, there is a another reduction in the availability of the low-grade woods for firewood."
Dubois said he's seeing a dramatic increase in the number of calls from people asking for wood.
"A lot of people are putting in wood stoves who never had one before," Dubois said. "For every dollar you put in wood, you save money. I've been doing firewood for 25 years, so I know a little bit about it. Others in the industry are facing the same issues."
Even though there was a lot of snow this past winter, the ground never froze, said Borman. He said that means a lot of loggers didn't harvest because they couldn't get heavy equipment onto their wood lots.
"We've seen a little increase in the past couple of months, so it might help later in the year, but it will be green wood — not seasoned," Borman said. "Oak or maple needs six months to a year to become good, seasoned wood. If people have no supply from last year to start out with, seasoned wood is definitely going to be hard to find."
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