Bureau of Business and Economic Research, Forest Product Research, Biomass Research

The Forest Industry Reseach Group of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research is uniquely postitioned to do extensive research into the historic, current and future status and uses of forest biomass. With data collected directly from mills for several decades the Forest Industry Group can and has utilized this data along with economic, forest management and research expertise to extract, collect and analyze data on biomass flows and availability.
Recent studies related to biomass are:

• An Assessment of Forest-based Woody Biomass Supply and Use in Montana
• May 2009 Presentation to the Montana Bioenergy Workshop

A study to enhance the ability of federal land managers in the Western United States to address the financial and economic aspects of woody biomass removal was funded by the Joint Fire Science Program. The study was broken into two parts.

1) A compilation of an annotated bibliography on the body of economic and financial information and tools currently available to federal land managers.
Annotated Bibliography

2) Conducting focus groups with federal land managers throughout the West to understand their current knowledge and use of existing information and tools as well as barriers to biomass utilization,
Enhancing Western Managers' Knowledge and Use of Available Economic and Financial Biomass Information and Tools

Results from this study were presented as a poster at the Society of American Foresters Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida in October 2009. Additional biomass research from the Joint Fire Science Program can be found here.