Biomass Feasibility Project Final Report - Xcel Energy

The BioPET tool includes more than 60 biomass feedstocks from fields, forests, livestock barns, and
municipal waste streams. They were selected because they exist in quantity in Minnesota. The
written report’s account of them may appear more authoritative than it really can be, having to
rely as it does on assumptions and normalizations applied to an assortment of data from sources
that used different methodologies. We detail our methodology in the appendices. If the BioPET
user has better data, he/she is encouraged to substitute it into the computer-based evaluator.
The text and the computer tool present our informed estimates, no more, no less.
Using estimates detailed in Chapter II as Minnesota’s total growth or production of biomass
feedstocks – their “theoretical potential” – Chapter III shows how much of those gross volumes
an be captured physically – their “technical potential” – and how much of that might be usable
for energy after deducting biomasses in high demand for other uses and hence too expensive
to use as fuel.
Sample Inventory Maps
Page ii
Identifying Effective Biomass Strategies:
Quantifying Minnesota’s Resources and Evaluating Future Opportunities