Biomass Resource Assessment Part I - Gainesville Regional Utilities

conservative tipping fee of -$25 dry ton -1 (i.e., a cost of negative $25 dry ton -1 ), which isequivalent to -$15 green ton -1 .2. Logging residues. Forest plantation owners pay post-harvest site preparation costs ofabout $462 ha -1 ($186 acre -1 ), including raking and piling of logging residues (Smidt,Silveira Folegatti et al. 2005). Removal of logging residues reduces these sitepreparation costs for replanting plantations (Watson and Stokes 1989). Therefore,logging residues also represent a liability to the resource owner and are currentlyavailable at no or low cost (Watson, Ragan et al. 1986). However, some smallprocurement cost may be required to draw logging residue resources. Therefore, weassume procurement costs of $3 dry ton -1 ($1.89 green ton -1 at 37% moisture content).3. Thinnings. By definition, pre-commercial thinnings are forest thinnings done at a costto the forest landowner as a stand treatment, rather than as a profitable harvest.However, to ensure the economic availability of forest thinnings, we assume a stumpageprice of $6 dry ton -1 ($3.18 green ton -1 ), about half that of current stumpage prices.4. Pulpwood. Pulpwood is a more expensive woody biomass resource that can beemployed to meet demand beyond that available from waste resources. In an initialanalysis, we used south-wide averages of softwood pulpwood stumpage for the 4 thQuarter of 2006 of $13.00 dry ton -1 . In this analysis we have increased prices to $15.21dry ton -1 ($8.06 green ton -1 ) as reported by Timber Mart-South for Florida in the 1 stQuarter of 2007. This price is at the higher end of the range of stumpage prices seenover the past several years.Harvest and processing cost1. Urban wood wastes. The cost of processing urban wood waste ranges from $6.45-$27.50 green ton -1 in a 2006 bid request in Florida (Osceola County Board of CountyCommissioners 2006). We assume that urban wood waste can be received, screened,and chipped for $30 dry ton -1 ($18.90 green ton -1 ).2. Logging residues, thinnings, and pulpwood harvests. To estimate chipping costs, weuse Timber-Mart South 1 st Q 2007 delivered pulp chip prices ($30.00 green ton -1 ) andsubtracted average stumpage ($8.06 green ton -1 ), harvest ($11.64 green ton -1 ), anddelivery costs ($4.65 green ton -1 ) yielding $5.74 green ton -1 . Adding chipping costs($5.74 green ton -1 ) and reported harvest costs ($11.64 green ton -1 ) yields $33.00 dry20