It is no secret the world will eventually have to alter its fossil fuel mentality and turn to alternative fuel sources for the future.

In an effort to help ensure this transition is done in the most effective and beneficial way possible, the University is hosting an alternative fuel conference entitled “Energy from Wood: Exploring the Issues and Impacts for North Carolina.”

The conference will take place today and tomorrow in the McKimmon Center.

Dennis Hazel, assistant professor for the College of Natural Resources and the director of the event, explained this conference is unique compared to similar conferences held around the country.

“This will be a little unique because we aren’t targeting just foresters or the scientific community, but we are gearing it towards a diverse group — including policy makers, legislative staff, regulatory agencies such as air and water quality and land owners,” he said.

The conference focuses on woody biomass burning technologies, especially those that can be implemented domestically, such as co-firing wood chips with coal in public utility coal plants.

Using technology like this, Hazel said, can be developed much sooner than technologies like fuel cells.

According to Hazel, the point of the conference is to “present the current state of the art technologies that utilize woody biomasses for energy and take a look at how much sustainable energy is potentially available from woody biomasses.”

“We also want to speculate about the impacts of these new technologies on the environment,” he said.

According to the conference’s Web site, there will be speakers ranging from industrial, political and academic backgrounds including Stan Adams from the N.C. Division of Forest Resources; Wade Bennett, the CEO of Craven Wood Energy in New Bern; and Jian Gan, an associate professor of forest science at Texas A&M University.

J.B. Jett, the dean of the College of Natural Resources, explained the importance of having such a conference.

“I personally believe that the demand for energy will continue and the cost of energy will continue to rise,” he said. “In my mind, this sets the stage for the need to explore and develop alternative sources of energy and that we will ultimately embrace a broad portfolio of energy options and conservation measures.” Jett also pointed to the fact that the University has the ability to be a major contributor to the advancement of alternative energies.

“NCSU has the technical expertise spread over many colleges that can provide a critical role in informing legislators and commissions and groups regarding the science of renewable energy sources and opportunities,” he said. “When you confront the realities of North Carolina’s use of petroleum products and the fact that [North Carolina] has no oil reserves but does have a wealth of biomaterials that could serve as an energy source, NCSU can play a significant role in addressing alternative energy sources.”

According to Jett however, the University is not the only college in the nation working on similar platforms.

“NCSU has the talent to be a leader in the area of alternative fuels based on biomaterials. However, we are not unique in this capacity and other regional universities such as Georgia, Tennessee, Auburn and Mississippi State have active programs and, I might add, state and/or federal funding to pursue this area of research and development.”

Hazel offered a reason as to how NCSU sets itself apart from other universities engaging in similar studies.

“Our advantage is that we are doing a good job of gluing our colleges together to attack this problem — we have a lot of synergy,” he said.

To give an idea of the science behind extracting energy from the process of burning woodchips, the conference will also feature a trip to the Dorothea Dix campus energy facility, which burns about 8,500 tons of wood chips annually for peak energy demand, according to the conference Web site.

Hazel gave an overview of the importance of pursuing wood burning technologies and why it can help clean up the environment.

“The number one thing about burning wood is that wood is a carbon-neutral product. Everything we burn now for energy, ranging from the gas in your Civic or a coal plant, produces carbon dioxide which contributes to Global Warming,” he said.

He mentioned a basic scenario of this process.

Burning a ton of carbon, he said, yields roughly a ton of carbon in the atmosphere.

So if a ton of carbon in a tree is burned, a ton of carbon is released in the air.

But if the land remains in-forest, a tree will grow back and use about a ton of carbon dioxide.

“It is basically recycling,” Hazel said. “If you char the tree and then put a Food Lion in its spot — then the deal is off.”

According to Hazel, there is opposition to these new technologies — primarily from industries that produce traditional forest products such as paper and OSB, a form of plywood.

“Junk wood, which is low quality crooked trees [and tree] species that people don’t want, and chipped up low value material are what the paper and OSB industries use to make their product,” he said. Wood burning technologies use similar resources.

“Their main fear is that wood burning for energy would cause high demand — which means higher prices,” Hazel said.

He added an important facet of this conference is to discuss such fears and concerns and their solutions.

The future of using wood burning technologies looks very promising in the U.S. when compared to other fuel sources.

According to the Annual Energy Review of 2003 from the Energy Information Administration, only 6 percent of U.S. energy consumption comes from renewable energy sources. The data also indicates already 34 percent of the renewable energy sources come from wood.

Hazel explained the 45 percent coming from hydroelectric power isn’t likely to increase and the 2 percent from wind has little potential for growth in the U.S. simply because of its aesthetic implications.

He pointed out the 4 percent coming from alcohol fuels and the 34 percent coming from wood burning processes are the most likely to grow in the future.

According to Hazel, more than 200 facilities in N.C. are wood fired.

“They use saw dust, wood waste, etc,” he said.

Hazel explained about 700,000 private landowners own 70 percent of all the land in North Carolina and “because of poor logging practices and poor markets, a lot of forest land has a huge component of low-value trees.”

Hazel added his primary goal for this conference is to “create markets for low-value material.”

He explained this would solve many problems.

“We believe that for a lot of our forest land if we can get rid of low-value material, we will improve the productivity of the next forest and will sequester more carbon than the previous forest,” Hazel said. William Schlesinger, the dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University indicated in a November News and Observer article, “Trees may be North Carolina’s oil tank; every calorie of energy generated by burning biomass rather than fossil fuels leaves fossil carbon in the ground rather than adding it to our atmosphere.”

For more information about the conference, visit their Web site at http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/nreos/forest/feop/Agenda2006/energy/.