Seasonal visitors are drawn to Ruidoso every year to enjoy the cool temperatures, native wildlife and thousands of acres of heavily forested private and public land.
At one time, property owners had to fight to win approval to cut a tree, but today a village ordinance mandates forest management for watershed health and wildfire fuel reduction, which often entails removal of trees within 30 feet of a house and thinning to eliminate the crowns of trees touching, as well as trimming off lower tree branches called ladder fuel.
While the program may save homes from wildfires, it produces tons of waste material and members of the Ruidoso Forest Working Group hoped some of that byproduct could be used to fire a power generator to operate a regional wastewater treatment plant, and selling electricity excess to that need.
However, they were told at a meeting last week that the prospect of using woody material cut from lots to generate power looks unlikely, because a sufficient future stream of fuel is uncertain and a relatively small amount of energy would be produced, meaning the cost per kilowatt hour would be high.
Village Manager Debi Lee introduced Russell Guillette of the Guillette Foundation, who she met at the groundbreaking for the Rio Ruidoso River Trail at Two-Rivers Park. "Once you talk to him, you realize he's not your ordinary businessman," she said. He owns multiple businesses and pursues multiple interests, Lee said. "He's also here to make a difference
Guillette said he's creating a pilot biomass power plant in Glencoe that will use biodiesel. He's been in the business of extracting value-added products from a vegetable oil stream, primarily palm and soy, for two decades, he said. In the last few years, the demand for ethanol and biodiesel derived from grains, vegetable oils, sugar and other crops or derived products rose sharply. For energy generation, palm oil can be burned directly as fuel, used as raw material for biodiesel production, according to information on the Internet.
"We fire directly from the fuel itself for a higher BTU," Guillette said, referring to the British thermal unit, a unit of energy content. Typically, woody biomass power burners are associated with large paper pulp operation to ensure there is a ready source, he said.
Stoddard contended a "ready source" also would be available locally, "If (U.S. Forest Service) people would realize their approach (amounts to) mismanagement of the (Lincoln National) forest, but I don't know if that's going to happen in my lifetime."
Committee member Van Patton said he studied the situation for 16 years, hoped that furnace pellet production might be the answer, but came up empty, especially in view of the low quality of yard material he receives for disposal and the creation of mulch at Sierra Blanca Contracting. He also criticized the use of corn, saying it takes as much energy going into the process to produce an equal amount for use on the out side.
With a small amount of power being generated at a high cost per kilowatt hour, "See what the Otero Electric Cooperative thinks of that," he said in reference to the chances of selling power locally based on woody material.