Adequate clonal material and management systems for planting, tending, and harvesting will also need to be developed. The crops of choice in much of the Northeast and Southeast are probably woody species, which would require extensive nursery activity to put the needed clonal material in place for planting out. With willow, the first harvest cycle would be four years after planting and a rotation of three years thereafter. For poplar, the cycle is likely to be in the range of six to eight years. Because biomass generally contains significantly less sulfur than coal, cofiring with biomass could reduce SOx emissions.
Early results suggest that there is also a NOx reduction potential using woody biomass.
But some stations sell fly ash to Portland cement manufacturers, so there may be a need to negotiate the acceptance of mixed biomass and coal ash in such applications with respect to ASTM standards. The DFSS environmental impact is dependent on the choice of lands for plantations. Replacing annual cropland with perennial DFSS appears to result in a net environmental gain. Results for pasture land are probably negligible and replacement of forest may result in some increased impacts. The use of residue has the potential to offset landfilling as well as potential methane emissions from landfilling clean biomass materials.