Forest waste in.
Local economy out.
Gila WoodNet builds regional circular economies around the wood that forest restoration leaves behind, turning a disposal cost into heat, power, biochar, products and jobs in the communities closest to the forest.
Our mission is to advance the creation and support of localized circular economies with utilization of liability biomass at its core, and combined heat, power and biochar as an anchor product.
Every thinning project leaves a pile behind.
Forest restoration means thinning and fuels reduction to prevent catastrophic wildfire and bring forests back to health. The work leaves slash, small-diameter trees and brush. Land managers treat that residue as waste. Most of it is piled and burned, at public expense, sending its value up in smoke.
We call it liability biomass, a term coined by our founder Gordon West. It costs money to remove, money to burn, and adds smoke and fire risk while it waits. It is also one of the most continuous, renewable feedstocks in the rural West.
Pile and burn
- Paid for by land managers and taxpayers
- Smoke, particulates and escaped-fire risk
- Carbon released all at once
- Value leaves the county
Feedstock for a local economy
- Disposal costs become avoided costs
- Clean combustion of syngas for heat and power
- Carbon held in biochar and returned to soil
- Jobs and businesses stay local
One material, many lives, all in the region.
A circular economy at community scale, where one enterprise's residual is the next one's feedstock and the value cascades through successive uses before anything returns to the land. Select a step to follow the material.
Energy first. Biochar as the co-product.
At the center of every node is the Biochar+Energy System (BES), a continuous-feed pyrolysis unit developed by our partner The Trollworks. It turns chipped liability biomass into heat and power at the place they are used, with biochar as a co-product.
We lead with energy on purpose. Heat and electricity made on site displace what a business already buys at retail prices, and that value only grows as energy costs rise. Biochar adds a second revenue stream that can grow with the local market instead of depending on it.
The system is micro-scale and distributed: sized for a resort, a school, a greenhouse or a processing plant, not a central power station.
Process and space heat
Syngas from pyrolysis burns cleanly to heat greenhouses, buildings and drying operations that would otherwise run on propane or grid power.
On-site electricity
Combined heat and power design pairs the system with a Stirling engine generator, so rural sites can produce part of the electricity they use.
Durable carbon for soil
A stable, porous carbon that holds water and nutrients in soil and growing media, and keeps carbon out of the atmosphere for the long term.
A shared workshop for a forest economy.
Our Santa Clara site is an innovation center and collaborative business incubator. We own the land, building, power service and processing equipment, and we share them. Small enterprises use the same chippers, grinders, log line and workers, so a new business can start with a material stream instead of a capital loan.
Ten businesses have been incubated here, most recently the New Earth Project. Each product line below is a way to keep the material in use a little longer.
Biochar
Soil amendment, compost blends and growing media.
Heat and power
Energy for the site and for co-located enterprises.
Johnson-Su compost
A microbially diverse soil amendment developed at NMSU, made from forest slash, school food waste and biochar by our spinoff, the New Earth Project.
Seedling medium
A compost and biochar blend that encourages root growth and helps planted seedlings survive drought.
Zerosion
Shredded biomass and a binder applied as a durable mulch that holds moisture and stops runoff and gully erosion on disturbed land.
Chipcrete
A wood-chip building material that displaces conventional aggregate.
Designed to be copied, one community at a time.
Gila WoodNet is one node, scaled to Grant County. The model is built to replicate: a network of community-owned nodes, each sized to its own forest and its own economy, sharing what works. A network absorbs the ups and downs of forest supply in a way a single large plant cannot.
We measure success on a triple bottom line: healthier forests and watersheds, more resilient communities, and local businesses that pay their own way. That includes managing forests for water capture, not only fire risk.
Gila WoodNet incorporated in New Mexico to create a local circular economy based in forest restoration.
Feasibility study for a collaborative wood-processing facility in Safford, Arizona.
Core partner in the USDA NRCS Community Carboneers Collaborative, through 2024.
Biomass feasibility study for Cimarron, New Mexico.
Slash removal pilot on the Gila National Forest. Presented at the NM Wildland Urban Fire Summit in Silver City.
Schematic, not to scale
The work, on the ground.
A network, not a single company.
Bring us your liability biomass, your community or your idea.
Land managers
Turn thinning residue into a supply stream instead of a burn plan. We help design removal that pays for more of itself.
Communities
Explore a node of your own. We have led feasibility work across New Mexico and Arizona and share the model openly.
Entrepreneurs
Start a wood-based business with shared equipment, space and feedstock through our incubator.
Funders and researchers
Partner on pilots, measurement and deployment of combined heat, power and biochar in rural settings.