| 1890 | | Wood as a primary fuel supply | Wood was the primary fuel for residential, commercial, and transportation uses. |
| 1930 | | Wood displaced by new fuels | Kerosene and fuel oil began displacing wood for some commercial, transportation, and residential uses. |
| 1950 | | More new fuels displacing wood | Electricity and natural gas displaced wood heat in homes and commercial buildings. |
| 1973 | | Wood use at all-time low | Higher oil and gas prices and oil embargoes hit the country at the time that wood consumption for energy was at an all-time low of
roughly 50 million tons per year. |
| 1974 | | Rise in woodstove sales, switching by some industries from coal to waste wood | The oil crises of 1973-74 prompted significant increases in woodstove sales for residential use. The paper and pulp industry also began to install wood and black liquor boilers for steam and power displacing fuel oil and coal. |
| 1978 | | Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) passed | PURPA guaranteed nonutility generators a market to sell power by mandating that utilities pay þavoided costþ rates for any power supplied by a qualifying facility. |
| 1984 | | Startup of Burlington Electric plant | Burlington Electric (Burlington, Vermont) built a 50-megawatt wood-fired plant with electricity production as the primary purpose. This plant was the first of several built since 1984. |
| 1985 | | Standard Offer #4 contracts begin | The Californian biomass power industry began to grow, eventually adding 850 megawatts of power due to
fuel cost escalation clauses in the Standard Offer #4 contracts which were based on predicted oil costs of
$100 a barrel. These 10-year contracts guaranteed power purchase rates. |
| 1989-90 | | First trials of direct wood-fired gas turbines conducted | Pilot direct wood-fired gas turbine plants were tried for the first time by Canadian Solifuels, Inc. (in Canada) and Aerospace Research Corporation (in the United States). |
| 1990 | | Biomass generating capacity at 6,000 megawatts | Electricity generating capacity from biomass (not including municipal solid waste) reached 6 gigawatts. Of 190 biomass-fired electricity generating facilities, 184 were nonutility generators, mostly wood and paper plants. |
| 1992 | | Rise in biomass prices to $55 per dry ton in California | The industry overbuilt capacity, with little regard for supply limitations, resulting in escalating feedstock prices as the last of the Standard Offer #4 contract power plants came on line. New ources of biomass eventually reduced costs to an average of $35 per dry ton. |
| 1994 | | Hot gas cleanup identified as key to gasification success. | Successful operation of several biomass gasification tests identified hot gas cleanup as key to widespread adoption of the technology. Promising high efficiencies were achieved. |
| 1995 | | Half of the California biomass power industry shut down | As of the end of August 1995, 15 biomass power plants (500 megawatts) had been closed through sales or buyout of their Standard Offer #4 agreements, primarily as a cost reduction strategy by the local utilities required to buy the power, which had sometimes risen to more than 10 cents per kilowatthour,
depending on the contract. |