Biomass conundrum: where to get cheap wood waste    The plant
should be a national model for alternative energy. Using waste
salvaged from sawmills and logging operations in northeast
Washington and southern British Columbia, it produces
electricity for nearly 40,000 homes.  Instead, the Kettle Falls
operation is an example of a cruel irony facing the Northwest
biomass industry: Located in the timber belt of the Selkirk
Mountains, the plant has trouble getting wood fiber at prices
that produce affordable electricity.  "People think, 'OK, it's
the Northwest. There's lots of wood up there,' " said John
Lyons, Avista's power supply analyst.  And there is. But
grinding up low-value wood and trucking it out of the mountains
is expensive. On a per-kilowatt basis, electricity from the
biomass plant costs more than electricity from Avista's dams, a
coal-burning plant in Montana or the company's gas-fired
turbines in Boardman, Ore.  When fuel costs climb too high, the
Kettle Falls plant shuts down. It can be idled for