Ever since our first cave ancestors encountered the heat radiating from a lightening-struck tree, humans have matched spark to wood in an attempt to ward away the cold. These days, oil and natural gas are the most widely used heating fuels in the United States - yet as their prices creep increasingly skyward there is a movement afoot to reconnect with one of our most ancient energy sources.
Leland and Gray Union High School in Townshend is one of a growing number of schools, businesses, and institutions in Vermont (as well as across the country and beyond) that have turned away from reliance on fossil fuels and electricity, and turned instead toward the use of biomass as a fuel source.
During the 2002-2003 heating season over 10% of public school children across the state attended schools that were heated wholly or in part by wood chip combustion. Based on an estimate of relative price (per unit of energy biomass costs were approximately half of that of No. 2 fuel oil), it is estimated that Vermont taxpayers enjoyed a savings of $366,000 from its wood-heated educational institutions that year alone. One can only imagine what savings will be this year as crude oil prices near $70 a barrel.
Although biomass can originate from a number of sources (corn, nut shells, straw, etc.), nearly all biomass facilities in the Northeast utilize wood chips. Chips can come from mill waste wood or directly from harvesting operations in the forest. According to the Vermont Directory of Sawmills and Veneer Mills (2001) there are at least three mills in Windham County that sell waste chips in addition to dimensional lumber.
In a state that is over 75% forested and has a strong history of Yankee ingenuity, it's no wonder heating with biofuel has taken off and gained the recognition many say it deserves. Wood is far from scarce in this region, where annual volume growth easily exceeds twice that harvested. Wood chip fired biomass combustion facilities also offer the advantage that they are able to make use of what might otherwise be unmerchantable wood. This is especially good news for loggers and forest landowners challenged to find markets for the lower quality wood removed in a thinning.
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What’s so good about heating with wood …chips? |
(With Economic and Environmental benefits,
it’s double the GREEN) |
ECONOMIC Pros:
- Much less costly than gas, oil, or electric heat.
- A thriving local wood products industry keeps money closer to home.
- Local production = less cost in shipping .
- Innumerable suppliers means prices not subject to monopolistic control.
- Makes use of “waste” and doesn’t require additional inputs.
ENVIRONMENTAL Pros:
- Managed responsibly, forests represent a renewable energy resource.
- Unlike fossil fuels, wood combustion doesn’t release carbon that has been locked away for millions of years (CO2 emission is the chief culprit in global warming), nor does it contribute to the buildup of oxides of sulfur (the agents responsible for acid rain).
- Modern combustion technology allows far less particulate matter to reach the atmosphere than traditional wood burning (fireplace & woodstove) methods.
- Because it makes use of waste material, burning biomass doesn’t create a demand for harvesting additional trees.
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Because the initial cost to build a facility equipped to burn biomass is still prohibitively expensive for most small homeowners it’s likely to be a while yet before we can simply chop, chip, and combust a few cords from the back woodlot. For now we can at least take comfort in knowing that some of our tax dollars are going up in locally grown and produced, low particulate content, efficient burning, good old wood smoke. And that actually seems to be a pretty good thing.
For more on wood biomass read: Wood-Chip Heating Systems
