I am generally in favor of industrial logging, and generally in favor of replacing some amount of natural forest with sustainable tree farming to support the lumber industry. And I'm definitely in favor of burning scrap wood for energy. But I feel I should point out that in order to make surplus wood a meaningful part of your energy plan, you have to have a certain amount of industrial woodworking going on, and a certain amount of industrial logging to support it. These things don't bother me, but they might bother some who pride themselves on their environmentalist credentials.
But I wonder why scrap wood? Why not set aside a certain acreage of tree farming, specifically as biomass fuel for the city? I wonder what it would take to run a city entirely on wood. And I wonder if the wood burned in this biomass plant really makes up a substantial percentage of the city's overall energy plan.
It might be possible, but I don't think it would make economic sense. Acreage is finite, and wood has many uses. Many of those uses are economically more rewarding than burning, but still result in a good deal of scrap generation. I don't know what percentage of Burlington's energy comes from wood, but I think a much greater amount comes from the Winooski river and from Hydro Quebec.
As environments for large forest resources go, Vermont is not the best either. There's plenty of logging, but less than there might be, because much of the forested land is in parks, and on mountain ranges where clean access is difficult, and what timber is harvested is much more likely to be for hardwood logging. Culling mature trees from a state (e.t.a actually more likely to be national) park is a far different operation from turning it into a softwood farm for fuel. Much of the more accessible land is partially open farm land. Of course, one could let that grow back to woods as has occurred in much of Southern New England, but the reforestation of open land is not looked on so favorably by all, including those interested in wildlife conservation.
One of the more rewarding industries upcoming here in Vermont is wood pellet production for domestic heating. Despite the ranting of those convinced that all environmentalists are all the same, all stupid, and hate all energy all the time, pellet production has generally been looked at rather favorably, because the resource itself is renewable, and the technology for burning pellets is easier to make clean than traditional logs in stoves. Of course, anyone, environmentalist or not, would be happy if nothing needed to be burned at all, but it gets cold up here and pellets are generally considered pretty green.
What we're seeing a lot of these days is small solar farms. The prevalence of open land favors small scale solar operations, not so big as to cover many acres of scenery, but a few here and a few there. As the apparatus becomes cheaper, solar has caught on quite fast. Vermont has proved a difficult place for wind power, because of the hilly geography. Wind turbines are best on ridge lines, where they also affect scenery and the migratory routes of birds, and wind power has hit some big obstacles. It is, after all, an important issue in a state whose economy is as heavily dependent on tourism as ours.
Burlington is in a good position here, because they already have a big hydro plant in their back yard, and they're near to Quebec, where hydro is very big business. Vermont has been scrambling recently to find alternative sources to replace the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which has so far been providing over 70 percent of the State's electricity, but is slated to close very soon.
Here in Benson, we're looking forward to the development of a huge and fantastically expensive privately built DC line that is proposed to come down from Quebec, lying on the bottom of Lake Champlain, and exiting in Benson, whereupon it will be buried under highways on its way to a plant west of Rutland. It's interesting new technology that promises to be nearly invisible, but that will, we are told, provide a good bit of tax revenue to the town from its owners. We won't get any of the power, but we can use the money to fund a proposal to provide solar power in the village center to run the town's facilities.
