In Massachusetts, 80 percent of all households heat with fossil fuels (natural gas or oil) while 14 percent heat with electricity generated mostly from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Only 1.4 percent heat with wood, and a tiny .04 percent use solar.
In 2014, legislation was enacted that adds renewable biomass thermal energy to the state’s Alternative Portfolio Standard (APS) for heat and power, to reduce the use of fossil fuels by promoting the use of clean, sustainable, renewable biomass and other thermal energy sources.
This legislation was supported by Mass Audubon, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Environmental League of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Forest Alliance. Included is a provision that specifies that facilities using biomass fuel must have low emissions, use efficient energy conversion technologies, and use fuel produced by means of sustainable forest practices.
Emission performance standards will be set, including standards for eligible biomass, biogas and liquid biofuel technologies that limit eligibility to best-in-class, commercially-feasible technologies.
With the new incentives that the Alternative Portfolio Standard provides, we can greatly increase the use of biomass thermal fuel, whether it is wood pellets, wood chips or firewood for homes, schools, municipal buildings, and small businesses, using locally-produced wood. Utilizing more junk wood from our forests will improve forestry, create real green jobs and greatly assist in the implementation of the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act.
Wood is the most successful residential renewable energy technology in America today. The average home with an oil burner uses 700 to 800 gallons of fuel oil per year. Switching from oil heat to wood pellet heat reduces carbon emissions by 90 percent and can also save up to 50 percent in heating costs.
Mount Wachusett Community College, Athol High School, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, the Quabbin Reservoir Administration Building and Harvard Forest, as well as many homes and businesses, have biomass energy systems, saving millions of dollars every year and greatly reducing emissions. The country of Sweden used to obtain 90 percent of its heating by using imported oil, but now 90 percent of its heating needs are obtained by using its own wood pellets.
We can do the same.
Forests act as a major carbon sink, but the carbon sequestration rate of our forests has diminished significantly as tree mortality has greatly increased due to:
overstocking (too many trees per acre),
destructive high-grade logging, which takes the best timber and leaves low-value, declining timber, and
non-native insect pests, like the hemlock wooly adelgid.
We can increase the carbon sequestration rates of our forests by practicing great forestry, but we need more markets for low grade timber.
The biomass thermal program will help by increasing markets for forest biomass. It will produce more forest-improvement cuttings, will help landowners manage their woodlots to a high standard by improving timber quality and species composition, will improve wildlife habitat, generate income, increase property and timber values, and encourage landowners to keep their land in forest.
The use of wood for energy is carbon-neutral as long as our forests are growing faster than they are being cut. In Massachusetts, our forests are growing more than three times faster than they are being cut.
Reducing our use of fossil fuels, improving our forests and creating more local real green jobs is a win-win for everybody.
Mike Leonard is a consulting forester with North Quabbin Forestry in Petersham.