Editor’s note: Josh Schlossberg is the editor of The Biomass Monitor.
I’m sure I’m speaking for most Vermonters when I thank Sen. Leahy, Sen. Sanders, Rep. Welch and Gov. Shumlin for pushing the federal government to increase fuel-assistance dollars so Vermonters can afford to heat their homes over the winter. Gov. Shumlin reminds us “there is no greater challenge than keeping Americans in cold states from freezing in their homes this winter.”
Which is why I’d like to suggest an additional, longer-term and cheaper strategy that will simultaneously help stabilize home-heating costs for Vermonters while reducing the burden on taxpayers: opposing the construction of biomass power incinerators, which burn our limited and precious forests for an inefficient source of electricity, subsidized by taxpayer handouts.
The Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan states: “Increasing the demand for forest products risks raising the prices for lower-grade firewood — a burden that would fall disproportionately on lower-income Vermonters who rely on firewood to heat their homes.”
Your average Vermont family burns a few cords of wood a winter to heat their well-insulated home. Meanwhile, the McNeil biomass power incinerator in Burlington burns 30 cords an hour — enough to be heating 87,600 homes this winter.
I hope Vermonters will encourage Sen. Leahy, Sen. Sanders, and Rep. Welch to work to eliminate the hundreds of millions of dollars of annual taxpayer subsidies diverted to biomass power incinerators across the U.S. (go to nobiomassburning.org to read the report “BiomassElectricity: Clean Energy Subsidies for a Dirty Industry”). ARRA “stimulus” funding alone has diverted $102,532,534 of taxpayer dollars to the construction of nine biomass power incinerators across the U.S. in the past two years.
Out-of-state Beaver Wood Energy is looking to cash in on these generous “stimulus” taxpayer handouts to fund 30 percent of their construction costs for a biomass power incinerator in Fair Haven. Vermont Agency of Natural Resources has already issued the draft air permit, though the Public Service Board has yet to approve its certificate of public good. Three other biomass power proposals are on the table for Vermont, in Pownal (also Beaver Wood Energy), Springfield and Ludlow.
Our brutal economic climate means we have to do more than just ask for an increase in fuel assistance dollars. We must also demand the federal government stop wasting money on inefficient biomass power generation that will inevitably spike the price of firewood for home heating.
Of course, our elected officials aren’t going to do much about this issue unless Vermonters ask them to. If you’re concerned about the price of firewood for low-income Vermonters, please ask Gov. Shumlin and your state legislators to propose a moratorium on the construction of new biomass power plants in the state.
Disclaimer: I am not endorsing the expansion of wood burning in Vermont. Burning wood for heating and/or electricity can have serious impacts on public health, climate, forests, watersheds and truly clean, non-smokestack, community-scale energy such as solar PV and solar thermal. However, many Vermonters already have wood stoves installed in their homes, and while a few more megawatt-hours of electricity won’t make much of a difference, heating a home over a Vermont winter can be a matter of life and death.
Which is why actions to increase federal fuel assistance dollars that ignore the firewood price-spike resulting from increased biomass power incineration in Vermont are incomplete at best, irresponsible at worst.
