This commentary is by Rick Cowan, who serves on the Rockingham Selectboard.
As a lifelong environmentalist who applauds the law’s intent, it pains me to point out a very big problem with S.5, the Affordable Heat Act, that is now cruising toward legislative approval: Wood heat is far dirtier than coal, oil and gas.
And if you make fuel oil and propane more expensive, we Vermonters will burn more firewood. Since 38% of Vermont homes are heated in part or full with wood, S.5 may well accomplish the exact opposite of its intended effect.
Research from various countries confirms the inconvenient truth that wood combustion releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and particulate pollution, all of which accelerate global warming. A study in Finland confirmed that burning wood to heat homes is a source of climate-impacting CO2 emissions and the least environmentally friendly solution. French research looked at different ways to meet the growing demand for wood. There was no solution, as all outcomes would have reduced the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide.
Other studies in Denmark and Australia have shown that burning wood produces methane and carbonaceous particles that, in turn, accelerate climate change.
If you ignore the climate-altering gases and particulate pollution issuing from our chimneys, wood energy has many benefits.
- 74% of our state is forested and, unlike our heating oil and propane purchases, the money we spend on firewood stays in our state and provides jobs.
- Newer EPA-certified stoves produce less pollution, but given a replacement cycle of about 20 years, their installation will take a long time to reduce wood’s total CO2 emissions.
- And most importantly for low-income rural Vermonters, wood heating costs far less to install and operate than oil, gas or electrically powered heat pumps.
Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources Department of Forests touts wood heat as “sustainable” and the current state plan for renewable energy calls for 35% of our thermal energy needs to come from wood by 2030. Automated wood heat technology via pellets is the tool that will enable us to reach that goal.
According to the plan, we will generate lots of electricity, expanding our fleet of wood-fired commercial electric generating stations beyond the two already in operation, McNeil and Ryegate.
Increasing Vermont’s energy independence is appealing but the environmental downsides are hard to dispute. According to Sami Yassa, a senior scientist with Natural Resource Defense Council’s Climate & Clean Energy Program, “At the smokestack, wood emits more carbon dioxide than coal for every unit of electricity produced.”
In fact, the Partnership for Policy Integrity, a U.S.-based group that advocates for data-driven environmental policies, finds that power plants that burn biomass emit 150 percent more carbon dioxide than those burning coal.
And as to renewability, a tree that is cut down can’t capture carbon. Reforestation creates vulnerable monocultures of fast-growing trees. Writing in Yale Environment 360, an online journal of the Yale School of the Environment, Fred Pearce explains that “long-maturing natural forests will eventually store typically 40 times more carbon than a plantation harvested once a decade.”
And if insects don’t kill them before they mature, the rows and rows of seedlings that pellet manufacturers plant over their clearcuts will never grow fast enough to keep up with the voracious appetite for natural resources that is the hallmark of our species.
“BURNED: Are Trees the New Coal?”, a documentary by Westminster West filmmakers Lisa Merton and Alan Dater, powerfully illustrates the damage done by the biomass energy industry and how it is greenwashed.
In 2018, the American Conservation Film Festival Committee awarded the film its Audience Choice Award with this citation: “This film elicited a powerful and passionate response from our audience this year with many saying they had no idea about this issue and its devastating impacts. ‘BURNED’ reveals the shocking destruction of our forests for fuel and the resultant rise in carbon emissions that exceed those of coal-burning.” A trailer for the film can be viewed here.
Sadly, none of these facts will impede S.5’s passage or Vermont’s expanding subsidies of wood-burning appliances and power plants. Just as Texans, Saudis and Russians love their oil and gas and the Chinese and Indians won’t let go of coal, we Vermonters are happily married to our firewood.
I say this as a wood burner myself who will lay in another couple of cords this year if, as projected, the ironically named “Affordable Heat Act” increases the already shocking cost (currently around $4.50 per gallon) of fuel oil. But unlike S.5’s proponents, I don’t pretend that my heat source Is good for the planet.
