NEWS FROM OREGON DEMOCRATIC ELECTED OFFICALS
Using Biomass in Public Schools
July 13, 2010
The Elkton and Days Creek Schools are converting from outdated diesel boilers to new biomass powered boilers which will be more cost effective and environmentally responsible.
“The Elkton School District is looking to save thousands of dollars a year in school heating costs, as it will soon switch to biomass boilers. The district recently received a grant through the U.S. Federal Government’s stimulus program to replace boilers in the elementary school and high school. Each boiler is around 40 years old, running on diesel fuel. Because of their age and what kind of fuel they’ve used, both boilers have become extreme inefficient and expensive for the school district to operate. [The new boilers] will use wood-product pellets to heat the schools. Elkton School District officials say the cost savings will be huge. District Maintenance Manager Brian Kruse estimates it will cut fuel costs in half, saving between 17,000 and 25,000 dollars in fuel costs.” –Chris McKee, KMTR Eugene.
Biomass energy represents a growth sector for Oregon’s forest products industry, diversifying its longstanding base of lumber and paper products, while adding jobs both immediately and in the long term. The Oregon Forest Resources Institute estimates that between logging slash and restoration thinning statewide, Oregon can sustainably produce upwards of 5 million tons of woody biomass each year, which would create an estimated 4,500 new jobs in the woods alone. Including sawmill and urban wood waste could double the available resource to 10 million tons, according to the Oregon Department of Energy.
Environmental benefits include both federal forest restoration and the maintenance of private working forests, which now contribute over eighty percent of the state’s annual timber harvest. State of the art biomass combustion is up to 50 timescleaner than EPA-certified woodstoves, and orders of magnitude cleaner than wildfires. Woody biomass from ecological restoration projects can also be used as a commercial fuel to displace oil, propane and electricity across rural Oregon
A robust market for woody biomass energy, combined with other non-traditional incentives such as payments for ecosystem services, would help private forest landowners keep working forests in forest use, and help conserve their contributions to clean air and water, carbon storage, fish and wildlife habitat and recreation, in addition to green energy.
Engaging in innovative financing so that our schools can be retrofitted creates a healthier learning environment with much lower energy costs.
Oregon has a diversity of renewable energy resources unsurpassed by any other state, including tremendous solar, wave, wind, biomass and geothermal resources. There is a growing recognition of new economic values within our forest sectors which can attract capital investments. These include carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services; and the use of woody biomass for energy production.
The central challenge facing Oregon today is to transform our economy into one that is strong, resilient, internationally competitive and insulated from the boom/bust cycles that have plagued us in the past. This will necessarily require similar transformational changes in a number of other major systems including public education; public finance; health care; energy; and community development.
To find out more you can read my Jobs Plan, Energy Plan, and Education Plan.
