Part I in a series about wood heat in Haines
Elimination of 38,000 gallons of fuel oil to heat Borough buildings! That idea should get our attention!
On December 8th, the Borough Assembly will review a conceptual design from CE2 Engineering for biomass (wood) heating of selected Borough buildings. CE2 is working under an energy grant awarded by the Haines Borough earlier in the year. Although the report is forthcoming, preliminary discussions with CE2 indicate a displacement of almost 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel is possible by going with a wood chip or other woody biomass heating system.
Being a forester by profession, the wood heat potential was intriguing enough for me to apply last year for a seat on the Energy and Sustainability Commission to pursue this idea. And during my recent campaign for a Borough Assembly seat, I spoke a lot about renewable energy in the Chilkat Valley using our local sources such as hydro and wood. But in the campaign, I discovered a lot of uncertainty and misunderstanding about using wood to heat large buildings. By means of this news outlet, over the next few issues I would like to address many of the concerns that I heard starting with questions about wood supply. Future issues will examine smoke and pollutants, how such a system would work and other environmental concerns. But supply seemed to be the first concern among the public.
Since the proposed heating of the school, vocational building, swimming pool, library and administration building would take up to 600 tons of green wood chips annually, is there an adequate wood supply? How much harvesting is required to produce 600 tons of wood chips or other biomass like pellets or hog fuel?
As the Energy Commission considered the supply situation from a sustainable basis, we decided to ignore the private supply of wood from lot clearing, road right-of ways, other private sources and even other waste wood supplies in other communities . Those could be valuable contributors but we decided to concentrate solely on the Haines State Forest.
There were several reasons for going to the local State Forest. First, timber removed from a managed forest is quickly regenerated and the land is not converted to some non-forest use. Thus, a carbon neutral cycle is maintained – the small amount of carbon dioxide released from these new high tech, clean burning wood boiler systems is absorbed by the regenerated young forest. Being carbon neutral is not something that can be said of burning fossil fuels.
Secondly, the Haines State Forest is under-harvested according to current management plans. According to the Haines State Forest Management Plan, the Forest consists of 286,000 acres with 88,600 timbered. Timber sales are permitted only on 42,000 acres with stands to be harvested on a 120 year rotation. Thus, an average of 350 acres per year could be utilized. But current operations are only harvesting about 1/6 this acreage – less than 60 acres annually.
Just how many acres of harvesting would it take to provide 600 tons of wood chips? The local foresters were insistent that large valuable trees should not be chipped or cut for fuel but only the residual material following a more valuable sawtimber sale. They estimated that after the sawtimber trees were removed it would only take 20-25 acres a year to generate 600 tons. It is very obvious that wood supply is not an issue.
What about the environmental concerns raised about removing wood, even from just 20 acres? Shouldn’t we be concerned about removing all that biomass from the forest? Shouldn’t we leave those trees to sequester carbon?
These concerns should be put in perspective. The northern Panhandle is covered in forests that are mostly in protected, non-harvest zones. Most of the Lynn Canal portion of the vast Tongass National Forest is off-limits to logging. All of the timberland in Glacier Bay National Park is no-harvest zone. Less than half of the timberlands on the Haines State Forest are available. Much of the other state lands are in protected status such as state parks and the Eagle Preserve. Even if full timber management were achieved on the Haines State Forest, 350 acres of logging a year is like looking at a postage stamp in a football field. And what is the alternative? Almost 40,000 gallons of fossil fuel!
If our sites were being harvested repeatedly on a short rotation and all biomass removed such as stumps and twigs, there might be a concern about removing biomass from the site. But harvesting on a 120 year cycle with a lot of wood left in the woods minimizes this concern.
So as CE2 comes to town, let’s review the forthcoming biomass heating plan as a way to reduce our dependence on oil, clean up the air, help manage our forest, and maybe provide a few local jobs in the process.
Filed under: Borough Wood Heat Project, Energy, Wood Tagged: | biomass, Energy, wood heat
