Boiler Building for the Craig Schools

At our farm in the Ozarks my father was always good-naturedly rebuking my mother for keeping the house too hot and always throwing another chunk of wood in the stove. He would quip to me, “Your mother burns wood like it grows on trees!”

I would snicker at that remark but the reality of it was we, on the farm, were fairly energy independent. Because our property was large enough to have timberland and my father was conscious of good forestry, our heating supply was sustainable right there on the farm. My mother could keep the house as warm as she wanted and we did not even pay attention to oil prices. Our trees were a renewable energy source.

Wood Chip Bin at Craig Boiler

It is exciting to think that Haines that can do the same thing with heat utilizing hydro, wood and other renewable energy right here in the Borough. In the two previous articles I discussed the abundant wood supply and examined the issue of air pollution from biomass heat. But the question remains in the minds of many as to how such a system would work to heat multiple, large, public buildings with wood?

Misconceptions abound concerning wood heat. It is tempting to visualize someone having to throw large cordwood chunks into a massive boiler many times a day to keep the heat up. Such labor-intensive operations are not viewed with favor.

Although there are many different types of systems, the concept is simple. A large boiler is fed woody biomass, usually in the form of wood chips, where it is burned cleanly in several stages to heat water. Water is circulated underground to multiple buildings, usually to tap into their existing hydronic heating systems.

In the Haines proposal, the school and votech buildings, library, administration office and swimming pool would be connected to a centrally located boiler building. Insulated piping would deliver the hot water where it overrides the existing heating plants in each building. The water is returned in a loop to the boiler for re-heating.

Biomass wood heat can be provided in the form of cordwood (what you use in your woodstove), pellets, or chips. For large, district heating systems, wood chips have been found to be the least expensive. However, that may change as more and more pellet manufacturing facilities are coming on line in the Northwest including some here in Southeast Alaska.

Chip Tech Boiler that heats Craig Schools

For the sake of example, let us use the wood chip model since there is a current history of that in Alaska. The schools in Tok and Delta Junction are currently installing such systems and Craig has been using one for several years. Tok and Delta Junction will be utilizing the spruce-budworm killed trees as their primary wood supply for chips and Craig utilizes wood waste from the Vikings Sawmill.

In the Craig example, a dump truck brings chips to the boiler site twice a week where they are dumped in a concrete bin. A grate across the bottom of this bin allows heat from the adjacent boiler room to be blown under the chips to assist in drying. Chips contain about 70% moisture content when they are first added but are dried to 20-40% by the time they make it to the bottom where the auger automatically feeds them into the burner.

The heat from the boiler heats the hot water through heat exchangers where insulated underground pipe carries it to the school buildings. In the Craig example, two large school buildings and the community swimming pool are heated by this hot water before the loop returns it to the boiler. The system is completely automatic. The buildings retain their old heating systems for use in the summer when the boiler is shut down or for back up for boiler maintenance.

We are waiting any day the arrival of a design report for a Haines biomass heating proposal being prepared by CE2 Engineering from Anchorage. Using energy grant funds, CE2 was awarded a conceptual design contract to design a central biomass heating facility for the downtown public buildings. This design should be at what grant writers call the 35% design phase where the proposal could then be presented to the legislature for a construction grant.

Although wood chip heating has been around for a long time, the technology is constantly changing and we are unsure what type of system CE2 will recommend. Unlike other communities where wood chips are being used or proposed, Haines does not have a current supply of waste wood or chippers in operation and that will have to be addressed. Will wood pellets or other forms of woody biomass be considered? Will they propose a system large enough to expand the central heat to other buildings in the downtown area? We will have to wait and see. But it is exciting to think that our heat in downtown Haines might indeed, grow on trees.

Photos and Craig information courtesy of Karen Petersen, University of Alaska Fairbanks – Cooperative Extension Service.

In the Assembly’s special meeting this evening, Mayor Hill explained that there were originally 20 qualified applicants for the position that was vacated when Manager Tom Bolen’s contract was not renewed.  After different stages of review the list was narrowed ultimately to Mr. Scott Hahn, former Manager at Cordova and Mark Ernest, current City Manager at Whittier.  After telephone interviews with these and other candidates, Ernest and Hahn were flown to Haines for one-on-one interviews on Monday, November 30.

The Assembly meeting ran less than one-half hour when it became obvious in the discussions that individual Assembly members were all favoring Ernest.  The question was called with a unanimous vote resulting.

Ernest will be offered a contract and a salary in the neighborhood of $100,000.  It was pointed out that such a salary will actually be a pay cut for him but he had indicated a desire to move to Haines even at reduced pay.

Several Assembly members noted in addition to his experience and excellent references, Mr. Ernest had great enthusiasm for coming to Haines. He came to the interviews well prepared and actually had read the Haines Comprehensive plan, something most Assembly members admitted they had not completely read.

At the time of this writing we can only assume that Mr. Ernest will accept the offer and we are unsure about his reporting date. But in the interviews he indicated a willingness to get here with his family quickly and get on board at the Borough office.

The Alaska Alliance for Commerce and hainesnews.net would like to be among the first to welcome our new Borough Manager. It is exciting to have such a well qualified hand at the helm and one who is excited about moving here.  Based on his background and experience we are hopeful of a real advocate for economic vitality and renewable energy focus.  We will bring more information to you about Mr. Ernest when his plans are firm.

###

Smoke from burning brush piles and a cruise ship visible over Haines on a late August rainy day. Connelly Lake hydropower could eliminate the need for cruise ships to power up and biomass heat could eliminate the brush pile burning.

The long term outlook for renewable energy in the Haines Borough is bright indeed!  There are projects for the future that could make Haines the envy of the country when the goal is to reduce dependence on fossil fuel.  But many of these projects are in the distant future and it is the immediate interim period where woody biomass can play an active role.

No doubt the cleanest possible source of large-scale energy to accommodate present and future needs for the Haines Borough is hydro power.  The Connelly Lake proposal appears to be the best option to provide this energy while at the same time getting the Borough off the submarine cable from Skagway and away from supplemental diesel.   But funding, permitting and construction of such a large hydro facility is realistically years away.  An interim measure until electricity is abundant and affordable could be biomass from our local forests.

In the last issue of Haines News the question of wood supply was addressed and found to really be a non-issue.  The temperate rain forest surrounding us is prolific in producing biomass. But another concern is that of emissions – particulate matter and other pollutants from wood smoke.

When most people visualize wood heat they picture a chimney puffing out blue smoke.  Indeed, that is the case in Haines because most people are not burning dry wood and are using very inefficient wood stoves.  That need not be the case with central woody biomass heating. New boiler and gasification systems are very efficient and with proper air pollution control equipment produce very low emissions and very little residual ash.

To provide a background for the issue of smoke pollution, consider some case studies from other communities now utilizing biomass heat.

The St. Paul Example:  Twenty four years ago, the city of St. Paul, Minnesota decided to clean up the air in the downtown area and at the same time lower their dependence on fossil fuels as well as dispose of wood waste from the many timber mills in the central Minnesota area.

St. Paul District Energy used wood chips and other waste wood to generate power for the downtown area replacing coal-fired and gas systems.  The heat generated in power production now warms 31 million square feet of downtown buildings.  In the process, sulfur dioxide and particulate emissions were reduced by 60%.  Before the project, 98% of the energy in the downtown area was generated by gas and coal. Today, only 23% is generated from this source – the remainder from woody biomass.

Montana “Fuels for Schools” Program – Another pace-setter in woody biomass heating systems is the “Fuels for Schools” program now being implemented and analyzed in the intermountain West of the Lower 48.   In a study with the Forest Service, investigation of air quality in the wood boiler systems used without pollution control equipment in western Montana schools revealed less particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide than coal but slightly more than wood.  But with installation of air pollution control devices such as filters or cyclones, particulate matter was reduced from 70 percent to 99 percent.

Besides being cleaner burning here is the eye-catching news about biomass heat.   Quoting from the above-mentioned “Fuels for Schools” report, “Unlike the traditional fuels, such as coal, oil, natural gas, or propane, wood has net neutral carbon dioxide emissions because wood is a part of the natural carbon cycle.  Living trees continually uptake carbon dioxide throughout their lifespan.  Therefore, as long as trees are grown to replace wood that is burned in a boiler, wood combustion does not increase total atmospheric carbon.”

It was the carbon-neutral idea in the last article of Haines News that focused attention on the Haines State Forest as the principal wood supplier.   The harvested area on these managed lands would quickly be reforested and not converted to some other use.  Why not have a carbon-neutral footprint?

It doesn’t take too much imagination to see other ways woody fuel could improve air quality in the Chilkat Valley.  Ever notice all those brush piles burning from road construction, lot and right-of-way clearing?  Why not chip that brush and use it to heat the public buildings in an efficient boiler?

The stacks from new boiler systems do not usually show any smoke except at start-up.  On cold days, white steam can be seen but it is composed of water vapor.  The wood chip heat boiler that heats the Craig schools on Prince of Wales Island sits in the middle of a residential subdivision.  The system had been operating for several months before many residents were even aware that it was in use.

Woody biomass can consist of chips, pellets or cordwood.  Regardless of the shape, wood as fuel is lower in sulfur than fossil fuels and can go a long way toward cleaning up the air if properly designed.  There are problems to consider such as how to get the wood chipped in our area where there are no large mills to generate waste and how to dry the chips.  But local loggers have expressed an interest in supplying wood chips if the need is there.  Until Connelly Lake comes on line providing enough power to convert to electric boilers, why not utilize the other local renewable resource – wood?

Sources cited:

• District Energy St. Paul—Making Wood Work: Local Energy Solutions, October 16, 2007.
• FuelsforSchools.info

###

In this issue:

• What can we learn from the Pilgrims?
• Who is Mark Begich representing?

Read it, print it, share it.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.

Michael Crichton’s 2003 lecture at CalTech, “Aliens Caused Global Warming,“ is a bit lengthy, but a must-read.  It’s Crichton at his level-headed best.

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.

I urge the Borough Assembly to formally reject (Judge Collins’) finding as beyond her authority to make the choice of which ballots to count. — Kyle Ponsford

By Kyle Ponsford, Haines

To: Haines Assembly members and The People of Haines,

November 20, 2009

As a resident and concerned citizen of the Haines Borough, I write this bi-party [sic] letter concerning the events regarding our most recent vote. These events hold the power to literally rule our lives, no longer free to choose our own paths to our pursuit of happiness. Being stripped of two of the three fine points protected by our United States Constitution, I am greatly alarmed!

As free men and women, we the people of the Borough of Haines, have established a form of government in which we vote into office an assembly of six elected citizens, to manage the general workings of our Borough and make decisions on questionable issues when the legal intent of the ordinance is vague. When the assembly cannot come to a decision, the borough code defaults to the state law. These elected citizens, with the council of the borough attorney, made a decision regarding this vote.

It is reasonable and lawful that citizens, who were concerned that the Assembly may have done something illegal, took up a suit which brought this decision before Juneau Superior Court Judge Patricia Collins. It is in the scope of authority as a judge, to determine if the Assembly had done something illegal.

From review of the events and the ruling of the judge, it appears that there were no findings showing that the assembly had broken state law or borough code. The assembly used precedent to ensure the voting process remained consistent in the borough and they made a decision.

Yet, stepping beyond her authority as a judge, Patricia Collins chose to single-handedly alter the course of our Borough by (forcing) her opinion over that of our six elected citizens voted into the office they were exercising.  Further, she cited precedent which simply does not apply to these circumstances, as the two questionable ballots neither came from a foreign embassy nor were sent through diplomatic channels. She may not have liked the decision the assembly made, she may even have preferred that they submit [sic] their decision to state law, but none of that is within her scope once it was found that they did not actually break the law.

Did they break the law by not choosing to default to state law over precedent? No. The judge did not reprimand the assembly for illegal activity, and legally her role in this matter ends there. If the citizens of this borough do not like the assembly’s legal decision, they can fix that at the voting booth.

Allowing a judge to tell them how they will run the Borough is unacceptable in a free society. Yet the choice to accept her “recommendation” remains in the hands of the Assembly. We know this decision was but a recommendation because the court had to gain permission from the Assembly to open the questionable votes to be counted. The ruling may have been masked as “Law”, but is not, as the Assembly was not charged with illegal activity.

Therefore I urge the Borough Assembly to formally reject her finding as beyond her authority to make the choice of which ballots to count. IF the Assembly chooses to follow her direction, that is in their power, but not a lawful requirement, nor a wise thing to do, as Patricia Collins was not elected to single-handedly run our Borough.

Citizens of the Haines Borough, whether you like the results of this vote or not, do not allow our right to run our own lives be usurped by a single individual whom we did not elect to run our Borough. Encourage the Assembly to stand on their decision.

Sincerely,

Kyle Ponsford, HC 60 Box 3394, Haines, Alaska 99827

Editor’s Note:  Kyle’s letter was edited for spelling and grammar, but not for content.

And here’s a quote that could have come from some of our friends right here in Haines:

“Every day that we can delay development…is a day where we feel like the public interest is victorious.” –John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians.

Is there a public reaction brewing against overzealous enviros? Click here to read the whole article online at foxnews.com.

In this issue:

• Court overrules canvassing board
• Opinion: What’s in it for Gershon?
• Putting it in Perspective

Read it, print it, share it.

Guest Opinion by Bill Kurz

Haines is a wonderful place with much to offer. The problem is that many have forgotten much of what we have to work with. We have come to a point where we do not have enough business / industry to support our community. There is no way we can continue having more and more government with little more than fishing and tourism to support the community.

We have to get off this thing of each special interest group stopping what another special interest group is doing or wanting to do. We need to come to the middle and work together for the benefit of all of us.

I first came to Haines on May 20, 1973. Then timber and the mills were king. Did I ever get in trouble when I said, “Timber alone will not support and grow the town, we need to have other income like tourism.” Gosh, look what has happened — the timber industry is all but gone. Oh there was fishing then also. Now our biggest thing as to jobs is tourism, but biggest money is government. Sorry folks that equation just does not work in the long run.

The Haines Borough FY10 budget #23 Economic Development / Tourism Promotion Revenue from sales tax $475,000 other $6,000 Total $481,000. The expenses total Tourism $336,433 Economic Development total $173,471 of that almost $100,00 is dedicated for a New Community & Economic Development Director. The job is there, just no one hired to fill it. Of course nothing is spent on economic development either. Somehow I seem to be missing something. Isn’t tourism part of our economic development?? Somehow it looks backwards to me.

Believe it or not Haines is big enough to have lots of Hydro Power, without killing the fishing industry. We have more trees than all the tree huggers in the country can hug. “Move over, this one is mine.” We have a port that can handle more than one ship a day with out becoming a “Skagway”. We have minerals that can support mines that will supply the metals / minerals we all use. With reasonable port up grades to our commercial dock we can handle more fright. With reasonable up grades we can properly create a complete cruse ship facility. Yes Scott R. they will come here. With reasonable full use of hydro power even the people up the valley can have reasonably priced power.

I have talked to people from all the interests above. All of them know they are right and the others are wrong.  That thinking will do us ALL in. We must come together and realize we can do it all. Yes it must be done carefully.

Bill Kurz