Wood gets look as answer to energy independence (CO)

The Coloradoan
February 22, 2008
By Trevor Hughes

Wes Rutt looks around Larimer County and sees a long-term solution to the country's energy woes growing out of the ground.

But he's not looking at corn or switchgrass or even sugar beets, which are all being investigated as alternative fuel sources.

What Rutt sees are trees.

"We've got to use the fuel we've got. We've got the technology," said Rutt, a Larimer County tree farmer who preaches the gospel of wood.

These days, wood is more often labeled "biomass," even though it still means trees and branches and wood chips.

Boulder County, for instance, is heating its Open Space department headquarters in Longmont with a biomass boiler, which burns wood cleanly and efficiently.

Public facilities in other states, especially Vermont, are often heated with high-efficiency wood-burning systems. And Burlington, Vt., is home to 50-megawatt wood-fired power plant.

Today, a host of state leaders and experts, including U.S. Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar, will meet at Colorado State University to discuss how the state's forests can contribute to energy independence.

The conference will also address forest health challenges, including those posed by the mountain pine beetle, which is expected to kill the majority of the state?s mature lodgepole pines within five years, reducing most mountain peaks to stands of dead timber.

Federal and state forest managers announced the impending bark beetle disaster earlier this year, and the push from federal and state lawmakers to address the problem has been growing rapidly.

Several lawmakers have introduced legislation aimed at topics that range from increasing logging on state and federal lands to a proposal by state Rep. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud to exempt the sale of beetle-killed lumber from sales and use taxes.

In a newly released report, the Colorado State Forest Service said the state?s forests are struggling, and called for a coordinated effort to address problems.

?Never before have we experienced forest health issues of such multitude and magnitude. The health of our forests has immediate and long-term impacts on our communities and economies,? said state forester Jeff Jahnke. ?Now, more than ever, what is happening to our forests affects all of us, from cities and suburbia, to rural dwellers.?

Rutt said the mountain pine beetle infestation should provide new momentum for using trees to heat buildings. Experts say thinning forests that are not yet infested can slow the beetles? spread. And dead trees are significant wildfire risks, especially near houses.

What?s tricky is getting the wood from the forests to the buildings that need heating. Natural gas is popular for heating because it can be easily piped to homes and buildings.

With gasoline prices, however, it?s not particularly cost-effective to truck wood from the mountains to the Front Range, even though thousands of acres each year are thinned by foresters.

Much of that ?slash? is ultimately burned in open piles, a waste as far as Rutt is concerned.

?What we need to do is find a use for all our wood,? Rutt said. ?There?s no silver bullet as far as energy goes, (but) we already have proven technology that we can use to heat buildings. And we also have the fuel, for heaven?s sake!?

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes.

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