www.ecostudies.org/press_2011-02-17.html
In my opinion, this report wrongfully focuses on a negative message because forest biomass is not something that should even be considered as a fuel supply for transportation or electricity, or for making the extremely overpopulated I-95 corridor in the Northeast "sustainable."
The report does point out, briefly, that in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, the annual growth of the forests could sustainably offset more than 50 percent of our winter heating fuel, which is currently dominated by imported fuel oil and propane. But this message is lost in the negative overall context of the report.
Vermont has 4.5 million acres of forest, or about 18 acres of forest per household. Most of the Northeast forests can have at least one ton (half of a cord) of wood pulled out per year, per acre, without the forest mass shrinking because that's the ballpark annual average growth yield of the forest. Well-managed/healthy forests could see twice that amount of annual growth per acre.
So even if Vermont only harvested firewood from 50 percent of Vermont's forest (managing 2.25 million acres), we could harvest about 2.25 million tons of fuel wood each year without the forest shrinking. (Yes there would be environmental impact, depending on how this is managed.)
Vermont has about 250,000 homes, which could each be heated with eight tons of firewood (four cords) per year with modest weatherization standards in the home and with stoves that burn at greater than 75 percent efficiency. That means that EVERY home in Vermont could be heated with wood from those 2.25 million tons per year.
BERC and Vermont Agency of Natural Resources claim that Vermont's overall forest acreage sees 10 million tons of growth per year. Perhaps this is an overly optimistic number. Even if the real annual growth is only half of that amount, it's clearly possible that Vermont could heat every home in the state with wood, without the overall forest shrinking, meaning this could be sustainable. And, by the way, this would keep more than $500 million in Vermont’s local economy and the average home that switches from fuel oil to wood will save up to $2,000 per year at today’s prices.
Of course, there are many questions on how we should manage our forests for sustainability.
But these forest-management questions should not push us away from seeing this as an important opportunity to reduce Vermont's dependence on imported carbon-emitting fossil fuels for winter heating.
Thank you for reading and thinking about this.
Gaelan Brown lives in Fayston. www.CompostPower.org
