• The
  Technology - Overview

  • 9 good reasons

  • Wood Biomass
    for Energy

  • A Wood Chip Heating Guide

  • Biomass
    for Small-Scale Heat and Power

• Making It Work - Overview

  • Fuels For Schools

  • Vermont Biomass Report

  • The Darby Project

  • Darby Fuels for Schools Monitoring Report (2004-2005)

  • Colorado Biomass Initiatives

• What Tree Farmers Can Do

  • Selling Forest Ag

There are multiple benefits that the public can derive from using forest biomass as a heating fuel. Start with the fact that it encourages sustainable forestry.

Benefits Already Derived from the Practice of Sustainable Forestry

• It improves the health and beauty of our forests by:
  • Fighting the spread and impact of insect infestation
  • Fighting the spread and impact of disease
  • Promoting the growth of vital, healthy trees
• It reduces the danger and expense of wildfire by:
  • Reducing fuel loads thereby reducing a fire’s size and the damage caused
  • Allowing firefighters to easily and economically contain and control fires
• It improves habitat for wildlife by:
  • Creating open space for deer and elk
  • Planting cover and feed for birds..
    

Benefits that will Be Derived by Utilizing Forest Biomass for Heating

1. It encourages the use of a sustainable fuel source. Used in conjunction with sustainable forestry practices, wood can provide a sustainable alternative to the limited, unsustainable, and increasingly expensive supplies of fossil fuels.
2. It reduces the expense to heat our public buildings. Why waste tax dollars burning up an unsustainable and expensive fossil fuel when a much more desirable local natural resource is just out side the city limits.
3. It mitigates the waste of one of our most versatile and abundant natural resources. Many thousands of acres of trees are burned every year because the fuel loads in our forests are unnaturally high due to years of fire suppression. Much of that fuel could be utilized productively as fuel to heat buildings.
4. It reduces the danger to your neighbors and their property. Having a productive use for what would otherwise be forest waste encourages forest landowners to remove slash from their forests before it becomes fuel for deadly wildfires.
5. It encourages the reduction of air pollution. Currently thousands of tons of forest biomass are destroyed through wildfires, prescribed burns and slash burns. The tars and particulates disbursed into the air present health risks to many and, at the very least, contribute to the ever-increasing haze and smog that we must live with.
6. It encourages the reduction of global warming. Unlike fossil fuels, the use of forest biomass for fuel does not add to the “greenhouse effect” and exacerbate global warming.
7. It reduces the public’s dependency on foreign sources of energy. There are numerous communities in Colorado that are surrounded by an abundant and sustainable natural energy resource, yet they spend money to truck in fossil fuels that may have originated from other countries half way around the world.
8. It may provide more local jobs. Local people will be needed to provide the infrastructure to efficiently supply biomass fuel.
9. It encourages more forest landowners to use sustainable forestry practices. Increased use of forest biomass promotes healthier forests, reduced fire danger and more abundant wildlife.