Forest Alliance Members Speak Out for Wood Heat at APS Hearing

wood boiler

At an overflow hearing on the draft Alternative Portfolio Standards developed by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources in Holyoke on August 7th, a number of MFA members provided testimony about the benefits of wood thermal energy and why it should be eligible for Alternative Energy Credits under the APS regulations.

More than 60 people attended the scheduled two hour hearing at Holyoke Community College, many who berated DOER for including wood heat systems among those eligible for AECs.  The hearing ended up going more than 3 hours.

MFA Executive Director Nathan L’Etoile and President Charles Thompson led off the hearing and presented testimony in favor of the wood heat credits, as did other foresters, loggers, and landowners.  A dozen others spoke in defense of the wood heat credits.

George Jones from Seaman Paper Company in Westminster gave a very effective presentation about how switching to biomass energy helped save their paper mill when other mills went out of business due to the abrupt spike in energy costs for oil and propane a few years ago.

Jones said that Seaman was able to stop burning 1.8 million gallons of low sulphur oil it needed to operate its plant by switching over to burning 31,000 tons per year of biomass chips, half from ground up clean pallets and half green chips.  Switching to biomass also reduced the mill’s emission of sulphur dioxide by 99 percent and nitrogen oxides by 15 percent.

To read Nathan L’Etoile’s oral testimony, click  https://www.massforestalliance.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Nathans-oral-testimony-on-07AUG17.pdf

 

To read MFA’s written comments on the draft standards, click  https://www.massforestalliance.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/MFA-APS-comments-Aug-7-2017.pdf

 

To read Charlie Thompson’s oral comments, click https://www.massforestalliance.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/CT-APS-Testimony-080717.pdf