Page 20 RAIN January 1982 WOOD Tri-State Region Fuelwood Resources: An Assessment by the Regional Self-Reliance Project, 1980,100 pp., inquire for price, from: Antioch/New England Graduate School Keene, NH 03431 Ulster County Wood for Fuel Project ERDA 80-18 by Ulster County Community Action Committee, 1980,304 pp., inquire for price, from: New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Rockefeller Plaza Albany, NY 12223 Wood and Energy in New England: A Review and Bibliography ESCS Report No. 37 by Lynn Palmer, Robert McKusick and Mark Baily, 1980, 76 pp., single copies free from: Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service Room 0054 South United States Department of Agriculture Washington, DC 20250 Wood is booming as a national energy source, far surpassing the feeble contribution of nuclear power. Nearly half the homes in New England and the Pacific Northwest use wood as primary or secondary heating source. Although cordwood prices have risen sharply over the last couple of years, wood remains cheaper than fossil fuels, a situation that will probably continue. Wood lends itself to locally-based development, being one of the few truly decentralized forms of heat that can be easily stored. Unlike any other fuel, wood is democratic by nature. It is accessible to virtually anyone (with the necessary physical stamina) who owns a woodlot, knows people who do, or can afford the relative bargain of buying cordwood from a dealer. This is a resource that is owned by the people. —Tri-State Region Fuelwood Resources A lot of the excitement about wood has focused on residential applications, but in some parts of the country there is significant industrial potential as well. The Northwest wood products industry already derives about half of its energy from wood residues, and improved energy efficiency and cogeneration could increase that contribution to 75% of the industry's needs. Wood-powered industry on a small scale could make a big difference in areas that would otherwise import most of their energy as part of an export economy. Because wood is renewable doesn't mean it can't be abused. Air quality problems and local climatic changes are appearing in cities and towns from Bar Harbor to Bellingham as a direct result of wood use. Solutions are at hand in the form of wood furnaces, catalytic converters, and improved stove and flue designs, but air pollution from wood is not yet a widespread concern, and it will probably be awhile before the new generation of wood burning pollution control technology comes into widespread use. Even more important over the long run is the need for a truly sustainable approach to wood as an energy source, with a clear understanding of the non-renewable aspects of what amounts to mining the forests over the short term. Like many other forms of renewable energy, wood is most efficently used, from both an economic and an energy perspective, when it is used locally. And like electricity, wood is a high quality resource that is considerably more valuable when used as something other than a heat source (see diagram). Construction materials made out of wood, for example, are over six-and-a- half times more energy efficient than comparable non-wood materials. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be burning wood. It does mean that with few exceptions, the only wood we should be burning is wood that isn't good for much else. In some cases that can mean coppicing on a relatively small scale. It can also mean using underutilized species, such as alder, that are part of a natural succession to more valuable timber. Most often, at least in the short term, it means taking trees for fuel in a way that enhances the future value of the remaining trees by thinning marginal and competing timber from commercial quality stands. Those sources are always going to be around, but not on the scale that many people seem to assume. Some marginal trees need to be left for wildlife habitat. Branches and leaves should be left to return their nutrients to the soil. In fact, the main reason there's so much wood around that's suitable for burning is because our timber resources have been so poorly managed. This is particularly true for the 50% or so of the nation's commercial timber resources that are held by private landowners instead of timber companies and public agencies (which is due in part to misguided government forestry policies that subsidize timber companies to clearcut federal and state forest lands while discouraging small private owners from developing their land for sustainable timber production) . The implications of timber stand improvement are considerable. As the Antioch report points out: The market for fuelwood represents a unique opportunity to the tri-state region just as it does to much of New England. One danger is that wood which is useful or potentially useful for other purposes will be cut and burned. If this activity can be minimized, though, and non-commercial grade trees are the only ones removed for fuelwood, our forest stand could be improved, benefitting the local economy in three important ways-provid- ing residents with cheap fuel, local mills with good timber and the community with greater job opportunities. However, If we coupled firewood production with forest management for enhanced, long-term quality timber production, then we need recognize that the long-term implications of this strategy are upgraded stands we won't want to burn. While there will always be some wood available for energy production, and while other forms of biomass may come to play a greater role in our energy future, the use of wood on a major scale is not a permanent solution. But we can get a tremendous amount of fuelwood over the next generation or so by doing a one-time cleanup of our timber resources, making wood an excellent transition fuel as renewable resources are developed and widely implemented. It is a vast improvement over President Carter's abortive attempts to justify nuclear power as a transitional energy source. Tri-State Region Fuelwood Resources and Ulster County Wood for Fuel Project are great examples of two different approaches to local planning for local development of local energy resources. The Antioch study strives to put local fuelwood resources in perspective, focusing more on the issues and implications than the practical mechanics of getting the wood out of the forest and into the stove. The issues are more obscure in the Ulster County study, but the details of where the wood is, how much there is, and how to get it are exhaustively covered, and there is some good information on how to set up a wood cooperative. If you're thinking of doing a fuelwood plan for your community. Wood and Energy in New England has over 130 different bibliographic sources on a wide range of topics relating to wood. Taken together, these reports act as a second level energy plan, providing the specific information that is needed to implement specific parts of an overall plan. They also capture an interesting moment in the move towards a renewable energy future—the spontaneous and widespread local development of a major energy source. —KB ENERGY Better Use of (Electric Lights, Home Appliances, Shop Tools-Anything That Uses Electricity), Michael Hackleman, 1981, 144 pp., $9.95 from: Peace Press 3828 Willat Avenue Culver City, CA 90230 I get a lot of requests from people interested in using photovoltaics and producing their own electric power. Most of these soon-to-be
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