Researchers at Humboldt State University are hoping the dead trees and branches that surround the North Coast can be a new source of renewable energy.
The university received a $5.88-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for a project that will look into converting woody biomass into clean energy. The goal of the project is to find a simple and cost effective way of making that happen.
Thanks you for registering me for your workshop June 24.
Dear Deborah, Thanks for the response. The porblem with that point of view (just going to do a little forest cleanup and use the waste) is that it isn’t realistic. The amount of material needed to sustain this industry is a lot more than just cleaning up a little brush. You are talking about building factories and keeping them supplied constantly. The demand will grow and will require mechanized forestry, and large acreages. An industry such as this will have a significant impact on a region’s environment. We already have more than one highly mechanized industry utilizing our forests. We have only the tiniest of examples, probably 1% or less, of old growth forest that has survived the European settlement of the eastern U.S. If we want to move toward any kind of environmental stability, we need to be increasing the amount of landbase which is allowed to succeed to climax communities. The value of that to society, I believe, is much greater than what you get from cutting and burning the wood. I’m all for finding environmentally sound alternatives to the coal and fossil fuel and nuclear energy infrastructure that we have but which has and is damaging the environment. But burning wood for energy production isn’t my idea of an environmentally sound alternative. Mark D.