In response to Vilnis Neilands’ letter of last week: Since I am the co-chair of the Biomass Steering Committee, I suppose I might be one of the drivers of the “party bus steered by the starryeyed.” However, I’m sorry to report, it’s really not as fun as Mr. Neilands describes.
Neilands’ letter vaguely suggests that the Grand Marais PUC is considering some sort of biomass heating project with a price tag of $22 million, which is completely untrue.
What is true is that Cook County is in the process of conducting a pretty substantial study of the potential for using local biomass as an energy source. Phase I of that study has been completed (location below).
Phase II is under way and will be completed by this fall.
So far, these studies suggest that a biomass district heating facility may indeed make sense for Grand Marais. The Grand Marais PUC is in the early stages of assessing the viability of such a facility with capital costs in the range of $3 million to $9 million.
Furthermore, the intention of the Biomass Steering Committee is to bring forward a biomass district heating proposal that would be economically sound and would stabilize and reduce space and water heating costs for many of Grand Marais’ largest commercial, governmental and institutional buildings.
Other objectives of this project include: retaining energy dollars in our local economy; creating a few jobs; decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels; reducing our carbon emissions; and utilizing biomass that’s currently a byproduct of existing forest harvesting activities.
For more actual information about biomass energy in Cook County and Grand Marais go to www.cookcountylep.org or contact Gary Atwood, our local biomass coordinator at biomass@boreal.org, or contact me at (218) 387-2137 or gwilkes@boreal.org.
I will keep looking for the party bus.
George Wilkes
Co-Chair Biomass
Steering Committee
Grand Marais
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