As the nation tries to wean itself off fossil fuels, alternative sources of energy are being developed. Wood—a traditional source of heating Cook County homes and workplaces—has gone by the wayside, but with new technology, it may be the wave of the future.
According to an April 2009 report entitled Community- Based Bioenergy and District Heating: Benefits, Challenges, Opportunities and Recommendations for Woody Biomass by Dovetail Partners, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that researches what it describes as the impacts and tradeoffs of environmental decisions, “Using wood for energy in the United States is not a recent development. Up until the 1880s, wood generated more energy for our nation than coal.”
Today, renewable energy sources supply about 7% of the nation’s energy, and half of that is from various forms of biomass.
“Wood’s abundance, renewability, versatility, and carbon-neutrality make it well suited as a feedstock for energy applications and as an alternative to fossil fuels,” the Dovetail report states.
Some dispute the claim that burning wood is carbon neutral and say that biomass energy results in the emission of more carbon than fossil fuels. This is because biomass has a lower heating value than fossil fuels, emitting more carbon per unit of energy produced than fossil fuels. The trees that replace harvested wood capture carbon, however, something that fossil fuels do not do.
Dovetail Partners has begun a grantfunded study to investigate the feasibility of using Cook County biomass for heat and possibly even power, but the focus is on using the wood locally, avoiding the emission of carbon that would result from transporting biomass long distances.
Seventy percent of Cook County’s almost 3,340 square miles of land is owned by the federal government and administered by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), a total of 1,496,320 acres of USFS Gunflint District land in Cook County alone. The number of U.S. Forest Service employees in Cook County is larger now than it was before the passage of the BWCAW Act in 1978, but as less and less timber is harvested from the Superior National Forest the manpower needed for management of logging sales continues to decrease.
Another 15% of Cook County land is owned by the State of Minnesota, but according to a report by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor, “The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) appears to lack adequate resources to manage and maintain its current landholdings.”
Over the years, major Cook County industries like logging and commercial fishing have declined while tourism has blossomed, but many service-related jobs, such as housekeeping and waiting tables, are lower paying, less available in the offseason, or offer no fringe benefits.
Forest changes over time
Not everyone has agreed how federal land should be used – should federal forests be left in a totally natural state or should they be actively managed? Less timber is being taken out of federal forests than in the past, leaving new issues for forest managers. “In terms of fire and fuels,” U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said in an October 2009 speech before the Society of American Foresters, “we are in a whole new era. The turnaround came in the summer of 2000: for the first time since the 1950s, more than seven millions acres burned in a single year. In 2002, more than seven million acres burned again. In 2004 and 2005, more than eight million acres burned; in 2006 and 2007, more than nine million acres burned. …The trajectory is up. We can foresee fire seasons that might reach 12 to 15 million acres. To some extent, we are victims of our own success.”
Suppressing wildfires has led to a buildup of forest fire fuels. Wet weather that stimulated a lot of new growth in the 20th century followed by current dry trends has created the potential for huge wildfires. Milder temperatures and drought have paved the way for insect infestations and tree diseases.
“It is no exaggeration to say that forestry today faces challenges as great as any in our nation’s history,” said Tidwell. He called for ecological restoration. “By ecological restoration,” he said, “we mean restoring the ecological functions associated with healthy forest ecosystems—systems that remain resilient under drought conditions, despite assault by fire, insects, and disease—systems that remain capable of delivering the ecosystem services that Americans want and need.”
This is the second in a series of articles on issues related to utilizing biomass from the Superior National Forest as a source of local renewable energy and its potential to benefit the economy of Cook County.
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