The decision by the hospital board apparently finally will put a nail in the coffin of a wood/waste wood district heat system for Grand Marais.
This proposal was extensively studied by the city while I was mayor and found then to be financially unfeasible. As I previously wrote, there should be in the city’s archives a publicly funded study done at that time by Mattefy Engineering detailing the numbers and conclusions. At that time it was hoped to utilize the extensive scrub growth in the surrounding areas of the Superior National Forest.
What killed the idea was Grand Marais’s geology–the high cost of laying the necessary steam lines, the distance of the steam plant location from the principal user center–in the current business park area and the downtown, the courthouse, the school complex and the hospital complex.
There was no favorable cost/benefit ratio that justified proceeding.
Thirty-five years later, these factors have not changed, and this was obvious from the beginning. So again public monies have been spent trying to determine if the equations have changed. Are these monies wasted? In a sense yes and in a sense no.
Now again the issue has been studied. So when the idea comes up again, have the sense to look up the studies and see if the fundamentals have significantly changed before spending more public money.
For Grand Marais I think any future monies should be spent on examining other energy alternatives such as wind and solar. The per unit costs of installation for these alternatives have significantly dropped and are possibly the way to go in the future .
John LaVine
Richmond, Virginia
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