I’d like to assure our community that the proposed biomass-fueled district heating system we are studying would be very different than the old boiler at the school. It’s like comparing a Model T Ford to a Toyota Prius. Technology has improved many things, including the efficiency of biomass-fueled boilers.
As one of the speakers at last week’s special PUC public meeting noted, in Sweden, which has been working on this for many years, all towns of 10,000 residents or more are heated with hot-water district heating systems similar to the system we are studying. Furthermore, 60 percent of those are biomass-fueled and operate under very strict environmental regulations, as ours would.
Close to home, the entire downtown area of St. Paul, including all the public buildings and multiple hospitals are heated by a biomass-fueled, hot water district heating system. The plant is right downtown, sitting next to the Science Museum and Xcel Sports Center. Most people are unaware it’s there, because there is neither smell nor smoke plume.
When we began to study our proposed district heating system, we decided to move slowly and do as complete an analysis as possible. In particular, we wanted to ensure that the effect on our forests would be minimal and actually beneficial. We wanted to make sure that the system would be economically feasible, paying for itself out of its own revenues. Finally, we wanted to ensure that emissions would not be a health issue and acceptable to our community.
Over the next year, we will be completing these studies and will hold more public meetings, to detail what we’ve found and, eventually, whether we think the project would be good for the community, or whether we’ve determined it would not and should be abandoned. As with previous meetings, we will post notice in the News-Herald and on Boreal and announce on WTIP. Next meeting should be in December. We look forward to discussing what we’ve learned with you.
Paul Nelson
Chair, CCLEP Biomass Committee
Firewise Board Member
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