“Biomass: plant materials and animal waste used especially as a source of fuel. Year: 1934” – from Merriam-Webster’s
Online Dictionary.
The idea of biomass has apparently been around for a while, but when the price of gas started rising and the phrase “global warming” became a household word, the pursuit of renewable sources of energy went into a higher, if not entirely high, gear in the United States.
Cook County’s natural resources sustained its original inhabitants, the Native Americans, for centuries. When European fur traders showed up, its wildlife and transportation waterways sustained even more people. About a century ago, Scandinavian immigrants drew their sustenance from the fish in Lake Superior and the timber in the forest. What is Cook County’s greatest natural resource today? Its beautiful scenery? Its schoolchildren? What about biomass?
Local uses for wildfire fuel
TheCook County Local Energy Project (CCLEP) was recently awarded a grant and a subsidy from Cook County for a biomass energy feasibility study. In its request for proposals, it states, “The Cook County Firewise Committee has worked with MN DNR Forestry and USFS to evaluate forest composition and biomass availability in Cook County.
“…A lack of naturally occurring fires over the past 100 years, low levels of pulp and timber harvesting, insect infestations, and blowdown events have created large areas of forest with high fuel hazards, very low timber or pulpwood value, and diminished recreational value. Needed treatment of these lands to reduce fire hazard and improve forest quality are currently uneconomical because of the lack of a market for this ‘waste’ woody biomass.
“Preliminary estimates suggest that sufficient woody biomass could be harvested in Cook County to supply a significant amount of the county’s heating energy needs. While there is much concern about the environmental and ecological effects of biomass harvest for energy production, we believe that the small scale of Cook County’s community-based energy needs would require a level of harvest that would minimize these risks.”
A decline in timber sales has left the U.S. Forest Service with less money to manage its forests. Selective biomass harvesting to be used in generating heat and electricity would not bring in as much money per pound as timber, but it would be a source of income the Forest Service doesn’t have now.
A senator’s stance
The Cook County News-Herald
asked several state and federal legislators for their thoughts on using biomass to develop renewable energy and create economic growth. U.S. Senator Al Franken’s office emailed the senator’s response: “Renewable energy is going to be the driver of the 21st century economy, and Minnesota is poised to reap the benefits. Biomass in Cook County and around the state can and should play an integral role in economic development as our state transitions to homegrown, clean sources of energy. The potential of biomass as a fuel in the power sector and for biofuels is tremendous. Environmentally sustainable forestry in Cook County can help biomass be a driver of economic development across the region.”
This is the first 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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