As you are all aware, there are growing concerns in the wood heating industry about future regulation on biomass. Of specific importance to the readers of this forum are the small residential boilers and stoves, be they standard wood stoves, wood gasification boilers, or standard outdoor wood boilers.
On Thursday, May 20th, we attended a short course in State College, PA at Penn State University called "Emissions and Health Impacts from Biomass Combustion."
(broken link removed)
I would encourage anyone who wants to be active in promoting the use of clean biomass to attend these types of courses/seminars. This particular course attracted a broad spectrum of professionals from the scientific community and industry players alike, all providing a unique perspective on the issue of biomass emissions and health concerns, and how those relate to economic concerns. Interestingly, while the major theme of the seminar was "lets do biomass and lets do it right," there was enough diversity in the group to spark some very good debate at the roundtable discussion that followed.
Most of the presentations and discussions were geared towards large scale energy production, either by co-firing coal plants with biomass, or the construction of midsized biommass energy plants to satisfy the energy needs of small towns. Part of the reason policy makers move towards large scale facilities is a) because they feel that its the only way to cleanly burn biomass in light of the current OWB situation, and b) because they have little experience with or awareness of newer clean burning technologies. During the roundtable discussion I was able to sieze an opportunity to explain the benefits of a wood gasification/thermal storage system with respect to older wood burning technologies. I was suprised at the attention my comments recieved, as only a handful of folks in the room were aware that this type of technology even existed on a residential scale.
I guess my point is this: biomass regulation is here now, and more will be coming in the future. Given that it's easier to pass a law than to repeal one, it's very important that new policies be effective and reasonable from their inception. This can only occur if policy makers are given an awareness of all options available to achieve the desired results. Just my $.02.
cheers
On Thursday, May 20th, we attended a short course in State College, PA at Penn State University called "Emissions and Health Impacts from Biomass Combustion."
(broken link removed)
I would encourage anyone who wants to be active in promoting the use of clean biomass to attend these types of courses/seminars. This particular course attracted a broad spectrum of professionals from the scientific community and industry players alike, all providing a unique perspective on the issue of biomass emissions and health concerns, and how those relate to economic concerns. Interestingly, while the major theme of the seminar was "lets do biomass and lets do it right," there was enough diversity in the group to spark some very good debate at the roundtable discussion that followed.
Most of the presentations and discussions were geared towards large scale energy production, either by co-firing coal plants with biomass, or the construction of midsized biommass energy plants to satisfy the energy needs of small towns. Part of the reason policy makers move towards large scale facilities is a) because they feel that its the only way to cleanly burn biomass in light of the current OWB situation, and b) because they have little experience with or awareness of newer clean burning technologies. During the roundtable discussion I was able to sieze an opportunity to explain the benefits of a wood gasification/thermal storage system with respect to older wood burning technologies. I was suprised at the attention my comments recieved, as only a handful of folks in the room were aware that this type of technology even existed on a residential scale.
I guess my point is this: biomass regulation is here now, and more will be coming in the future. Given that it's easier to pass a law than to repeal one, it's very important that new policies be effective and reasonable from their inception. This can only occur if policy makers are given an awareness of all options available to achieve the desired results. Just my $.02.
cheers
