Biomass Heat is Not Coal

RenewableEnergyWorld.com
by Andrew Haden, A3 Energy Partners
Published: August 23, 2010

Recent rules for proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions from boilers could have the unfortunate effect of killing the sustainable and rapidly growing industry of biomass heat.

Don’t get this wrong: it’s important to support reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particulates and mercury pollution from burning fossil fuels. But by lumping biomass heating boilers—which do not emit mercury—together with large, coal-burning plants, the EPA has failed to distinguish the vast difference between electricity generation from coal and heat generation from waste wood via biomass boilers.

Widely used and promoted in Europe as a way to reduce reliance on coal and oil, biomass heating systems for commercial and institutional buildings are spawning a brand new and fast-growing industry in the US, one that we can ill afford to see regulated out of existence, especially in the Pacific Northwest.

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