I have a long, but hopefully witty and eminently readable, piece in the Sunday Telegraph today about the present and future of biomass, mostly meaning heating with wood. Read it here.
The heart of the story is that while the technical options are expanding widely, cost is still the driver. No surprise there, I suppose.
The story [...]

PSNH has gotten a lot of attention for one of the more charming alternative-energy programs around: burning coca bean shells in its Schiller power plant in Portsmouth. Even the Economist magazine wrote about it.
They should get more attention now, following the announcement that last year’s test has convinced the New Hampshire’s Department of Environmental [...]

A proposal is being floated for a 30-megawatt wood-burning power plant in Hopkinton - which is fine. The interesting part is that it would also build 20 acres of greenhouses and pump CO2 and excess heat there, to boost growth of whatever the business plan calls for (maybe cut flowers, which make big profit on [...]

A new research paper argues that converting coal-burning power plants to using biomass can be an effective way to fight greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. I read about it in the NY Times’ very fine Green Inc. blog (read it here) - which cites PSNH’s 2007 conversion of part of the Schiller Power Plant [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the comment below makes clear, I am confused: two biomass plants have been proposed in Berlin, and part of the debate involves which should go forward since there isn’t grid capacity for both.
As this article from the Berlin Reporter (that’s Berlin, N.H., for confused out-of-state readers) makes clear, not everybody is happy [...]

The so-called Coos Loop is a section of the power grid that isn’t connected very well to the rest of New England’s power lines. This weak connection has long cast a pall over developing wind farms and wood-burning power plants up in the North Country, where there are lots of trees, lots of windy ridges, [...]

The Sunday Burlington Press-Herald has a great story about an eco-geek studying whether invasive Eurasian milfoil pulled out of Lake Champlain can be burned in a biomass power project, along with agricultural waste.
Blue Spruce Farm already generates grid-bound electricity in a generator fired with manure-fermented methane. A $10,000 grant from Central Vermont Public Service will [...]

Some neighbors on the Maine side of the Piscataqua River, opposite the wood-burning Schiller Power Plant in Newington, say it’s too loud. The issue, according to a Portsmouth Herald story, is that when a silencer is placed on an ‘induced draft’ fan it reduces the plant’s ability to measure emissions.

The 2007 Northern Wood Power project at Schiller, which turned a coal-fired 50-MW boiler into a wood-powered boiler, is a poster child for biomass electric power. As this kerfuffle shows, however, nothing is ever straightforward.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has a neat new online project, highlighting people working in renewable-energy  industries. It’s smart to emphasize the guns-and-butter benefits of green tech, to help convince those who are unmoved by global warming and environmental concerns.
The closest example to New Hampshire is an employee with Jiminy Peak Ski Area in western [...]

It’s Monday morning, which is depressing enough, so let’s be more depressing with three wet-blanket stories from the Globe:

A new report reiterates the extra cost and complexity of making the nation’s electric grid able to take advantage of wind and solar power.  It says that carbon reduction plans (like our own RGGI) “may force changes [...]