Obama Loves Biomass Thermal

 by Bio­mass Ther­mal Ener­gy Coun­cil, March 23, 2015, Bio­mass Magazine

[Bio­mass indus­try groups over­joyed with the President’s most recent sup­port for bio­mass ener­gy. –Josh] 

The Bio­mass Ther­mal Ener­gy Coun­cil  and the Pel­let Fuels Insti­tute (PFI) com­mend Pres­i­dent Obama’s com­mit­ment to expand­ing the use of renew­able ther­mal ener­gy with the issuance of Exec­u­tive Order “Plan­ning for Fed­er­al Sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the Next Decade.”

The Exec­u­tive Order calls for the reduc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions across fed­er­al oper­a­tions by at least 40 per­cent through 2025 through a broad host of mea­sures, includ­ing build­ing ener­gy con­ser­va­tion, ener­gy pro­cure­ment inclu­sive of renew­able ther­mal tech­nol­o­gy, and fleet management.

Accord­ing to BTEC’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Joseph Sey­mour, “The President’s Exec­u­tive Order demon­strates strong and resource­ful lead­er­ship in trans­form­ing fed­er­al oper­a­tions through ener­gy man­age­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, we applaud the Pres­i­dent for cre­at­ing new path­ways for deploy­ing safe, cost effec­tive and inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing bio­mass ther­mal ener­gy, for heat­ing and elec­tric­i­ty, while rein­forc­ing ener­gy efficiency.”

“Pro­mot­ing the use of proven renew­able tech­nolo­gies like those that uti­lize pel­let heat for fed­er­al build­ings makes good sense,” said Jen­nifer Hedrick, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Pel­let Fuels Insti­tute. “Using wood pel­lets to heat build­ings is cost effec­tive and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly – and is a method that more fed­er­al agen­cies are exploring.”

In the 2014 Green Prov­ing Ground report, the Gen­er­al Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion con­clud­ed that bio­mass heat­ing sys­tems could be deployed at facil­i­ties nation­wide that cur­rent­ly rely on fuel oil for ther­mal ener­gy needs. Last win­ter, the Ketchikan Fed­er­al Build­ing in Ketchikan, Alas­ka, became the first fed­er­al build­ing man­aged by GSA with a pel­let boil­er. Fur­ther­more, in a Feb­ru­ary 2015 let­ter Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden, D‑Oregon, request­ed of GSA Admin­is­tra­tor Dan Tangher­li­ni that his agency should recon­sid­er its pro­cure­ment poli­cies that lim­it fed­er­al facil­i­ties’ use of bio­mass for heat­ing. The Depart­ment of Ener­gy’s Fed­er­al Ener­gy Man­age­ment Pro­gram has report­ed that in Fis­cal Year 2013, fed­er­al build­ings used approx­i­mate­ly 143 mil­lion gal­lons of fuel oil and 19 mil­lion gal­lons of propane, for a total cost of near­ly $534 million. 

The Exec­u­tive Order was released March 19.