By Lisa Romano

With the Obama administration’s admonishments that we must diversify away from foreign sources of oil and with the nation’s growing awareness of the impacts, current and potential, of climate change, alternative sources of energy have become a new hot topic of debate and experimentation.

Locally, the towns of Greenfield and Russell have been engaged in ongoing deliberations, often heated (no pun intended), regarding the possible construction of in-town wood fired power plants. These biomass plants, as they’re known, would generate electricity by burning wood, a renewable, though still controversial, resource.

While this conversation may be new to many of us, a small wood fired plant has been quietly operating for nearly a quarter of a century in Northampton. In 1985, Cooley Dickinson Hospital received partial funding from the federal government to install a wood chip burner to provide the steam required to heat and cool the entire hospital. Says Norm Welch, Director of Facilities at Cooley Dickinson, “At the time, the thinking was that being tied to fossil fuels could potentially take dollars away from the hospital’s core business of providing health care services to the community.”

The wood chip boiler system was such a success that, in 2006, an additional wood chip boiler plant was built to accommodate the new Kittredge Surgery Center/North Building, a four story building that is adjacent to the main hospital. The hospital now enjoys $1,000 per day in savings, which, says Norm, “is money used to hire staff, buy equipment, and make improvements to hospital.”

But Cooley Dickinson sees benefits of using wood fuel well beyond the financial savings. So long as the wood being burned is harvested sustainably, wood fuel may be a good alternative to fossil fuels and, as a renewable resource, may have far fewer long term ecological impacts. Indeed, one such potential impact of burning wood is the smoke that results, a potentially harmful atmospheric pollutant. In order to mitigate this issue, Cooley Dickinson uses only debarked wood chips, which reduce emissions. Their plant is also regulated by the Department of Environmental Protection, which ensures the hospital adheres to emissions regulations.

Cooley Dickinson also sees their switch to wood fuel as a way to generate energy from local, rather than foreign, sources. All of the 60 tons of wood chips a day burned by Cooley Dickinson come from Massachusetts’ wood vendors. These chips may be generated by trees cut during land clearing activities or from forest management activities. Because the wood is chipped and does not need to be in good form, burning chips is a good way to make use of otherwise unmarketable timber. A nice example of how one man’s unwanted wood is another man’s warm hospital bed comes from a family in the hilltowns of western Massachusetts. As part of the management plan on their property, they cleared some aspens in order to enhance wildlife habitat. Though these trees had little timber value, they were able to sell them as chips to Cooley Dickinson, which in turn helped to pay for their wildlife project while helping to heat the hospital.

At the same time, Cooley Dickinson, in their commitment to the local economy, donates the nutritive ashes that are generated by burning wood to local farms, which use the ashes as an organic soil amendment. One such farm that is the regular recipient of Cooley Dickinson’s ashes is the Food Bank Farm in Hadley, which grows crops that are then donated to local food pantries and shelters. How’s that for staying local? Habitat improvement on family land→heating hospital→local organic farm→food pantry…all from the same trees!

Of course, the controversies around the Greenfield and Russell biomass plants likely stem from the scale at which these plants would burn wood. While Cooley Dickinson burns chips to generate steam to heat its buildings, biomass plants that generate electricity for local communities require a significantly greater amount of fuel, which, some fear, could put our woods and air at risk. They may also be more wasteful, with much of the heat generated by burning the wood an unused byproduct. It’s these questions and concerns about the relative benefits and drawbacks of biofuels that have generated an ongoing source of letters to the editor of local newspapers, blog entries, and more. In the meantime, and for over 20 years, the scale at which Cooley Dickinson is operating appears to be a resounding success. With benefits to the hospital and its patients and to local families and farms, wood as fuel on this moderate scale remains uncontroversial.