Group presents plan for heating plant

Industrial Wet Woodchip Burner:Bad for Town,Bad for Planet

Let's find out which neighborhoods are being targeted to host the incinerator by Brat.Thermal Utilities,Inc. The residents and businesses nearest the stack will no doupt be some of the strongest opponents.

Education is also important: Biomass burns dirtier than coal, is hazardous to the forested landscape, and worsens global warming.(For links and info from a few miles downstream try: www.greenfieldbiomass.info )

Take action on the state and federal level to remove the "biomass loophole" that is encouraging speculators to foist incinerators on vulnerable communities.(For a sample of this work try: www.stopspewingcarbon.com )

Good luck Brattleboro!

Is there a viable version of what these people "feel" would provide efficient, cost reducing heat for the town in existence today? How is it working? What's the track record? How big is the carbon footprint? How much will the cap and trade taxes effect cost efficiencies? Who will provide the biomass? Who will transport the biomass? Who will process the biomass? Who will pay for the biomass?

This sounds like a town woodstove concept. What is the up side of one big wood heat source vs. what we all now call a woodstove, heating our homes? Who will pay for the town woodstove? Will it be a non profit paid for by all of us, while it heats Main Street? Or, will it be a for profit, charging those who opt in? When funding for the town woodstove dries up, who will be left to pay the bill?

Perhaps the best location for such a plant would be off Exit 3 across from the fast food resturants? that would add much excitment to the round-a-bout would it not?

The speculators behind the 47 megawatt Greenfield biomass burner says they'll need wood from a 50-mile radius. Clean Power Development LLC's proposed Winchester, N.H. biomass plant will also draw from Windham County's forests. It sounds like there may still be a burner at the old Pownal racetrack, or perhaps a pellet operation.(Am I missing any other nearby biomass burner schemes?)

Concerns about an industrial woodchip burning operation in the Town of Brattleboro are well founded. Some folks might win but the impacts will be felt by those hurt by the the considerable air pollution, folks who depend on inexpensive cordwood to heat and others who depend on the current forested landscape.

Generally I found their facts out of date, they talked about spiking fossil fuel prices, they weren’t honest with spiking wood chip prices....all the out of date information suspiciously went towards the wood chip direction.

My opinion of it went, the green energy producers are terribly unregulated and they is no mandatory transparency requirements. It is the next bubble; it is going to be related to it financing and it loss of credibility...no question about it. It is a unregulated frenzy and there are plenty of hucksters out there. All these guys talked about was voluntary standards without any teeth, just like Wall Street. It was pure republicanism.

They talked about the petrol industry creating 8 jobs for every 135 for this biofuels. I thought they were shifting from a high wage and benefits into temporary scab jobs and low wages. Most of this stuff is low wages and temporary. There was absolutely no talk about what the expected wages and benefits should be...what was a "just" living wage.

This was how forestry and wood chipa are done for republican ideologues.

They rolled out a long list of non profits and surprisingly mainstream environmental and forestry groups on the chalk board ....and I thought none of these groups could enumerate what a “just” and living wage is for is for the workers in the wood chip and power industry. It is all voluntary programs with powerless employees....it is new energy under the same umbrella as the worst of our industrialization slavery.

You know this environmental and forestry groups, it is all "I hate people who makes a good incomes"...they were all selling their own self interest and their wages and screw aeveryone else.

Dear Brattelboro,
A healthy dose of skepticism, and a well informed public at the outset will be very helpful to you. In Greenfield, the deal was sealed before the public had even heard that there was a 47 MW power plant (burning 500,000 tons of wood a year--including wood from Vermont) was being proposed. I hope that the powers that be in Brattleboro are able to be clear thinking on this. I work in Brattleboro. THere is very poor air quality much of the time on Main St. The topography creates a condition that holds air pollution from the trucks that pass through town (why is that happening?). Solid fuel burning is more air polluting that gas or oil--period. Better to go with gas (sourced in the U.S>.) for district heating. Better yet, insulate you houses and turn off your unnecessary lights, and you'll be better off.