VSHI in Montpelier

Since the Governor's Institute for Engineering I've found at least two other students who were interested in joining me in VSHI work in Montpelier. This is exciting since it's only been one other student and I representing our capitol so far.

This original student and I worked with the head of LIHEAP, Richard Moffi, to send out an interest survey to Montpelier LIHEAP clients, and have since received back several surveys for strong candidates to receive a pellet stove from the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative.

So far I've been on three site visits in Montpelier, some were stronger candidates than others, but man, we've got a bunch more to follow up with before we can make any decisions. After having met some of these families I can see that it's going to be ridiculously hard to turn people down. Oh my gosh - I think I may have caught the bug. All I want to do is help these people.

Renewable Energy Projects

As my vacation winds down, I think increasingly about the classes I'll jump back into on Wednesday. When I left them we were two days into talking about renewable energy projects. I offered a menu of project ideas, plus an opening for students to come up with their own. So far, though, the feedback has been "Can we do all of these?!" I am seriously tempted to cancel the rest of the semester's curriculum to do that, but I also feel like people may get sick of these projects. Anyway, here's the menu of projects listed from simplest and most doable to most difficult to implement (roughly). Any suggestions are welcome as well. 

• Light Loggers - Donald, my intern, and I placed light loggers in a few rooms around the school which recorded when there was motion in a room and when the lights were on. The goal would be to see *how* worthwhile it would be to install motion-sensors on the lights. 

• DDC Boiler Control - The boiler room is controlled by a Digital Display Controller (DDC).  We could monitor the temperatures in each room in the whole school and see which rooms are perpetually too cold, and which are too hot.  That would ultimately lead us to going over some of the duct joints with aluminum tape to prevent leaks. We could even then see if it made any measurable difference. 

• Solar Hot Water Panel - Turns out the cafeteria's hot water comes from an electric hot water tank located under the cafeteria. We could run a calculation to see *how* worthwhile it would be to install a solar hot water panel above the cafeteria.  As I'm told solar hot water has a higher return on investment than photovoltaics. If our conclusions showed that it would be of significant value, then, we could propose this to principal, head custodian, head of facilities. Our high school recently won $10,000 from AARP for being awesome at sustainability (mainly because of our greenhouse, and the biology curriculum's dedication to growing food for the cafeteria there). That money isn't earmarked for anything, and in keeping with the spirit with which we won it, this may be an entirely appropriate use of it. But we'll see. 

• Operation Plastic Removal, Think Outside the Bottle, Plastic Bag Fee Statewide or Countywide - In the fall my 7th period physics students were moved to spread the word about BPA in water bottles like Nalgene. They formed a group they ended up calling Operation Plastic Removal. The wrote a mission statement, made a facebook group, made a video, and a tee-shirt design, which many students are excited to purchase. Its sort of taken on a life of its own. For a while I squelched it because we had to move on in the curriculum, but now that we're back to renewable energy, it's now appropriate to return I believe. There are many directions we could take this. 
  

1) We could work with Think Outside the Bottle, who has recently had a campaign to get municipal facilities to cancel their agreements with bottled water companies. According to a rumor I heard a representative from Think Outside the Bottle was going to target Vermont's Statehouse next. 

2) Students from Mount Abe in Bristol are pushing for a statewide plastic bag fee. A version of such a bill has been introduced in both the house and senate, but according to an environmental lobbyist friend of mine, she says that no one is talking about it. Sad face. However, (hehehehe) it sounds like the Central Vermont Solid Waste District was eager for ideas at their most recent board meeting.  They have a zero-waste policy which helps guide their decisions, and this would fall right in line with that.  It looks like there might be a good opportunity here. It would be easier to go to a statewide fee or ban after it had been piloted at the county level. 

3) There is a bill with Natural Resources and Energy Committee that would ban DECA (a particularly toxic flame retardant) as well as BPA in baby-bottles and in the lining of baby food containers. According to my friend people *are* talking about this bill and it's likely to pass. Nonetheless, I think the kids would be thrilled to go there and be a part of the discussion.  

• Pellet Stoves for Low Income Families in Washington County - I've been working with a group of students and teachers calling themselves the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative whose main goal has been to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned as heating fuel in Vermont, and their specific action to do this has been to raise money to switch LIHEAP recipients (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) from kerosene, propane, and fuel oil to pellet heat systems. Pellets are cheaper and (in my opinion) will continue to track lower than fuel oil per BTU, so people with capital to make a switch will do that, but those without capital will have to continue burning the more expensive fuel oil.  And if sustainability is to become our reality it must be accessible to the poorest in our community.  So this group has raised money to switch LIHEAP recipients in Addison County, but why couldn't we do the same in Washington County? Many students wanted to do this. 

• Wind Energy on State Owned Land and/or ski resorts - Vermont Representative, Rachel Weston is sitting on a bill that would open up state land for renewable energy development. Primarily this would mean people could put wind turbines on ridge lines - there would be special exceptions for particularly well-known vistas, and all the regular rules would apply: not in a migration area, not interrupting endangered species habitat, etc. A friend of mine came up with an interesting amendment to this bill - what if there were wind turbines at ski resorts - they're already (in my view) ecological disaster areas, visually unnatural, they're easily accessible, and ski resorts could get a little green-washing to boot!  Ok... probably I shouldn't frame it that way if we move forward with this, but you get the idea. :) 
  

Wow. That was a lot of writing. I hope you can see why the kids are excited about this. I'm excited as well ~ we'll see what can be achieved in the next few months.  

What if VSHI went National?

When we met with Peter Welch we asked him if we could go National with this program, if we could come to Washington DC to do some lobbying. And he jokingly said, "No", and added that we didn't need his permission to lobby in Washington. The only thing is, we don't know how to lobby in Washington. :(

I was talking with Bart my bus buddy today about this and he recommended getting someone with that kind of experience on the board of VSHI since we are, finally, a non-profit. Hm.

I guess we have a board. Sort of. It's Tom, the students, and myself. But we don't have bi-laws or regular monthly meetings. Anyway, talking with Bart made it seem possible to lobby in Washington, which brings up the question, what specific things are we looking for?

1) $100,000,000 for research grants regarding sustainable heating and cooling systems available to university students to do research.

2) 1% of each state's current LIHEAP funding to go towards helping low income families transition to sustainable heating/cooling systems.


This is what we've got so far - there are a few more details, but maybe they'll change. Now we just need to figure out how to get this in a bill or ... something. (?)

Peter Welch, David Sharpe converge on a LIHEAP-VSHI recipient home

This past Thursday the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative met with Vermont Congressman Peter Welch, and Vermont State senator from Addison County David Sharpe.

They and VSHI members from UVM, Mt. Abe, and Montpelier gathered at the home of a LIHEAP recipient whom we had given a stove. Peter Welch seemed enthusiastic about our work, and David Sharpe hopes to write some legislation to change the way LIHEAP is funded. He encouraged us to move now rather than wait for the next legislative session to begin.

We made the Addison Independent paper - pretty cool, but again I am eager for action rather than talk.

I was just on a conference call with Tim DenHerder-Thomas from MacAllister University along with Tom and Jessie-Ruth. The three of us may play host to Tim's new program called Summer of Solutions, an opportunity for high school and college students to spend their summer working on projects like the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative. That would be great. Last summer VSHI was basically my second job, and this might actually allow me to delegate some responsibility and make me freer. Perhaps that's a pipe dream, but I'm not committed yet, so I have some time to mull over it.

Caring for the Earth Conference and Shelburne Farms Harvest Festival

I haven't posted about VSHI in a little while - I suppose that's because we've been working out bugs on the VSHI donation website (carbon offsets) as well as the Addison County LIHEAP Pilot Project. We're hoping to do a massive media-oriented installation next month, and that will hopefully be good for donations as well.

Meanwhile, there are a few conferences coming up worth mentioning.

Caring for the Earth Conference at the Bishop Booth Conference Center in Burlington
October 26-28th, Registration: $40
It's all about faith communities coming together to address global climate change. We'll be looking into the future and see how we can move towards sustainability and help facilitate that transition, so I'm pretty stoked about it. Also VSHI is the very first presentation of the conference and everyone will be there: Gah! Exciting!

30th Annual Shelburne Farms Harvest Festival and Energy Fair
September 20th, Adults: $6, Children $4
There will be music and hayrides and fresh foods, like any good harvest festival should. But I'm sure among other valuable energy information, I'm told there will be a demonstration of grass-tablet making (grass tablets are less energy-intensive to produce), as well as a home-made gasification burner by Ethan Dressigacker (sp?), a teenage heating entrepreneur.

An Update on VSHI

Things in the world of the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative have been cruising for some time now. So here's where we're at:

The director of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program sent out a survey to its petroleum consuming recipients, soliciting interest in our pilot program. So far we've received more than 40 surveys back indicating interest (yay!). Now all we need is money to buy them stoves.

How do we get money to buy them stoves? That's where the Carbon Offset Program comes in. Since we're specifically targeting fossil-fuel users and converting them to biomass heat, this warrants a carbon offset since the biomass is a short-carbon-cycle fuel and the fossil fuels are long-carbon-cycle.

At the moment we're selling offsets for $25/ton, but that may be lowered. We've done the calculation like four times, and it comes out slightly differently each time depending on our assumptions. So it will probably end up somewhere in the range of $9-25/ton. The page is about 90% done, and we're hoping to get some big name corporations and legislators to participate. Until everything is up and running I don't expect it to generate a lot of money.

Just a piece on the logistics: Families who receive a stove will be asked to pay us a down payment + whatever they can afford per month until they've paid off the stove. Thus it's not so much a grant as it is a no-interest loan.

Meanwhile I'm meeting today with Garth of CVCLT to discuss how to engage landlords in this transition as well as brainstorming how to convert my condo complex, the apartment complex next door and across the street. Actually I should probably go so I'm not late :) Wish me luck!

Announcing the Vermont Fuel and Food Partnership

And now for some shameless self-promotion.
Check out Governor Douglas' speech from yesterday - especially the paragraph that starts "Vermonter's care about each other."

Thanks Governor Douglas, let's talk.





State of Vermont
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

Official Remarks of the Governor
Announcing the Vermont Fuel and Food Partnership
Thursday, June 12, 2008

Thank you President Handy for your hospitality-I'm delighted to be at Vermont Technical College to announce an important, wide-ranging, collaborative effort to help Vermont's families address the rising cost of fuel.

Today, we are taking meaningful, additional steps to help Vermont respond to the national recession that has caused our state such marked economic anxiety. Every Vermont family is facing the realities of soaring gas prices, rising food costs and the threat of home heating oil reaching unaffordable levels in the coming winter.

Solving these problems will require an effort that goes beyond government alone.

We're fortunate to live in a state where there is a strong network of community-based organizations and programs to help Vermonters when times get tough. Our partners like the Area Agencies on Aging, Community Action Agencies, Efficiency Vermont, Vermont Fuel Dealers Association, Vermont Economic Development Authority, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, and the Vermont Foodbank, among many others, are very important and very valuable
allies in our efforts to protect the most vulnerable and build a stronger, more innovative economy.

Vermonters care about each other. In communities across our state, organizations and individuals are stepping up to help Vermonters in need, in creative and effective ways. The state Seasonal Fuel Assistance Office is working with the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative (VSHI) - led by students at Mt. Abraham and Montpelier High Schools - to help low-income individuals convert from fuel oil to wood pellet furnaces.

The Fuel Assistance Office recently received a call from the Union Bank requesting information for a fuel awareness day they will be holding, to help educate Vermonters about how to prepare for the upcoming fuel season.

And right here at Vermont Technical College-the home of innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy programs-there is a community garden where employee volunteers sow, plant, weed and harvest. Once a week community members are able to purchase fresh organic produce from the garden at very affordable prices. The local food shelf receives regular donations of fresh vegetables from the project as well.

Great things are happening, but not all Vermonters know about these efforts.

We need to bring together all of this creative energy, compassion and information - we need to marshal all of our resources - to ensure that we make the most of every dollar, help reaches those who need it most and, most importantly, that no Vermonter is left in the cold.

To bring everyone together-and to harness all available resources--I have established a cabinet-level task force chaired by Lt. Governor Brian Dubie and Secretary Neale Lunderville. And I have directed them to focus every effort and every resource Vermont can bring to bear to help manage the effects of higher energy costs on Vermont families.

* * *
Like other Americans, every Vermont family and business understands the stark reality of skyrocketing gas prices. With gasoline approaching $4.25 a gallon and diesel near $5.00 a gallon Vermonters are paying dearly at the pump.

The hard fact is there is very little we can do at the state level to effect the international oil markets in the short term. I'm pleased Congress is beginning to consider action that could provide Vermonters with relief from skyrocketing oil and gasoline prices. While I will continue to take every step available to state government to hold down the price of fuel - like continuing to oppose increases in the gas tax - ultimately Vermonters know that federal action is also necessary to address this growing energy crisis.

I applaud our congressional delegation's work to move the debate in the right direction. I also encourage all members of Congress and the Bush administration to make this fundamental economic issue their top priority.

The cost of gas and worries about the upcoming heating season are topmost on Vermonters' minds. That's why these issues must be addressed immediately and effectively by officials in Washington D.C.
***
The programs I outline today are practical, near-term and meant to help deal with the realities we face today when it comes to sky-high gas prices.

Today we're launching a new website to give commuters the tools to make more affordable transportation choices. ConnectingCommuters.org<http://connectingcommuters.org/> will provide Vermonters with a range of options to help them identify more affordable transportations options and locate alternatives to single-occupancy commutes.

This site will be a one-stop way to plan trips using bus route maps, to locate convenient park & ride locations across Vermont, offer tips on fuel conservation and identify locations with the lowest gas prices. We're also providing links to an online carpool matching system for Vermonters, so we can all pitch in and use the ties of community to help save gas.

I'm e-mailing state employees, encouraging them to carpool and use other transportation options to help cut down on the number of car trips generated within state government. With 9,000 employees, state workers can have a real effect on energy usage by carpooling, teleconferencing and limiting official travel.

The Park and Ride system lets Vermonters drive to convenient, local points to access mass transit and meet carpools. This summer I've asked VTrans to expedite our 20% expansion of the Park and Ride system. And we will work with the MPO and Regional Planning Commissions to identify capacity in private lots to add additional Park & Ride spots for Vermont commuters.

We're also seeking new ways to help Vermont businesses compete by using technological solutions. Many of Vermont's traditional rural industries rely on diesel trucks. To improve the efficiency of these trucks, I've asked VEDA to explore a low-interest loan program to equip them with Auxiliary Power Units (APUs). These units can help lower costs by giving truckers electrical power without idling and burning $5.00 a gallon diesel fuel.

* * *
As food prices rise along with the cost of fuel, we need to make sure families don't go hungry in Vermont. There are some things state government can do to help, and there are other things that will require neighbor helping neighbor. And some things are just common sense.

We will extensively promote Vermont's "Buy local" initiative through the Agency of Agriculture, as well as the "Grow an Extra Row" gardening program. Over the coming weeks as Vermonters tend to their gardens, we hope they'll plant an extra row of produce to donate to their local food shelf.

Locally grown Vermont produce is among the finest in the world and now it's a more affordable option than ever. Shifting just 10% of Vermont's food consumption to locally grown meat, dairy and produce would not only save Vermonters money but would also pump $130 million dollars into our state's economy.

At my direction, the Agencies of Agriculture and Human Services are expanding the ability of farmers' markets to accept debit and EBT cards. There are presently three farmers' markets with this capacity and we will expand that number to 15 this summer. This will provide
Vermonters-including our food stamp recipients-more convenient access to fresh, affordable, locally grown food.

The federal food stamp program is one of the best was for use to assist the most vulnerable Vermonters. At the present time, only 70% of those eligible for food stamps use the service. To be sure everyone eligible has the opportunity to benefit, I've asked the Agency of Human Services to enhance our outreach efforts to ensure those eligible for food stamps receive them. Lt. Governor Dubie will also work with AHS and the Area Agencies on Aging to ensure no elderly Vermonter goes hungry.

Finally, we'll be working closely with the Vermont Food Bank, local food shelf programs and Meals on Wheels to encourage community-based charitable efforts to support them. These organizations are supported largely by private donations. I hope to encourage those Vermonters who can to join Dorothy and me in making donations to the Vermont Food Bank, and our local food shelf and Meals on Wheels program. Even the smallest donation can make a real difference, and it is in the best Vermont tradition to reach out to help a neighbor in need.

* * *
Today, the sun is shining, another beautiful Vermont summer is upon us, and the last thing we want to think about is another winter heating season-but we must.

We must face the growing reality that fuel prices this winter may be out of reach for many families. Though fuel prices are a product of the international market, Vermonters have in our power the ability to take steps to make homes more weatherized and energy efficient and to use less fuel.

As Governor, I am committed that no Vermonter should spend this winter - or any winter - in the cold.

Vermont has the most generous Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in the country, and we benefit from a robust weatherization program. In total, Vermont state government is presently investing over $32 million in fuel assistance and weatherization programs. We also enjoy the generous support of our private and non-profit community partners like Efficient Vermont and the Community Action Agencies who contribute millions more to the effort.

But spending isn't the only answer. Our goal must be to reduce demand for fuel-and demand for these assistance programs-by making homes more fuel efficient. Simple, low-cost tasks, like getting a furnace cleaned and serviced, saves on average 18% in fuel costs over the winter season. It's hard to argue with the cost-effectiveness of these services.

We will encourage Vermonters to tap the extensive resources the state offers to make their homes more energy efficient, to weatherize them against the elements, and to assist families who are struggling to pay heating bills. There are public and private programs across Vermont to serve a variety of heating needs, and we will work tirelessly to integrate their efforts with those of the state and to direct Vermonters to the most effective programs for their needs.

We will establish a Winter Heating Helpline and a Vermont Winter Heating Assistance Website which will serve as one-stop clearinghouses for all energy assistance programs. To provide Vermonters with additional access to the information and resources they need to address fuel costs, we will also organize and conduct 8 regional energy workshops over the summer and we will engage the Town Energy Committees in our effort as well. Vermont 2-1-1 will also serve as our partner to direct Vermonters to our helpline for additional services.

Through these one-stop clearing houses of information, Vermonters will be able to tap expert advice, obtain services for weatherization, energy efficiency programs and fuel conversion. These resources will also help qualified families apply for LIHEAP.

Expanding access to existing services is only one part of the solution. We understand that increased demand will require increased resources to help Vermonters make smart weatherization and efficiency choices.

Today, I am pleased to announce that we are on track to release an additional $1 million into the traditional weatherization program that serves individuals and families at or below 60% of the median income. This money will help community action agencies provide weatherization services to the most vulnerable.

Of course, there are many Vermonters that don't qualify for existing weatherization programs, but still have a demonstrable need for the services. To serve these individuals and families, I am taking steps to infuse additional resources that will help expand the reach of existing programs.

I am asking the Agency of Commerce to release $2 million in Community Development Block Grant funds to community-based weatherization and energy efficiency programs.

I am also proposing the creation of a State Weatherization Revolving Loan Fund that will provide no or low-interest loans to middle income Vermonters for weatherization and efficiency upgrades. With a $9 million state investment over four years, we can help two to four thousand homeowners with up to $20 million in needed energy improvements. All of these weatherization and efficiency improvements have a quick payback-with all of the savings going back into the pocket of the homeowners. This is especially true as fuel prices continue to rise.

As market demand for efficiency and weatherization expands through our efforts, we must also grow the number of qualified and trained contractors capable of providing these services.

The Vermont Department of Labor will help develop workforce training programs to quickly expand the number of qualified and trained contractors in the fields of energy auditing, weatherization and alternative energy system installation.

These professions will assist Vermonters with retrofitting existing homes for energy savings and building new energy efficient homes. Working with the Community Action Agencies and Efficiency Vermont, Vermont Technical College and other partners we will accelerate these essential training programs.

***
These are difficult times for working families, but Vermont has faced these kinds of challenges before, and is a national example of how deep community roots and a strong commitment to seeking new solutions can resolve even the most difficult challenges. I know that the strength and determination of Vermonters will lead us past these difficult times and leave us with a state that is stronger and more energy independent than ever before.

What I've laid out today is the start of a very strong program to address the rising cost of fuel. All of these ideas, and those that will develop as the task force continues its work with our partners, can be accomplished by working together.

Energy Town Meeting Day in Montpelier

This morning I saw the upcoming environmental engineer, Andrew Laing, on the bus to Montpelier, and it reminded me that I haven't blogged in a little bit, so here we are: 

Recently there was an article in the Bridge about me, my teaching, and the working I'm doing with the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative. So that was very encouraging. Since then I've had lots of people come up to me saying, "You've got me convinced. I've got a couple acres of land we could grow grasses on!" Ha! Most excellent. 

And as long as we're talking VSHI, the last Thursday in Montpelier was the Energy Town Meeting Day with Ken Jones and the Montpelier Energy Team. We were hoping to start a pellet-purchasing coop that night (ideally 100-150 homes participating). Unfortunately, we only had six families sign up. I mean, it's a start, but more work needs to be done. 

Some of my students presented their work to the community, which was ... a little comical since many of the students thought they were sharing new information, when really the audience was abnormally well-educated. This was most poigniant when a student who had built a wind turbine had a diagram of the insides of an industrial turbine in his PowerPoint presentation. Someone from the crowd asked, "I normally see fins on these turbines to make sure they face into the wind, but there's not fin on this one, how does it turn?" The student didn't know, he had merely tapped the picture to make the point that his was much simpler, but to everyone's surprise a guy in the back corner piped up, "Well, I happen to be a windmill designer, and you can see there on the back, there's a little anemometer and a sensor there, which sends information to a computer inside the turbine, which tells it how to turn." hA! Wow. This was not your typical audience. 

Anyway - back to VSHI - the VSHI kids ran a session called "How can we move in the direction of locally produced pellets", which was sorely under-attended. Or at least it felt that way at first, there were only 3 people in attendance, but they were the right three people: Jeff Beyer, the Tree Warden and head of the Parks and Rec Department, and Rick Barstow an East Montpelier farmer who recently bought a small pelletizer so that he can pelletize grass from his farm. Jeff was saying, "We have hundreds of yards of woody biomass that's just getting buried right now because we don't have anything to do with it, but it's got to be worth something. We've got to use it!" And Rick was saying that he'd like to go into production very soon - by the fall he hopes. And ideally, the right blend of materials in a pellet would be mostly grass and a little bit of wood for lignan, which acts as a binder. Getting these two guys together was just fabulous. There was a lot of potential there. 

Thus far VSHI has been mainly focused on Bristol and Addison County, and I think I need to start dreaming about the Montpelier community and its potential heating future. 

 

Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative in Bristol

Last Tuesday morning we had one of the most exciting events in the short history of the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative. As one of our student members put it, it was "one of the most important things we've done."


Basically we gathered all the players in the Bristol biomass heating community to discuss a potential LIHEAP pilot program in that area. There were people from LIHEAP, the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, ACORN, Norwich University, Pellet Vendors, Farmers, the Extension Service, the Bristol Selectboard, and two Addison County Legislators, among others.

It was (needless to say) very productive. We discussed the basic idea, and then broke up into sub-groups to address different aspects of the pilot project: the Human Side, the Burning Technology/Production & Farming side, aaaaaand Funding.

These committees will continue to meet, and hopefully make further headway. I was on the Human Side, which I'm particularly interested in as I would like to be certified to do Home Energy Audits in the future.

This will be followed by a meeting this Thursday in Montpelier about the heating situation in that area. We'll discuss a bulk purchase of pellets (or pellet purchasing co-op), and how we can make this transition. More on that to follow.

Saint Michael's College loves VSHI

As usual I'm behind on blogging about the cool stuff that's been going on (perhaps because of the cool stuff!?)

I was invited to speak at Saint Michael's College by their "Green Up" group about the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative's work, which was pretty sweet. Here's the poster Dan (my contact) made up for it:

Green Up SMC would like to thank everyone that made it out to see Jim Merkel yesterday.

Today, Wednesday, April 16, we are presenting:

Anne Watson

Montpelier High School physics teacher

speaking about her project:

Grasses for the Masses: switchgrass and Vermont’s energy future

Farrell Room (St. Edmund’s Hall), 4:30-5:30 p.m.

Anne will be speaking about the work that she and some of her students are doing to reduce Vermont's reliance on fossil fuels through the growth of switchgrass on unused farm land for use as a renewable biofuel.

http://biofuelsresearch.freehostia.com/biomassvt/

Check out our full schedule of events for Earth Week at our new website:

http://personalweb.smcvt.edu/greenup/

It was probably our best-received presentation yet. They were so enthusiastic. Dan was like, "listen, we're in. Whatever you guys need we'll help with: funding, volunteers, whatever". Woe. Sweet. Sometimes I forget that this stuff is pretty cool. So now we've just got to figure out how to involve them.

Here are some possibilities:

• Man a Farmer's Market booth helping spread the word/advertize/collect email addresses of interested homeowners
• Help fund the Farmer's Market booth
• Help us set up a carbon offset program (I know: evil. but nonetheless useful for facilitating a transition)
• Get trained on how to weatherize people's houses, and then... go do that :)

We'll see. The whole thing was VERY encouraging.

A Meeting of the Pellet Minds: BERC, VSHI, Pellergy, and BCC

Yesterday was thoroughly exciting for a number of reasons, but I'll have to chop the reasons up into different posts I think. Let's start with the most exhilarating part.

After school I met with Jock Gill (of Biomass Commodities Corporation, who also arranged the meeting), Chris Recchia (Executive Director of Biomass Energy Resource Center aka BERC), and Andy Boutin (General Manager of Pellergy), along with my spitfire student to talk about up-and-coming pellet technologies. Also, Jock just wanted us all to meet each other cause we all cared about the same things: locally produced, locally consumed pellets.

Turns out BERC wants to get into pellet technologies. Previously if they had been, say, working with a school that was too small for to make a wood chip burner financially viable, they would refer them to another organization to look into pellets, which are much easier to scale down (and up, I might mention). But they've come around and decided that pellets should be included in the "solid fuels systems" which they support. This was very interesting for my student and I as we thought about our own school district's heating needs, and so we decided to meet up to discuss that possibility at length at a later date!

That wasn't the best part of the meeting though, that came when Andy Boutin took us to his house on East State Street to show us his working pellet-burning furnace. In case that doesn't make you take a step back, let me explain:

Right now the only thing you can commercially buy in the US for a residential-sized application to burn pellets is a pellet stove. It's like a woodstove that just heats up the air, which we then hope circulates adequately around the house. Companies in Northern Europe have developed a technology where you can just take the oil burner on your furnace and replace it with a pellet burner.

This guy, Andy Boutin, has taken the Swedish model and basically got permission to adapted it to run on our US 110Volts, 60Hz (rather than the European 230V, 50Hz). He lives in an ancient house that used to be coal-heated, so it had a whole room in the basement devoted to coal storage, which was obviously empty. He lined it, stored 7tons of pellets in it, ran a pipe from roughly the bottom of the room up, through the wall and over to a vacuum, which sucked up pellets and dropped them in a hopper that was about a cubic yard, then there was an auger which delivered pellets to a pellet burner (where the oil burner used to be).

It was SO cool. He told us all about the safety features, and how he had called the fire marshall, and the furnace manufacturer and all these other parties to make sure that his house was still insurable. But bottom line, his model works.

Next phase: he just started manufacturing five more prototypes in Maine, which will be sent to a third party testing facility to test for safety, and then he hopes to be installing them in people's homes by the end of the summer.

The system would cost roughly $4,000, with a payback period of 2-3 years. And he's planning to mass manufacture them in Maine (some folks at this meeting were hoping to get him to open a manufacturing facility in Lyndon, VT).

I would post pictures, but they're slightly confidential at this point (sorry). Even so I'm completely stoked about this!!! Andy is really stoked to work with VSHI, and I'm really stoked to have them visit Andy's house!! Gah!

Legislative Action This Session? Wow. Dang. :)

The exciting news of the day comes to us through Rep. Dave Sharpe from Addison County. I'm sorry Dave that I did not ask your permission ahead of time to publish this, but it's just so exciting:

Hi Gang,

Well it's crunch time. The Senate finance committee is looking at S.350 with an idea that they could do something to help the VESI project. Senator Ayer has asked me what in particular you would like and I have indicated three possibilities. 1) subsidize or otherwise create incentives for a pellet manufacturing facility 2) use LIHEAP funds to install some pellet stoves. 3) Use LIHEAP funds to purchase pellets. She suggested that possibly a grant to UVM to study the issues and plan a course of action.

What do you think? and what suggestions would you make?

Regards,
Rep. Dave Sharpe


It's SO great to know that in this small state our representatives are so willing to listen and move on our behalf. I'm feeling pretty good about democracy right now.

Meanwhile, I am also shocked that we may actually get some movement during this legislative session. We had mentally put the legislature on the backburner since there wasn't much time left, and usually bills like this take at least two sessions anyway. But here we are with a legislator proposing our ideas THIS FREAKING SESSION! :D Probably that's because we acted early. Now we've just got to get it passed ~ and hopefully without a veto :P We'll see!

New England Grassroots Environment Fund and VSHI

Today on the bus I got to talk with my bus buddy Bart from Holland. I was telling him all about the latest news with the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative. When I got to the part about an outreach to middle to upper income folks, he asked, "How do you plan to reach them?" To which I said, "Ummmmmm... no clue." Well, I did have some ideas, mainly posters and flyers, but I don't really think those are that effective.

He said, "Why not have a table at a farmer's market? Then you could have a sign up sheet, which could then be considered your 'market'. And you could email them when you want to have an informational meeting".

"Yes, but doesn't it cost money to have a table at a farmer's market?"

"It does, but NEGEF would be able to help with outreach". (Bart from Holland works for the New England Grassroots Environment Fund aka NEGEF)

Dude. I'm pumped right now. The deadline is May 1st, and then we could have farmer's market space in the summer ... possibly. We've got to act fast, but VSHI is a fast-acting kind of group!