Starting a Farmer's Biomass Cooperative?

Lately I've been dreaming of starting a farmer-owned coop of pellet production, so that even Vermont's micro farmers with just a few acres can ultimately commit to the commercial scale demands for biomass heat and get some share of the profits.

This is of course way beyond the scope of anything I think I've done so far. But then... so is everything else VSHI has accomplished.

I've started dialoging with a few people about the idea and so far the feedback is positive. I've spoken with my CSA farmer (Joe at Screamin' Ridge Farm in Montpelier), pellet guru Andy Boutin, and my roommate the law school student. From all I've gathered from them, it sounds like the next steps are to
1) contact the Sustainable Jobs Fund
2) contact Casella the Garbage and Recycling collectors
and
3) go visit Andy Boutin's set up.

Meanwhile, I should probably track down David Zuckerman and run the idea by him and Jessie's mom from the Extension service.

... sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be done with this project ... :P :)

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.