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.

Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative

Wow, it's been some time, but here's the update.

Last Monday night we had student representatives from 4 schools around Vermont all gathered to talk about potential biomass legislation. We're calling it the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative. The result of that meeting was that the kids from Addison County are "phone bombing" their representatives to ask that their addendum be tacked on to a particular bill. David Zuckerman (Progressive from Burlington) said that most representatives get 20-30 calls from constituents TOTAL per legislative session, so a phone bomb party should be pretty effective (that's where you get together and have everybody take turns calling the representative). Slightly annoying? yes. It would be better if it were spaced out, but ... nonetheless that's the plan.

The plan as it stands right now is:

• Tax non-renewable fuels to fund the transition to renewable fuels which includes
• Overhaul LIHEAP (a fuel assistance program for poor folks in VT) to help them switch to biomass
• Have the state buy lots of 1000 pellet stoves to sell at cost to Vermonters
• Develop a pelletizer station where farmers or foresters or lumber mills or wood workers could bring biomass to pelletize and, at the same location, have a university-sponsored biofuels research facility to develop grass pellet technology.
• To prevent racketeering, charter a pubic, transparent pellet fuels futures market

That way you create simultaneously a supply and demand system for Vermont-made pellets. This will also serve as a huge stimulus to the Vermont economy since farmers will have an additional cash crop (with the hope that they would not reduce food production, but rather they would find suitable crops for otherwise underutilized land).

We need SO much input though! From economics experts, biomass experts, university professors, and foresters. So if you're one of those folks please visit biomassvt.pbwiki.com and reply with your thoughts!

We're hoping to have a conversation with the Governor about this within the next week. *oooo excitment! *

Tomorrow: Meeting at the High School for District Heating Project. Maybe that will ever happen. My fiery student wants to get involved, and gosh, I feel like with this girl anything is possible. She's got more energy than even me!