The Mesabi Daily News is reporting on a program to encourage biomass fuel use in the heating of Iron Range schools, dubbing it a “copy cat” program from one that is 25 years old. Iron Range Resource Board officials are quoted recollecting that the idea for using biomass in schools goes back to the Rudy Perpich days. This is true. Actually burning wood goes back a lot farther than that (ha-ha). But seriously folks, the reason biomass is back on the table now is that the costs of other energy forms have risen to the point where biomass, wind and solar are economically viable sources of energy. Coal prices, in particular, are why renewable energy is suddenly possible. This means that all those people who said, in futility, that we should be investing in wind, solar, bio fuels, hydro and whatever else during the ’80s and ’90s in preparation for these changing economic and environmental conditions were right. Hooray … Retroactively!
As a nation, we could be moving away from coal today, using it as a transition and emergency fuel source. We could be perfecting nuclear or expanding the use of hydrogen (and resources don’t get more abundant than hydrogen). But instead, we’re still here dinking around with wood chips and propping up the myth of clean coal. Watch how fast “clean coal” disappears when somebody commercializes hydrogen fuels. With the price of coal continuing to rise, you can bet someone is working on this for reasons that have nothing to do with the environment or politics.
I agree with alot of what you said, Aaron, but (as an energy geek), I think it’s important to know that hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source in and of itself. Wind, solar, biofuels & biomass, hydro-power… those are all energy sources. But for hydrogen to be used for energy, some other form of energy has to be used to create the hydrogen fuel. What that “other form of energy” is (wind, solar, biomass, coal, nuclear, hydro-power, etc.) is an important consideration.
Thanks for the correction. That’s an important distinction.