Wood Energy for Southeast Alaska

Wood pellets
Creative Commons

With help from a workshop organized by the Conservancy, new partnerships for finding local alternative energy sources are taking shape. At the 2008 Southeast Wood Energy Workshop in Sitka, the Tongass Future Roundtable and the Conservancy took a fresh look at how rural communities can transition away from fossil fuels for heating homes and schools.

“The workshop was the first of its kind and it was a good opportunity to network,” says presenter Daniel J. Parrent, a forester with the Juneau Economic Development Council. At the workshop, Native leaders and school administrators, funders and engineers met to talk about the potential of wood energy for the first time.

The Conservancy’s Norman Cohen, who coordinates the Tongass Futures Roundtable , says Southeast Alaska already has examples of how wood energy can displace fossil fuel.

“Some large-scale wood energy projects have been underway for years and these are good examples of how communities can diversify their economy and reduce reliance on fossil fuels,” Norman says.

The village of Craig, for one, heats its elementary school and swimming pool with wood. A facility in Petersburg burns wood briquettes. Other projects for Southeast Alaska are in the planning stages.

The search for alternative fuels coincides with an era of shifting management priorities on the Tongass National Forest. In places where second-growth temperate rainforest awaits restoration to improve Sitka black-tailed deer habitat, for instance, thinning young trees can produce a “biomass energy” source to heat homes and schools.