Randolph Man Is Director
Of ‘Biomass’ Energy Center
By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

How’s this sound: A Vermont-grown energy source that is abundant, renewable, carbon neutral, and creates lots of jobs?

That would be woody biomass, according to Randolph’s Chris Recchia, the new executive director of the Biomass Energy Resource Center (BERC) in Montpelier.

Biomass is the new term for any biological material—solid, liquid, or gas—that can be burned for energy. Biomass includes old-fashioned cord wood, and processed wood products, such as wood chips and pellets. Other types of biomass presently being explored include "energy crops" such as fast-growing grasses that can be pelletized, and byproducts such as landfill gas, animal manure, and food-processing residues.

BERC, started six years ago as an offshoot of the Vermont Public Service Department, is now an independent non-profit and a leader in advancing the use of biomass for energy nationwide.

Recchia, with more than 20 years’ experience as an environmental leader, started his new job in June, as founding director Timothy Maker stepped into a new role as the non-profit’s senior program director.

Most recently, Recchia was executive director of the Ozone Transport Commission in Washington, D.C., where he coordinated air pollution reduction programs and policies for a 12-state coalition. Prior to that, he was commissioner of Vermont’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Recchia holds a bachelor’s degree from UVM, a master’s in environmental law from Vermont Law School, and a master’s in natural resource policy and management from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

In a recent interview at The Herald, Recchia joked that he accepted the Montpelier-based BERC job because he couldn’t bear the thought of working another August in Washington, D.C.

The Right Time

More seriously, he noted that he is intrigued by the opportunities that biomass offers right now.

"The timing for this is perfect. With the energy situation the way it is, and with energy security issues—not national security, but local energy security—the time is right to get communities’ biomass options in place," he said.

Recchia noted the BERC’s board has charged him with raising the non-profit’s profile as "the nationally recognized leader" in biomass energy, and with "putting biomass at the forefront of people’s minds" when they make energy decisions.

Most people, be they homeowners, town leaders, or business owners, tend "to replace the old oil burner with another oil burner," Recchia said. BERC wants them to look at options—including biomass—before re-investing in old technology.

BERC will continue, as it has in the past, to work with local, state and federal agencies, and other partners to promote biomass use and education.

With wood-chip-burning generating plants in Burlington and Ryegate and with a large number of schools already heated with wood chips, Vermont has been a leader in the biomass world, thanks in large measure to BERC’s support.

But there is much more that can be done, in Vermont and nationwide.

The Right Scale

Recchia and the folks at BERC are focused, in particular, on the use of woody biomass, using it for heat, and using it "at the community level."

Woody biomass, according to Recchia, can be 85-90% efficient as a heat source, but only 15-30% efficient when burned for electrical generation.

"The difference is all the heat that is generated and lost" in electrical generation, he explained.

Recchia stressed that burning biomass will never be the sole solution to anyone’s energy needs. And, because of the costs of transporting fuel stocks, and the need for careful management of the forest resource, biomass is not well-suited to large-scale operations.

A massive, wood-chip-burning electric generating plant "would not be ecologically sustainable, and would create more problems than it solves," he said.

Vermont, with 73% of its landmass covered by forest today, is particularly well situated to have a sizeable portion of its future energy needs supplied by the smart use of woody biomass.

Savings & Bonuses

There are numerous benefits.

One is cost, as the many Vermont schools that have converted to wood-chip boilers—including Randolph Union High School—can attest.

Another is that biomass, when used right, is a fairly clean fuel that does emit some soot particles but only tiny amounts of carbon-based greenhouse gases.

Recchia noted the newest generation of wood pellet and wood-chip burners are remarkably efficient, with just one-tenth the carbon emissions of EPA-approved woodstoves with catalytic converters.

And, chip and pellet burners are far cleaner than standard home oil burners, which emit an average of three tons of carbon a year.

"New England is number one in consuming home heating oil," Recchia said. "There is no reason we couldn’t make a substantial dent in that."

And with proper forest management practices, burning wood chips can actually result in negative carbon emissions, since trees take carbon from the atmosphere as they grow. The carbon-rich fossil fuels we extract from deep in the earth and burn add their carbon to the air.

BERC, noted Recchia, is committed not only to expanding the use of woody biomass, but also to fostering intelligent management of the state’s and nation’s forests.

Woody biomass—most often a waste product from other logging operations—can be harvested at a sustainable pace, he said, while creating local jobs in logging, at chip- and pellet-processing mills, and in installation and service of the new technology.