Winstanley Offers Free Heat To N. Springfield Homes
Submitted by VT Journal on Wed, 04/25/2012 - 9:06am
By
Cindy Johnson
SPRINGFIELD, VT -Winstanley is offering to residents 5 million BTUs per hour for home heating and hot water during the heating season. That is the equivalent in BTUs of 50 gallons of propane an hour or roughly enough energy to provide heat and hot water to 100 to 200 homes. Dan Ingold, project manager for North Springfield Sustainable Energy Project (NSSEP), unveiled a plan Tuesday night to extend the project’s planned heat loop into residential areas giving area residents the opportunity to take advantage of home heating at well below market costs. “Rather than waste it, let’s use it,” said Mr. Ingold. The hot water is free but the delivery system will cost something. Winstanley would be hoping to make the system available in the spring of 2015. Mr. Ingold said that residents would incur costs for the heat exchanger, pumping from the plant, the transmission piping, and distribution piping. The district energy system would work very well with homes having a forced hot air or hydronic heating system--electric heating systems will be much more costly to change over, says Mr. Ingold. Heat would be available from September to May, but the plant and the district energy system would undergo planned maintenance for two weeks every summer.
Ralph Meima, program director for Marlboro College’s masters program Managing for Sustainability, gave a presentation on the history of district energy. District energy is the pumping of waste heat from electricity generating power plants in the form of hot water and steam to be used to heat and cool buildings along a thermal loop. Mr. Meima’s presentation mainly focused on the use of district heat in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland where winters are comparable in length and temperature to New England. “Vermont’s future will see a lot of district energy. It’s a very strong technology for a lot of reasons,” said Mr. Meima. The concept of district heating was developed by the U.S. military after World War II to heat a base in Danish held Greenland. The Danes then adopted the technology in the 1950’s. The idea spread through Scandinavia and Finland where its implementation is 50 years ahead of the U.S. In Sweden 50% of all buildings are heated using district heating-- 75% of all apartment buildings and 11% of private homes. In the U.S. there are currently only 6,000 district energy systems, with most operated by the U.S. military using high-pressure steam. The system proposed for home heating and hot water in North Springfield would use hot water at a safe 120 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The 300-degree water required for cooling would only be available for industrial purposes within the park.
Mr. Ingold said he signed on to the project with the intent of doing co-generation of heat and power, as that is the area where his interest and expertise lies. He suggested that interested members of the community might form a non-profit or development group to organize, implement, and manage the energy district. He pointed out the wealth of local organizations already active in Southern Vermont that assist home owners with energy efficiency improvements from the regional planning commission, to SEVCA, to the Springfield Land Trust.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Winstanley Offers Free Heat To N. Springfield Homes
Winstanley is offering to residents 5 million BTUs per hour for home heating and hot water during the heating season.
http://www.vermontjournal.com/content/winstanley-offers-free-heat-n-springfield-homes
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Could we please get them to locate the plant in Springfield, if N. Springfield doesn't want them, we would welcome the hot water.
ReplyDeleteRather than fighting the BioMass in N. Springfield, we should be investigating whether there isn't a site in Springfield that could be adapted for this use and see if we could get a second plant set up for Springfield.
ReplyDeleteProjects like this do not belong in residential areas. They should be placed in areas like the Northeast Kingdom where there are miles of wilderness between communities and there could be truck access directly off the Interstate.
ReplyDeleteA study by the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. reviewed biomass plants including the McNeil plant in Burlington. The McNeil plant was the first fully wood-fired biomass plant in the U.S. and has been updated during the course of its 30 years existence. NERL found that, "The primary lesson learned from the McNeil plant experience in Burlington, Vermont is careful attention to the siting of a biomass-fueled plant. Siting the plant in a residential neighborhood of a small city has caused a number of problems and extra expenses over the years: a permit requirement to use trains for fuel supply, high taxes, high labor rates, local political involvement, and neighborhood complaints about odors and noise.”
I didn't see anything in your reasons for not siting a biomass plant in a residential neighborhood that should be of any concern to a resident. Developers maybe, but what do you care about taxes on a biomass plant or labor rates. Truck traffic shouldn't matter because it will be located in an industrial park and if the park was booming with other businesses you would still have traffic.
DeleteNIMBY's are almost a prevalent in the Northeast Kingdom as elsewheres. Its interesting that we sometimes become a little bipolar in our thinking. First we criticize projects for being in relatively wild rural areas, then we critize projects for being located in industrial parks. Its truly a surreal world we are living in. It seems like it makes sense for each community to be developing alternative power sources, rather than having energy wastage and high power line transmissions going from semi-wilderness areas to more populated areas.
DeleteIts hardly seems appropriate to compare either Springfield or N. Springfield to Burlington. Both are small former mill towns, and they have sited the plant in an industrial park. The argument that we are in a dense residential area here is absolutely bogus.
ReplyDeleteGod forbid we have industry in our industrial park.
ReplyDeleteNo we need to build industry out in the middle of forests didn't you get the memo?
DeleteThe NIMBYs, now realizing their mistake for owning or purchase property on the perimeter of a sleepy industrial park of a down-on-its-luck town, are flailing about for any reason that might stave off location of this needed plant.
ReplyDeleteThe air will be polluted. Nope, today's plants burn very cleanly and discharge mostly steam.
The water will be polluted. No again. Runoff can be effectively controlled to meet all currently environmental standards.
The water will be depleted. Doesn't look that way, does it?
The trees will be depleted and deforestation will occur. Ever seen pictures of Vermont 100-125 years ago when working farms dominated the landscape and pastures exceeded the forests? Trees are a renewable resource and the private property owners should be free to sell their forest produce as they please. I know, that upsets the NIMBYs who have "enjoyed" their neighbors' scenic forestlands all these years without having to pay a dime of tax for the privilege. And now they want to infringe on their neighbors' own private property rights.
There will be too much truck traffic. That's what roads are for and that's why truckers pay taxes, too - for the right to use those PUBLIC roads (like Idlenot Dairy did back in the days when they sent hundreds of trucks rolling through town on a daily basis).
It will be unsightly. Well, that is an industrial park that you're living nextdoor to. Did you think they were going to make it into a nature preserve???
They're trying to bribe people with free hot water. That's their perogative as a private enterprise. Sorry if your "central committee" objects to them exercising their liberties.
It's time to quit listening to these "one-percenter" NIMBYs and get behind real growth and real economic development for Springfield!
Biomass all the way!
Yes, who would have thought that someone would have been audacious enough to locate industry in an industrial park instead of in the middle of a forest.
DeleteLook at Winstanley's own information on the pollutants, and then tell people with a straight face that the plant will be clean burning and emit only steam.
DeleteYes, this is a clean industry. I have no looked into the face of Anonymous and said it!
DeleteHow much wood can be removed from a forest before it cannot renew itself? I once heard it was 5%. If that's the case, if we multiply the acres of biomass used to feed the generator in N. Springfield by 20 and come up with a total less than the acreage of all the forests intended to supply the plant, then it is a sustainable project. Anybody know the numbers?
DeleteIt takes 250 years for a forest to renew itself with all the attendant mini-biospheres which are indicitave of a 'True' forest. These jokes that paper/pulp companies profess to re-plant are nothing more than lawns that haven't been mowed for 20 years.
DeleteWhich would make those forests monocultures, i.e., recipes for disaster...
DeleteAnonymous 11:19, recommend that you consider property in Afghanistan. Completely free of industrial parks and other "pollutants". Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI'd post a longer comment, but my fossil fuel burning plane arrived to carry me to my fossil fuel burning car to drive me to my fossil fuel heated house located in a town which once built polluting machine tools that helped enable the creation of all those fossil fuel burning products!!!! But now produces nothing but whining!!!
ReplyDelete