Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Abstract
As the price of traditional fossil fuels escalates, there is
increasing interest in using renewable resources, such as
biomass, to meet our energy needs. Biomass resources are of
particular interest to communities in interior Alaska, where
they are abundant (Fresco, 2006). Biomass has the potential
to partially replace heating oil, in addition to being a possible source for electric power generation (Crimp and Adamian, 2000;
Nicholls and Crimp, 2002; Fresco, 2006). The communities of
Tanana and Dot Lake have already installed small Garn boilers to
provide space heating for homes and businesses (Alaska Energy
Authority, 2009). A village-sized combined heat and power
(CHP) demonstration project has been proposed in North Pole.
In addition, several Fairbanks area organizations are interested in
using biomass as a fuel source. For example, the Fairbanks North
Star Borough is interested in using biomass to supplement coal
in a proposed coal-to-liquids project, the Cold Climate Housing
Research Center is planning to test a small biomass fired CHP
unit, and the University of Alaska is planning an upgrade to
its existing coal-fired power plant that could permit co-firing
with biomass fuels. The challenge for all of these projects is in
ensuring that biomass can be harvested on both an economically
and ecologically sustainable basis
