Renewable Energy (not wind or solar)
Everyone always mentions "wind" and "solar" when talking about renewable energy.
Another renewable energy source that ppl never seem to mention is wood.
Wood biomass has by far the fastest payback than wind and solar. I've done a study on replacing our natural gas fired boilers with wood fuel boilers and the payback was only 4 years when NG was at $9/decatherm.
On average, wood chips will cost you about $27/ton, which translates to around $2/decatherm. Now when compared to 2008 natural gas prices, you can see how astronomical the savings are.
For example, Central Michigan University saved almost $2 million dollars in 2008 by using their wood boiler. Natural gas would have to be near $2 before they started losing money using wood.
Now of course using wood waste is not as convenient as NG. For instance, it doesn’t come through a pipeline. Instead there is a need for trucks to dump loads of wood chips into silos. Some other disadvantages are:
It has a combustion efficiency of 70% compared to NG's 80%.....
Wood boilers have a higher investment cost that conventional boilers...
There is a need for storage .....
But when it comes down to it, it has by far the quickest pay back for large applications such as universities. It is considered "carbon neutral", it improves forest health and reduces forest fires (think California), and it reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
The majority of businesses do not care about the environment, but rather the bottom line. Wood energy offers the good publicity for using a renewable resource, and also increases the bottom line. It's a win win.
Clearly, a university downtown NYC would not be a candidate for something like this due to the lack of available resources. But when you look at Michigan, a state that spends almost $20 billion dollars per year on energy that is almost ALL imported from other states and countries, there are some great opportunities.
If they were to use their abundant surplus amount of wood to power their state, they would create a ton of jobs and save a lot of money. Hell, maybe GM should have been powering their factories using wood; saving themselves some much needed money, while also providing jobs for the local economy.
I think wood as a renewable source is often overlooked; especially considering the amount available here in North America.
This is a ticker I requested the other day. It is a CANROY and is traded on the TSX. Boralex owns, manages and operates six wood-residue thermal power stations, located in northeastern United States.