Somewhere in northeast Minnesota, where thousands of trees dot the landscape, Tink Birchem saw the forest that she believes holds the future of heating. That future is in the form of a small wood pellet that burns hot and clean inside special furnaces. Eventually, everyone is going to need them and the reason can be explained in one word—cost, Birchem says. As people struggle with rising energy costs, they will take notice of the relief wood-pellet furnaces offer the pocketbook.
There is a noticeable price difference between the price of wood pellets versus fuel oil, and there’s no getting around the outcome. “Wood pellets cost half of what fuel oil is right now,” Birchem says. Despite the large price gap, the heating alternative has not had much of a behavior-changing impact on consumers, a fact that doesn’t surprise Birchem. “I think it’s just a matter of educating the public,” she says. “A lot of people don’t know about wood pellets.”
Americans don’t seem to be aware of the green-friendly fuel’s success in Europe. The informational disconnect in the United States between the general public, and the option of wood pellets as a source of heat didn’t always exist. “[Wood pellets] were actually invented in the late 1970s in the United States,” says Christian Rakos, chief executive officer of proPellets Austria. “[Pellets] led a very quiet life in small niches for two decades before a furious market development started in Europe.” The growing use of pellets as a heating source in Europe demonstrates an awakening in this country that can’t be ignored, Rakos says. “Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Germany and Italy have been growing on the average of 30 percent to 50 percent per year during the past decade,” he says.
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Gerald Brown, marketing director of Valley Forest Wood Products, says the success of pellets is a proven fact overseas. “If you look on an [industry] map in Europe, you’ll see in 2005 there were 242 pellet plants listed,” he says. “That was back in 2005, there’s more than that now. When you look on a map for 2005 in the U.S. you will see 60.”
Although the Europeans are ahead of the United States in terms of pellet use, it didn’t come on the scene there until recently. “Generally speaking, not even one bag of wood pellets was sold in England 30 months ago,” he says. “Last year there was a million tons sold in all of the U.K.” The big difference is in the behavior of the Europeans, Brown says. “It’s the difference in lifestyles.” Europeans have always viewed the biomass resources that lie in their own backyards much differently than Americans. “Biomass has been around a long time in Europe, in the consciousness of the country, and the people who live there,” he says.
Brown credits Birchem for introducing the wood-pellet heating industry to northwest Minnesota. “Tink Birchem was the first one to catch on in our area that biofuels are a big-ticket item because of what she was hearing about in Europe,” he says.
Europe is a real-time demonstration of the promise wood pellets hold, and the country has proven that it can very quickly become vibrant when economic conditions are optimal, Birchem says. “My husband and I have been to Finland and Sweden five different times,” she says, explaining the methodical economic utilization of lumber and forest products there. “They really work the tree. They utilize every part. The tops and limbs they use for biomass.”
Even a cursory look at the numbers as one scans Europe to assess industry growth is an eye-brow lifter, Rakos says. “Ireland is an example of how fast a market can be established by financial incentives,” he says. Pellet-heating in Ireland was virtually nonexistent until March 2006, when a program called the Greener Home Scheme was available.
Within a year 4,000 applications were received, and according to Sustainable Fuels Ireland, 1,900 pellet boilers, 240 central heating stoves, and 330 stoves were installed between April 2006 and August 2007.
During her global travels, Birchem says she was able to fully process and appreciate how and why people in other countries have been so successful with wood-pellet furnaces and heating. She described one town she visited where a biomass plant was used to generate steam heat and hot water to supply city buildings, including a hospital. “They call their forests “green gold,” she says.
Birchem’s observations of common-sense solutions and prudent use of the obvious and available, lend themselves to the vision she has for Minnesota and the Dakotas. “It’s the least expensive thing the Europeans have to make heat and electricity,” she says. “Sweden and Denmark are leading the world in biomass generation of electricity.”
A speed bump to progress in the industry of wood pellets in the United States is subtle, but significant. The idea of handling a bag of pellets can be seen as an unattractive and inconvenient prospect to some Americans, Brown says. It has become a commonly accepted state-of-affairs that Americans simply don’t want to deal with a bag of pellets.
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