Issues
Updated: May 2014
Creating Jobs
Jobs in the thermal biomass sector
On April 28, 2010, a group of non-profit organizations and industry groups laid out a vision and plan to supply 25% of the space heating demand in northeastern US with renewable energy by 2025. We estimate that this would create 140,216 permanent jobs. The estimate assumes that in the transition from heating oil to biofuels, jobs that already exist in the heating oil sector would migrate to similar activities with biomass.
In the heating sector, most European countries give generous tax credits for automated biomass furnaces and boilers, creating thousands of manufacturing and service jobs.
Because of Europe's focus on thermal biomass, its limited forest resources go much further than in the United States. In Denmark, electric heat is now banned in new construction to conserve fossil fuels and efficiently use renewable generated electricity.
In Austria and other countries, they realized it's cheaper to meet aggressive climate goals by using biomass to replace fossil fuel heat. Austria is striving to meet 100% of its space heating needs from renewable energy, much of it from biomass, by 2050.
US biomass exports to Europe
Biomass in the form of wood pellets is increasingly being shipped to Europe because low carbon fuels are more valued there than they are here. In 2008, 20% of US pellets were shipped to Europe.
While this export market creates jobs in the US, the Alliance for Green Heat believes that we should create a larger market in this country for thermal biomass and not ship biomass to Europe or elsewhere.
Resources:
- Henry Spelter and Daniel Toth, "North America's Wood Pellet Sector," USDA, 2009.
- "Heating the Northeast with Renewable Biomass: A Vision for 2025," BTEC, Alliance for Green Heat, et al. 2009.
- Arne Jungjohann & Björn Jahnke, "Europe: Creating New Jobs with Renewable Energies," Heinrich Boll Foundation, 2009.
- Daniel Richter, et al, "Wood Energy in America," Science Magazine, Vol. 323, March 13, 2009.
- "Thermal Energy Uses of Woody Biomass," Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition, 2009.
- "Policy Statement: Forest Biomass," The Forest Guild, 2010.
- "Wood Pellet Heating: A Reference on Wood Pellet Fuels & Technology for Small Commercial & Institutional Systems," Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources, 2007.