This commentary is by John Mandeville, a resident of East Hardwick.
Let me tell you the many ways that this act, currently in the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, makes little sense. This act, S.5, is supposed to create incentives to get property owners to change heating systems from oil or propane, to either wood or wood pellets, or heat pumps as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.
It purports to do so by providing rebates, tax credits and other incentives. Here are some facts to ponder.
According to a recent article in The New York Times and a study published last fall by the Sierra Club, burning cordwood or wood pellets produces 70% more carbon monoxide than burning natural gas or propane to produce the same amount of BTUs.
Unless there is a high-performance catalytic converter on the exhaust for the wood- or pellet-burning boiler or furnace, they also produce significantly more particulate matter than burning either natural gas or propane.
Fifteen years ago, when we installed a wood-pellet forced-air furnace in our house, one of the reasons we did so is the wisdom at the time said it was more environmentally friendly than either oil or propane. This has now been shown to not be the case.
For this, and many other reasons, we decided to change over to a heat pump system. We received quotes from three different contractors, all within a thousand dollars of each other. I had originally thought it was going to run around $12,000....
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