Addison County explores localizing energy

Addison County’s 2009 Green Energy Expo on March 20 was popular enough for two area radio stations to take turns broadcasting live from the event.

“We want to help get the word out about the great programs that are going on,” said Jinna Duncan, part of the WTNN-FM marketing department.

Handling the earlier morning time slot was WVTK-FM. It was logical for the stations to be on hand, joked WTNN president Arthur Belendiuk, because “we’re carbon neutral” (or at least the radio waves being transmitted were leaving no “carbon footprint”).

“This has been pretty popular,” said Robin Scheu of the Addison County Economic Development Corporation, at the table selling $3 tickets ($2 for children, of which there were a fair number). “I think people are pretty interested in these green things.”

Held in a town where signs informed out-of-town visitors that there is an ordinance against vehicle idling, in which there is a one cent per $100 property tax levy for conservation, and where the municipality itself has a carbon control plan, the Expo drew a diverse group of enthusiastic businesses. Along with the predictable construction-related companies, there were two paint-sellers, two banks and a credit union, a well-driller, a landscape designer, a computer repair and maintenance expert, a book shop and a forest products company.

At the latter, Bill Sayre, a co-owner of the A. Johnson Company and chairman of Associated Industries of Vermont’s forest products policy committee, said that sector has been green all along in its fundamental approach. Sustainable forestry – the timber companies have always wanted to replant, though now they can get Sustainable Forestry Initiative certification to convince buyers. Recycling – that’s what mills have done for years with their sawdust, bark, and so forth, for heat and farm bedding, and now for wood pellets as well. Carbon neutrality – the wood people burn would have released the same amount of carbon decaying in the wild, so “there’s no net increase.”

Outside the building, an A. Johnson truck loaded with bundled firewood made the point that they aren’t just about lumber. (Next to it, a generator powered equipment in a recreational vehicle – not to show how comfortable tin camping can be, but to let visitors see equipment related to how the Spafford & Sons Water Wells of Middlebury had expanded on that expertise to start installing geothermal energy systems.)

Carbon sequestration? Sayre observed that every piece of wooden framing and flooring and furniture captures carbon and keeps it out of the air for a long period of time. Even newspapers in landfills last and last, as test borings of 50-year-old dumps have shown, he said.

The idea that the drive for energy efficiency could create a significant number of new jobs made sense to Tom Nicholson, who for two years has been doing Efficiency Vermont Home Performance Energy Star audits and retrofits working out of Middlebury. “It’s hard for most businesses,” he said, regarding the continuing recession, but “I’m never out of business.”

Nicholson has no fear that others will go through the Efficiency Vermont training and set up shop, not when so many homeowners can get a payback so soon on investing in better insulation and closing air leaks. The latter, which a thermographic camera picks up right away in less visible places like wiring and plumbing access points, can be responsible for 40 percent of someone’s heating bill, he said.

Northeast Construction’s representative said energy audits and retrofits are keeping 12 of the Burlington company’s people busy.

“It’s really good. We’ve got a quality labor pool,” he said.

Pierre Martelle, president of Green Mountain ZeroDraft in Colchester, agreed about the prospects for new jobs in energy conservation. Only about 20 percent of Vermont homes are good at retaining heat, he said, which leaves a huge market of potential clients throughout the state to seek help when oil prices go back up.

Dennis Bates of Vermont Sun Structures, besides having expertise from 21 years putting up passive solar energy structures, pointed to one huge opportunity for some company: making low-emission glass for northern customers. He said it used to be possible to buy two kinds of Low-E glass – one engineered to keep heat out (good in the South) and one meant to keep infrared rays in (good in the North) – but the manufacturers decided there were so many more customers in the South that they only offer one kind now (meant to keep heat out). Entrepreneurs, however, may be harder to keep out.

At the Crawford Family Farm in Whiting, there’s a herd of Ayrshire cows and, at least sequentially, one of EWB Boilers. Efficient Wood Boilers of Vermont started about three years ago, said Jim Crawford, who might be described as Chief Cheese because the farm also markets wheels of Vermont Ayr.

“I milk cows, make cheese, and sell boilers,” he summed up.

Efficiency is the point: these boilers extract more than 80 percent of the heat value of wood, Crawford said – much more than the woodstoves and outdoor furnaces in common use. When someone switches to an EWB as the main heating sources, that investment is repaid in 2-4 years, he said.

The current recession and its associated scandals may have most people suspicious of most investment instruments, Crawford said, but “I think people are willing to invest in their homes.”

Most people know that corn can be processed to make ethanol, but fewer may realize that corn can be burned directly in some of the stoves that can also use wood pellets. As dairy farmers know, corn has a high energy value when used as feed for cattle – and Paul Bolvin, CEO of Vermont Golden Harvest Biofuel in Addison, sees a high value for corn as a human energy source.

He doesn’t sell the stoves, he said, though “I might before it gets done.” Rather, he uses his 450-acre No-Mon-Ey Farm (the biofuels business is a wholly owned subsidiary) to harvest the golden fuel for the stoves to burn..

Bolvin claims that corn is king, when it comes to heating cheaply. “You can do it for about 60 percent of what it costs for any other fuel,” he said.

The landscaper? David Raphael’s Landworks knows that plantings around a home can affect heating and cooling, as well as capturing carbon.

The paint sellers? Both Distinctive Paint & Interiors and Countryside Carpet & Paint, said they stock non-toxic, low-emission paints that reduce the chance of health problems. As anyone who has bought a house with lead paint on it knows, carbon dioxide isn’t the only substance that has an environmental impact.

The computer service? Greg Smela of Simple Computers of Vermont in Cornwall, besides promoting economical open source software, was exhibiting a Kill-a-Watt. Put between a power source and an appliance, it shows how much electricity is being used, at what wattage and amperage – and many things continue to use power when the switch is turned to the “off” position, he said.

But the Expo wasn’t just a chance for individual businesses to become better known. Concern about climate change and energy issues has reached the point where localization, a growing phenomenon in the food industry (cf. a New York Times piece on March 21), is starting in the energy sphere.

A group calling itself the Addison County Relocalization Network (AcoRN) had already helped food-related localization by facilitating the start of www.addisoncounty.locallygrown.net in effect a year-round farmer’s market through which people can order vegetables, fruits, meat, crafts and more online, and come to a central pickup point on a scheduled day to get them. More recently, the ACORN Energy Co-op has begun operations, offering “renewable energy products and services,” with the slogan “Heat Local.”

Planned since 2006 (at first in AcoRN’s Energy Committee) and formed in June of 2008, the Energy Co-op is a member-owned company that plans to start its own facility making wood pellets this year, but in the interim put together a group purchase of pellets last fall to reduce heating costs.
If they succeed in building a pellet plant on Foster Brothers Farm land near Route 7, they will have a hardened road for big trucks (the Omya marble quarry trucks use the road in question) with direct access to a major Addison County highway. If a rail spur connecting the quarry with Vermont Railway tracks is built – the financing has been arranged, an Environmental Impact Statement has been completed, but the permit process remains – pellets could be shipped by rail as well.

But for most deliveries, the Energy Co-op will rely on one of the biggest, most active truck fleets in the county: the feed and farm supplies delivery trucks of Bourdeau Brothers in Middlebury. Jim Bushey, the general manager of Bourdeau Brothers, confirmed the partnership – which could use truck space left vacant by farms going out of business if the present milk prices continue. Bourdeau’s Middlebury location has rail access too, important in restocking their huge feed mill.

Vermont Family Forests, managed by former county forester Dave Brynn, could furnish the raw materials, and thus meets the group’s goal of keeping everything within 30 miles, said Co-op director Graham Pringle. Adding a wealth of expertise is the Co-op’s president Greg Pahl, who has written several books on sustainable living, including in 2007 “The Citizen-Powered Energy Handbook” and in 2008 a second edition of “Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy Economy.”

The Expo’s keynote speaker was an inspiration to those who believe Addison County, traditionally one of the state’s three most agricultural counties (Franklin and Orleans being the others), can build its economy by increasing local food production. Pete Johnson and his wife had started growing produce on a small part of his family’s 150-year-old dairy farm in the Craftsbury-Greensboro area, then had bought a 230-acre farm, which now sells baby greens, heirloom tomatoes and root crops at a stand, at farmers’ markets, and to stores and restaurants all over Vermont and in New York City and Boston.

But Pete’s Greens is only part of how local food has revived “hardscrabble” Hardwick’s economy, Johnson said. They have shown that even in a tough climate and in an area hit hard by the loss of mills, a localized economy can create jobs and build a more general prosperity.

The former Middlebury College talked about how Hardwick resident Andrew Meyer had started Claire’s Restaurant, which uses more local materials than any other restaurant he knows, and in spite of gloomy predictions had made the place a community rallying point. Meyer had also reorganized the Center for Agricultural Economy and “it’s now very active.” They’re hoping to set up a revolving loan fund to help new businesses, “a simplified, really trust-based program,” he said.

More and more producers have become part of the area network, filling many niches, Johnson said, among them High Mowing Seeds and Jasper Hill’s cave-aged cheeses. The total value of what is produced in the region has gone in the past five years from around $20 million to about $40 million, he said.

“I think it’s important that Vermont should think about what our land best suited for,” Johnson said. Dairying posts the highest economic numbers, he said, “but a 400-cow dairy farm doesn’t support very many families.” Divided among smaller producers – as it was in the past – a few acres can be enough to support a grower, he said.

The speaker introducing Johnson recalled that economic columnist and author Thomas Friedman had labeled 2008 as the year of “The Great Disturbance.” Addison County seemed to be looking on this as an opportunity as much as a challenge – and they seemed to have the energy to take advantage of it.

Ed Barna is a freelance writer from Middlebury.