Projects are being considered in Ketchikan and Sitka that would convert building heating systems to biomass boilers that burn wood chips. That would provide a local market for processed wood made from Tongass National Forest timber.

Robert Deering, with the Coast Guard's Civil Engineering Unit in Juneau, said Southeast Alaska is the first place the Coast Guard has considered using biomass energy. Last year's spike in oil prices partially drove the decision to support it, he said, but a new directive from President Barack Obama revived the project. Obama signed an executive order this month that mandates environmentally friendlier federal buildings.

The Coast Guard is committed to buying wood chips locally, Deering said.

"The biofuels industry is in its infancy in Alaska right now, but in many parts of our country this is a mature industry generating local jobs using local resources," Deering said. "There's no reason we can't do the same thing in Alaska."

The only biomass plant in Southeast Alaska is in Craig, where wood waste from a mill is burned to heat municipal buildings.

Biomass heating systems are planned by the Coast Guard at Station Sitka and Base Support Unit Ketchikan, a 10-building complex. The two facilities burn 155,000 gallons of heating oil a year.

The Department of Energy is set to study the possibility of also converting the Kodiak Coast Guard base to biomass heat. Adding a Kodiak plant to the Southeast projects could offset 1 million gallons of oil a year for 17,000 tons of biomass fuel in Alaska, Deering said.

But before they can be built, the Coast Guard has to ensure it has a fuel supply.

The demand could encourage the timber industry in Southeast Alaska to convert mills to process wood chips, said Keith Rush, a forester for The Nature Conservancy who is working with the Coast Guard and timber harvesters on the supply question.

Rush said the Sitka and Ketchikan plants could show that there's the right level of supply and demand to make the deals financially feasible. It remains to be seen whether businesses can make money while consumers save by buying cheaper wood products instead of oil.

Rush said he's working with existing industry and entrepreneurs interested in biomass.

The demand also could support restoration projects, said Scott Snelson, a Forest Service fish, watershed and soils staff officer for the Tongass. The agency could sell trees it thins to improve wildlife habitat in stands that were previously clear-cut.
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