Spotlight: DNRC student chapter of the Society of American Foresters visits Mount Wachusett Community College and their biomass heat facility
Posted December 11th, 2008 by Roxann Cormier
The student chapter of the Society of American Foresters visited Mount Wachusetts Community College and met with Robert Rizzo, Director of Faculties Administration (and UMass forestry alumnus), who gave a tour of their biomass heating operation. The college has over 500,000 square feet of teaching and administration space and more than 5,000 students, and is heated entirely by woody biomass generated from forest harvesting operations. 
The College was built in the late 1960s and was originally heated by electricity, but the cost of that 
source in recent years has become prohibitively expensive. In addition to being less expensive, the woody biomass from forests represents no net carbon emissions to the atmosphere since it comes from trees that were part of the carbon cycle and were destined to die and decompose if not utilized. In addition to heat-from-biomass, MWCC is experimenting with a combined-heat-and-power system that will gasify woody biomass and generate both heat and electricity.
