Why is Seattle Steam switching to burning wood?
• Seattle Steam is concerned about climate change. As an energy provider, Seattle Steam recognizes its responsibility to reduce its carbon footprint and to help its customers do the same. That concern turned into action more than three years ago with a plan to add a biomass boiler to its production line in order to reduce carbon emissions. The new biomass boiler came online in the fall of 2009 and resulted in a carbon footprint reduction of 50 percent. The new boiler system provides more flexibility in the types of fuel Seattle Steam may use to create energy. In addition, the introduction of biomass into the energy production stream provides more price stability at a time when the cost of traditional fossil fuels, such as natural gas and oil, can fluctuate wildly. A direct benefit is that the money spent on wood fuel to heat Seattle will be spent locally, as opposed to spending millions of dollars annually for natural gas from Canada.
