A New Wave of Wood-Burning Generating Plants Being Proposed. By Jay Lindsay, AP, October 12, 2008. "The push for more power from renewable fuels has renewed interest in one of the oldest energy sources: wood. While airwaves have been permeated by advertisements for solar and wind power, last year wood generated more net electricity in the U.S. than those two up-and-comers combined. New wood-burning electricity plants are again being proposed from Massachusetts to New Mexico as the nation finds itself in a third energy shock. Using wood for electric power generation grew rapidly during the energy crises of the 1970s and 1980s, but fell away when the price of coal and fossil fuels dropped. Wood as a power source has garnered renewed interest as commodity prices spiked. That developers are again looking to forests for fuel has many worried. 'We don't want to mine our forest for energy,' said Bryan Bird, of WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe, N.M. environmental group. There were 196 wood burning electricity plants in the United States as of January 2007, including 72 with 40 megawatt capacity or larger, according to the Department of Energy. The bulk of today's wood power comes from plants that mainly serve the onsite lumber or paper mills that supply their fuel. Developers say they wouldn't need to cut down trees to power plants because there is a surplus of wood currently available."
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