[MUSIC PLAYING]
RYAN WOLFF: Actually, it's more
like 1,600 tons of wood chips,
give or take.
What you're looking at
is a train unloading fuel
for the McNeil Generating
Station, a biomass power
plant in Burlington, Vermont.
McNeil can generate
50 megawatts of power
by burning 76 tons, or
roughly three truckloads
of wood chips every hour.
That's a lot of wood chips.
And burning these
wood chips provides
Burlington with about
43% of its electricity.
But aside from
burning a lot of wood,
Burlington is also known
as the first city in the US
to run on 100% renewable
energy, a title they've
been proud of since 2014.
But how exactly do they do it?
Is it really possible for a
city to be powered entirely
by renewable energy?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It seems like everyone wants
to go green these days.
Green cars, green housing,
small, green planet Earth
models that you can hold in
your hands, and green energy.
And not surprisingly, what
might be the most green city
in the United States
is located right
in the Green Mountain state.
Burlington, Vermont.
So we decided to head
over to Burlington
to see what all
the fuss was about.
What do you like
about Burlington?
MIRO WEINBERGER: What do
I like about Burlington?
RYAN WOLFF: Yeah.
Oh, man.
You know, Burlington is
just a wonderful city.
RYAN WOLFF: This
is Miro Weinberger,
mayor of Burlington-- a
position held, at one point,
by this guy.
MIRO WEINBERGER: We have great
food, we have great arts,
we have incredible
access to the outdoors.
And at the same time,
in a lot of ways,
we have that kind of
familiarity of a small town.
Back in 2004, the city was
sourcing only about 25%
of its overall generation
from renewable sources.
Made the decision that they were
going to do better than that.
They were going to
try to get to 100%.
And in, what I think is a pretty
fast period of time since then,
we've gone all the way
from 25% to more than 100%
of our power sourced
from renewable energy.
RYAN WOLFF: So
can you kinda just
give us a general
overview of where
the electricity in
Burlington comes from?
Sure.
RYAN WOLFF: This is
Neale Lunderville,
general manager of Burlington
electric department.
So we have the four main food
groups for renewable power.
Biomass, which we get about
43% of our power from biomass.
About 33% of it is from
hydroelectric power.
The third major group is wind.
We take power from
Georgia Mountain
wind and Sheffield
wind, both in Vermont.
That's about 23%.
And the last little bit,
that little 1% is from solar.
And we have solar
here in our building,
we have solar at
the airport, plus we
have homes and
businesses that have
solar inside of Burlington.
That amounts for a
very small percent,
but if you take all those
together-- biomass, hydro,
wind, and solar-- that
comprises our portfolio.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
RYAN WOLFF: Since we
are in the neighborhood,
we decided to take a
cruise and check out
where Burlington's power
was actually coming from.
Where are we heading to first?
We are heading to the Winooski
One Hydro Electric Facility.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
RYAN WOLFF: All right.
Thanks.
You lead the way, sir.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[RUSHING WATER]
Hi, my name is Ryan.
What's your name?
Dave.
Dave?
Nice to meet you.
I'm the director of generation
here at the McNeil plant.
OK.
Cool, cool.
So-- so what do you guys
do at the McNeil plant?
In the McNeil
plant, we basically--
we're taking wood chips, we're
burning them in a boiler.
When the wood chips burn,
the boiler makes steam.
Steam goes down to a turbine.
The turbine spins.
It's connected to a generator.
The generator makes electricity,
it goes out on the line.
And this plant burns roughly
around 75 ton of wood an hour
to produce 50
megawatts of power.
Throughout the year, we'll
burn roughly around 400,000 ton
of wood.
RYAN WOLFF: 400,000
tons of wood.
That's roughly equivalent
to 600,000 trees a year.
OK.
So let's talk a little bit
about biomass, because it seems
to me like you're still--
you're burning wood chips,
essentially, right?
And you're getting
power from that.
I mean, that sounds
pretty similar to like
burning coal or any other
sort of fossil fuel.
Like, how is that renewable?
How is that different
from burning fossil fuel?
It is quite a bit.
Trees regrow.
These are sustainably
harvested wood chips.
So the foresters will go in.
They're going to selectively
harvest trees to allow
for bird and bat habitats.
We're going to be
taking the tops
of trees and limbs of trees.
Grinding those into wood chips.
And you know, we're transporting
them extremely efficiently
and we're actually
now-- we're going
back and re-harvesting areas
that were harvested 25,
30 years ago when McNeil
first came online,
meaning that we are
regrowing our fuel source.
It is renewable.
And we're not-- we're not
clear cutting it and building
a shopping mall.
Right.
You know, we're going
back and replanning it,
or let the forest
do its replanning.
And we're doing it
in such a way that we
will have those resources
for generations to come.
But burning though,
that's still--
would you consider
that green energy?
It's still-- I mean, you're
still emitting carbon
into the atmosphere.
There are a lot of
schools of thought on this.
We would say that-- and this
is a well known science--
that new trees are
going to be absorbing
more carbon than older trees.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We are cutting in [INAUDIBLE]
forest to regenerate.
We are also putting
in forests that
are soaking up more
of the carbon that's
in the atmosphere.
So while we're still
burning the trees,
we're doing it in the most
environmentally sensitive kind
of way.
The technology right
now doesn't allow
us to run the grid on just
solar power, or just wind power,
or just hydro.
We need something more.
Biomass power can be 24/7
power, which is important.
And so we would say the
biomass is a lot better
than burning oil, or
coal, or even natural gas.
RYAN WOLFF: So compared
to oil and coal,
trees do seem to be
a lot more renewable.
And if the forest is growing
back at the same rate
as it's being burned,
then in theory,
biomass should be
carbon neutral.
But what about the
plant's other emissions?
In addition to CO2,
when you burn wood,
you release other harmful
things into the atmosphere,
like nitrogen oxide
and particulate matter.
So that's the
smokestack behind me.
And I don't know if
you can tell or not,
but it doesn't really
look like there's
anything coming out the top.
But I'm sure there is
because the plant's running.
OK.
So we saw the incinerator.
You're burning wood
chips right now.
But looking at
this smokestack, it
doesn't look like there's
any smoke coming out of it.
There is no smoke
coming out of it.
We have a series of
pollution control devices
here to limit what
goes up the stack.
And the main job
with the operator
is to monitor that continuously
when the plant's online.
We capture all the ash and
we have a limit on opacities.
Opacities like the
particulate matter.
We have an electrostatic
precipitator
that does collect all the ash.
RYAN WOLFF: Cool.
The ash generated
by the boiler is
saved and later used as a
soil conditioner or a base
for building roads.
McNeil's particulate
nitrogen oxide emissions
are well under state
and federal limits.
So as a generator that gets
its power from burning stuff,
it's a relatively clean one.
But outside of the pollution
controls and state and federal
limits, it was hard to deny
that these power plants just
felt nice and clean.
The hydro plant
was a park, there
was a guy walking
a dog, a turtle,
a fish elevator-- no joke.
And the biomass plant
even smelled good,
like fresh cut cedar.
It wasn't what I
usually thought of
when I imagined what a
power plant was like.
I actually used to live down
the street from a coal plant
and this was different.
These were power
plants you didn't
have to hide on the
outskirts of town.
But even though the power plants
were clean and carbon neutral,
there had been some other
criticisms of Burlington's 100%
renewability claim.
One other thing that
I've heard mentioned
is that, occasionally, you
have to buy extra energy
from other sources.
Can you talk a little
bit about that?
So we buy power over
the course of the year.
There are going to be
points in our peak periods
where we may not have enough
power to cover our needs.
So we would go back to
market to buy that power.
RYAN WOLFF: When Burlington
electric goes back to market,
the power they buy
is a residual mix
of power from the grid,
which could technically
come from anywhere, including
nuclear, natural gas, or even
coal.
NEALE LUNDERVILLE:
There are also points,
usually in the winter, where
we're long on power, meaning
that we have power to sell.
So we're selling
back into the market.
But over the course
of the whole year,
we've got enough power contracts
to cover all of our power needs
with renewable sources.
RYAN WOLFF: And in the future,
when more renewable sources
come online, they won't have to
rely as much on market power.
In order to keep their
power affordable,
Burlington electric
will also sell off
a lot of the power they produce
in the form of renewable energy
credits.
NEALE LUNDERVILLE: We sell class
one renewable energy credits,
which are the highest kind
of renewable energy credit.
And then we take what
we make from the sale
and put it back into
keeping our rates low.
After we sell the
class one RECs,
we go out and buy
class two RECs,
an amount equal that we sell.
So it's a way to use
the market to keep
our renewability in place,
while at the same time
allowing our
customers to benefit
from our aggressive
stance on renewable power.
But there's more
to Burlington's plan
than just buying
renewable energy.
The key to really
staying renewable
is to cut down on the amount
of power that you use.
The truism in energy is
the cheapest kilowatt hour
is the one that you don't use.
In fact, we use less
electricity today,
as a city, than we did in 1989.
More than 25 years ago.
With our efficiency
program, we are
working directly
with our customers--
both our large customers and
our residential customers--
to provide them with a
package of incentives
to help them move over to
more efficient products.
So for our
residential customers,
it might be as simple as
changing out their light bulbs
to LED light bulbs.
But our large customers,
we're working with them
on efficient building
design and we
can provide really
meaningful cash incentives.
I mean, that sounds
kind of expensive though.
Like, how can you
afford to do that?
Provide cash incentives?
Oh, it's still a
lot cheaper for us
to provide incentive
than it is for us
to buy that kilowatt of
energy from renewables,
or from somewhere else,
and serve it to them.
So the population of
Burlington is 42,000.
I mean, so somebody watching
this video in Chicago
will be like, OK, well we have
over 2 million people here.
How is this possible on a
mass scale in big cities?
And like, is this even
something that-- is it really
that significant?
You have to step
back from looking
at the size of the cities and
look at the technology itself.
We're seeing a massive change--
revolution-- in energy.
The system that we have had
for the last 100, 110, 120
years in electricity
is breaking down.
And we're really moving
away from this old style,
hub-and-spoke system, where
you had one big giant power
plant in the middle,
pushing power out
to all these little
homes and businesses,
to one that's really
decentralized.
So we're looking block
by block, house by house
to create your own micro-grid,
where you can create power
on the roof during
the day, store it
in your basement for night time.
Pretty soon, every block in
Chicago can be its own utility.
And that's a great thing because
that is the system that's
going to be more resilient, it
is going to be more affordable,
and it's ultimately going
to be cleaner and greener
in the decades to come.
And as a utility, I would
say that the two choices
utilities have are to perish
or to get with the program.
And here at Burlington
electric, we're
going to get with the program.
Our customers want control
of their destiny and power,
just like they want
control of their own phone
and their computer.
And that's, you know, that's the
secret of the future, I think.
[LAUGHTER]
Awesome.
Secret of the future.
There you go.
Yeah.
There you go.
So what do you guys think?
Is Burlington on
the right track?
Is it actually important to
use 100% renewable energy,
or is there something else
we should be focusing on?
Let us know in the comments.
Also, huge thanks
to Miguel Franco.
He's been a long time supporter
of our show and a contributor
to our Kickstarter campaign.
He's got a YouTube channel
called Mario of Seven Stars.
If you're interested, there's
a link in the description.
You should go check it out.
Thanks, Miguel.
You're great.
Thanks for watching.
Don't forget to
Like and Subscribe.
And special thanks to our
Patreon subscribers for making
this episode possible.
Last week we asked
you whether or not
we should feel responsible for
the Monk Parakeet introduce
to the Chicago area.
And this is what you had to say.
Steph D said that we should take
responsibility for these birds
because a lot of the species
that we think of as native now,
weren't always native.
And if the Monk
Parakeets weren't
affecting the ecosystem
in disastrous ways,
we should just let them be.
Grant Hurst said,
unfortunate as it
would be for the Monk Parakeets
to die off, that's just nature.
We shouldn't go out of
our way to remove them,
but we also shouldn't go out
of our way to try to save them.
And NicosMind said
something interesting.
If these birds
managed to survive
the recent harsh winters, that
probably means they are hardier
and their children
will be tougher too.
And hopefully, over
time, they will
become a new species specially
adapted for the climate
here in Chicago.
Next week, we're
going to look at one
of the most important inventions
in US history, a simple device
that reshaped the entire
landscape of our country,
and brought an end
to the Wild West.
Barbed wire.
Yes, barbed wire.
Uh, you'll just have to see
the video to understand.
Thanks for watching, and
we'll see you next week.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
