Northeast regional biomass program. Retrospective, 1983--1993

Ten years ago, when Congress initiated the Regional Biomass Energy Program, biomass fuel use in the Northeast was limited primarily to the forest products industry and residential wood stoves. An enduring form of energy as old as settlement in the region, residential wood-burning now takes its place beside modern biomass combustion systems in schools and other institutions, industrial cogeneration facilities, and utility-scale power plants. Biomass today represents more than 95 percent of all renewable energy consumed in the Northeast: a little more than one-half quadrillion BTUs yearly, or five percent of the region`s total energy demand. Yet given the region`s abundance of overstocked forests, municipal solid waste and processed wood residues, this represents just a fraction of the energy potential the biomass resource has to offer.This report provides an account of the work of the Northeast Regional Biomass Program (NRBP) over it`s first ten years. The NRBP has undertaken projects to promote the use of biomass energy and technologies