Red Shield Environmental should be commended for its efforts to produce alternative energies at its Old Town facility. Our reliance on foreign oil is this country’s biggest problem, growing only steadily worse as our population increases.

They are currently producing 15 to 20 megawatts a day of electricity for the power grid, by cleanly burning green wood chips and construction and demolition waste wood. They’ve been well under the EPA’s emissions guidelines from the first day they fired up the biomass boiler. There are a number of these boilers currently operating in Maine that have been burning this type of material cleanly for many years. It’s not a new technology by any means, and it works well.

Burning waste wood cleanly to produce energy is absolutely the best way to dispose of this material! This is a great example of recycling and reusing, with the added benefit of creating needed energy and jobs. It sure beats the only other alternative, which is to throw all this wood into a landfill.

Red Shield is also planning to produce ethanol from wood in Old Town in the near future. This will be another step to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Companies like this should be thanked, not assailed for their endeavors in this domestic energy creation.

Using a renewable resource, wood in this case, to create energy, is a large step in the direction of energy self-sufficiency for America.

Companies such as Red Shield are, in my opinion, themselves environmentalists. Cleanly creating energy from our renewable resources indeed clearly shows a genuine concern for the environment. The people of this area should warmly welcome Red Shield to Old Town, and support them in every way we can.

Brian J. Carter

Old Town