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USDA Pays To Turn Dead Trees Into Biofuel

biorootenergy.com

The U.S. Department of Agriculture starting a program that pays people to deliver dead trees to power plants that can convert them to biomass fuel.  Large swaths of Wyoming’s forests have been killed by pine beetle infestations and some say they pose a fire danger. Todd Atkinson with the Farm Service Agency says he hopes money will give people the incentive to harvest from more remote areas.

“Well, in areas where there is a significant threat of forest fire on public lands, there’s an opportunity to participate in this program and receive an incentive to retrieve materials that could either be diseased or infested or a threat for forest fire.”

The program also takes farm waste like corn stalks and wheat straw.  The USDA is also selecting power plants that are able to convert the biomass to energy.  They will be announced in mid-July.

Melodie Edwards is the host and producer of WPM's award-winning podcast The Modern West. Her Ghost Town(ing) series looks at rural despair and resilience through the lens of her hometown of Walden, Colorado. She has been a radio reporter at WPM since 2013, covering topics from wildlife to Native American issues to agriculture.
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