Rising prices for oil, gas and electricity have more and more people looking at wood-burning stoves as a method of home heating. But before a Carbon County company opened in March, the closest manufacturers of the pellets that power some of these stoves were in West Virginia, Rhode Island and New York.
Great American Pellets, which operates out of a renovated factory in Palmerton, makes the tiny pellets out of hardwood. Most of its customers are in the mid-Atlantic.
Rather than using trees from clear-cut forests, the company gets its raw material from areas designated for timber stand improvement. This is the process of cutting down trees that can’t grow to be tall and healthy. These trees are often twisted or crooked. Removing them strategically from a forest prevents them from choking out healthier trees.
“When these trees come out we’re just allowing others to grow,” says Jeff Nichols of Great American Pellets. “It’s bigger trees, not more trees.”
A 2008 report from the state’s Hardwoods Development Council said a staggering 469 million tons of wood from these trees could be available for harvesting throughout the state. The report added that one efficient, carbon-neutral way of using this wood was to generate energy from it.
Source: Jeff Nichols, Great American Pellets
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen