98th ESA Annual Meeting (August 4 -- 9, 2013)

August 03 - 09, 2013

FT 7

CANCELLED Waste Not, Want Not: Fueling Our Future With Biomass

Two important parts of human ecology involve what we do with materials and how we generate energy for heating, cooling, electricity, and transportation. Landfilling and the use of fossil fuels have had substantial impacts on our landscape and atmosphere, and the path to a sustainable future requires that we close the loops of material life cycles and energy production. These loops can, in fact, be linked, and this field trip will highlight how the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota have become leaders in this area. A brief introductory session and an all-day tour will tell the story of urban wood utilization and responsible biomass use at different scales and contexts. We’ll make four stops in Minneapolis: (1) Wood from the Hood, a small business that reclaims discarded trees from urban neighborhoods to create value-added wood products such as picture frames and flooring; (2) lunch and the opportunity to hike at Minnehaha Park, with its 53’ waterfall, native plant communities, and historical importance; (3) Len Busch Roses, the largest year-round grower of cut flowers in the Midwest and user of wood waste from local tree service companies to heat its greenhouses; and (4) the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, which incinerates garbage to provide heat and electricity for downtown and beyond. Through these examples and others presented in the introductory session, participants will see ideas that can be adapted in any community to make our homes, schools, and businesses part of a more sustainable human ecology. For a preview, see http://www.dovetailinc.org/content/using-biomass-minnesota.