Wood chips to fuel county schools

Energy-efficient boilers will use wood chips

Schools in County Durham are to be fuelled by scrap wood in an effort to combat soaring oil prices.

Currently 284 council-controlled schools use gas fired boilers. A further 29 use a mixture of oil, electricity and coal.

County Council bosses admit switching to wood pellet-burning boilers will be expensive in the short term.

But the authority says the running costs and long term environmental benefits "far outweigh" the outlay.

If the project is successful, Durham County Council says it may extend wood burning to other council offices and buildings.

The pellets are made from scrap wood at the Joint Stocks Recycling Centre, near Coxhoe, as part of the council's waste disposal operations.

'Added urgency'

Council leader Ken Manton said the authority was committed to reducing the consumption of energy and other non-renewable resources and to reducing CO2 emissions from county council buildings by 10% over the next two years.

He said: "The current soaring price of oil and likely increase in gas charges gives our task added urgency.

"As fossil fuel prices continue to rise and wood pellets become cheaper through bulk manufacture and increasing demand, wood pellet boilers should become even more competitive and economic for schools' use."

Council bosses intend to buy multi-purpose wood pellet fuel boilers, which can also burn wood chips, gas or oil. They will be incorporated into all new-build schools and where viable, existing coal or oil fuelled boilers will be modified to accept pellets.

Mr Manton added: "If all solid fuel boilers in our schools were replaced with wood pellet boilers, it would mean almost 2,000 fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, and a consequent improvement in our local air quality."