I was very surprised that there’s no bio-mass conversion facility in Denver metro. Woody plants and chips from trees are a growing renewable resource that can fire power plants. A conversion facility for chips and other wood seems like a good idea for Denver for three reasons.

1. The building and operation of conversion plants create good, permanent jobs.
2. Landfill space is reduced.
3. Because of the prevalence of pine forests, which is a less desirable building material, bio-fuel production seems a natural for Denver.

The federal government is investing heavily in it. Here is the mission statement from the Biomass Crop Assistance Program sponsored by the USDA:

“Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) provides financial assistance to producers or entities that deliver eligible biomass material to designated biomass conversion facilities for use as heat, power, biobased products or biofuels.”

Putting aside that “biomass was considered a renewable source…after considerable lobbying by the forest products industry,” it seems to be a solid bridge to algae which may be the bio resource we all use in 50 years or sooner.

Any facility in Denver would have less of an ecological impact than natural gas powered plants. Woods chips are something we have right now and the biomass energy industry actively needs. That’s according to the biomass cover story in the April issue of ArborAge. However transportation costs make this a local affair.

Let’s start working on this for Denver.The west slope of Colorado has two BCAP approved facilities and several private ventures. Denver should as well.

Here is a list of qualified biofuels conversion facilities for the US. If you hear news on this topic please comment. We’re just tree trimmers after all.

One way to evaluate different horticultural contractors is to shop around and talk to different tree and lawn care businesses. I personally don’t like investing that type of time into hiring a contractor. Instead I like to piggyback on what others have said and commented when they shopped around.

Enter ServiceMagic contractor ratings. ArborScape has been a part of ServiceMagic’s contractor network since it was an upstart company, sending leads to our cell phone. They were smart enough to invest in a contractor ratings system that is fairly robust.

Our ratings aren’t always a 100%, nor should they be. We don’t do every job exactly as we thought because trees sometimes reveal new conditions and we work with them. And after all how would we improve without honest feedback?

Maybe you’re shopping our services around?