In a column in Sunday’s Valley News, (“Wood-fired power won’t help,” Oct 16), Andrew Friedland argues against electricity generated by burning wood because of “hidden costs.” One such cost is that the carbon released by burning one tree is not reabsorbed back into the forests until that tree is replaced in about 50 years.

However, if you consider a forest, rather than a single tree, you get a different conclusion. A common rule of thumb is one acre of forest will yield one cord of wood per year. In other words, if you burn that cord of wood, the forest reabsorbs the same amount of carbon as was produced by that burning and turns it back into wood. Or, if you have 1,000 acres of forest and harvest 10 acres each year, after 100 years the first 10 acres you harvested will be a 100-year-old stand and the entire 1,000 acres will have the same amount of wood as when you started. Thus, the wood removed and burned each year is replaced by carbon removed from the air.

In these examples, burning wood is carbon neutral, but can even reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if some of the wood is permanently stored in buildings or furniture and only the waste wood is burned.

Of course, few landowners have 1,000 acres of forest and not every landowner limits their harvest to 1% of the forest. But, considering that New Hampshire is 85% forested and not all of it is harvested, for any acre harvested, there are probably another 99 acres not harvested.

Friedland also mentions two other hidden costs: the impacts to the terrestrial ecosystem and air pollution. In fact, many of our native animals depend on young forests; moose and deer in particular, and perhaps 20% of our bird species.

Finally, modern wood-fired power plants have sophisticated pollution reducing equipment. The wood plant in Springfield, N.H., currently mothballed, reburns the fly ash and then precipitates it and recycles it as an amendment for agriculture. Other flue gasses are reduced by careful control of the air intake. Wood-fired power is not without impacts, but no electric generation is.

Friedland is correct that we need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, but solar, wind, hydro and small-scale nuclear will probably not meet future demand for electricity. Wood-fired electricity, sourced from sustainably managed forests, should be part of the mix, and since it is a local fuel, it would reduce the need for more transmission lines and stimulate the local economy.

Ben Steele is a professor emeritus of biology at Colby-Sawyer College. He lives in Etna.