The school district recently decided to accept a $200,000 federal grant that will help pay for conversion of an older diesel-burning boiler to a biomass boiler.
The converted boiler will burn wood waste supplied in the form of wood chips from a local lumber mill plus forestry slash, thereby reducing the amount of wildfire-feeding fuel in area forests.
"Our teachers are going to love it," said District Superintendent Jerry Pauli. "Right now, we don't heat the buildings on weekends."
The reason the heating plant is shut down on weekends is the high cost of diesel fuel for the central heating boiler, which pipes hot-water heat to several elementary school buildings on the old "boarding school" campus.
The buildings are all tied together with one boiler system.
The multiple-building campus was constructed in the 1930s, mostly of brick and poorly insulated.
Meanwhile, the cost of fuel oil to heat the boiler that pipes heat to the buildings has skyrocketed 300 percent in the last few years, from about 50 cents a gallon to the current $1.52, Pauli said.
The bulk of the biomass fuel will come from wood chips supplied by Thompson River Lumber, the major lumber mill in the community. Thompson River is also supplying biomass wood to the new Thompson River Co-Gen electricity generation plant just east of town.
That plant burns mostly coal brought in by rail to produce steam and electricity. But it also burns wood chips as a supplement.
The school district will also use logging slash to supplement the Thompson River Lumber material, under the terms of the Forest Service grant.
Darby and Victor school districts in Ravalli County now use biomass as heating fuel, aided by similar grants - $625,000 for Victor, $850,000 for Darby.
In Thompson Falls, the total cost will be $350,000, with $200,000 from the grant.
Pauli said Thompson Falls will seek a low-interest community infrastructure loan from the state of Montana for the remaining $150,000. Making the payments will be no problem, Pauli said, because of the savings achieved by converting from diesel to biomass.
Storage of biomass fuel will be in a 40-square-foot concrete-block building to be constructed near the boiler.
The biomass heat will take care of about 80 percent of the campus' total heat bill. In extremely cold weather, diesel fuel will supplement the biomass, providing about 20 percent of the campus' year-round heating needs.
Pollution from wood smoke is not a problem because the furnace will burn at a highly efficient 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to 600 degrees in home wood stoves. The higher temperature assures that virtually all particles in the wood is burned to a gas before it goes up the stack.
Architects are designing the system, and it should be installed in time for the beginning of school next fall, Pauli said.
Reporter John Stromnes can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or jstromnes@missoulian.com
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