Wood touted as 'new' renewable fuel

Broader incentives for biothermal energy sought; some environmentalists skeptical

Lee Richardson is taking a new look at a very old energy source. The Wicomico County poultry farmer has installed a commercial-sized wood pellet stove to heat one of his chicken houses in Willards, east of Salisbury. When his next flock of chicks arrives, Richardson will test how the wood-warmed birds fare compared with those raised in a neighboring house heated by burning propane gas. Wood, humanity's earliest fuel for keeping warm, is being touted these days as the latest thing in renewable energy.

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