The attractiveness of the central heating idea presented this week by the Biomass Energy Research Center lies in its mix of tried-and-true old technology with new ideas of sustainability and energy independence.

The iffy part of the proposal is the $18 million price and the question of what kind of agency would have the organizational reach and power to push such a big project to completion.

The biggest question about the proposed biomass heating district cannot be answered until it unfolds: What will happen to the price of oil over the next 20 years?

If you believe, as BERC does, that the price of heating oil is bound to rise back to its prices of early last year and even higher, then the creation of a heating district not dependent on oil could provide enormous benefits. The price of wood chips, BERC shows, has been very stable over the last 10 years. That price might rise, but there’s no reason for it to skyrocket as the price of oil has done.

If the proposed woodchip heating system works as it should and if the price of oil does go back into the stratosphere, the owners of village properties could see very significant savings. Just as important, the village area could become a magnet for businesses and manufacturers who would welcome a reasonable heating bill. A secure, stable supply of heating fuel could increase the value of residential properties in the district, and even change building patterns, as developers try to locate within the reach of the biomass heating district.

This, therefore, is a proposal to take very seriously, and we trust the Randolph Energy Committee will do just that.

Many aspects of the proposal are pretty simple. Vermont knows how to burn wood—it has more wood-heated schools than any state in the country—and the technology of heat transfer from a central heating plant to outlying buildings is no mystery—the Europeans have developed modern, efficient methods to do it. For many customers, joining the system would be as simple as turning off their oil burners and hooking their distribution pipes up to the district hot water lines.

The difficult thing, even if this is shown to be the best project in the world, is to make it happen.