SALEM – Gov. John Baldacci recognizes that the wood-pellet boiler operating at Mt. Abram High School represents the wave of the future in environmentally safe and cost-efficient energy.

At Thursday’s SAD 58 directors meeting, Superintendent Quenten Clark and the board reflected on the governor’s visit to the school earlier this week to see the boiler and learn how it works. Directors saw it at the meeting, as facilities chief Dan Worcester led them to the boiler building in back of the school and explained how it operated.

The 1.7-million BTU unit is electronically controlled, with a touch screen computer regulating components that can also be controlled remotely from the Web. Wood pellets are fed from a silo outside the building into a bin inside, and a metering auger controls the pellet feed rate into the boiler.

“Right now, the auger’s feeding at 66 percent capacity,” Worcester said. The system is not pressurized, and the precision of the computer controls allows for hot water to be pumped consistently into the school at about 180 degrees.

Wood ash from the boiler’s operation is collected in an attached bucket, and exhaust is piped through a roof chimney.

One of the school’s old oil boilers serves as a backup.

The cost, including the boiler, building and silo construction, is about $215,000 and is expected to pay for itself in about five years, depending on oil price fluctuations. SAD 58 pays about $1.80 per ton for wood pellets compared to more than $2 per gallon for oil.

Mt. Abram is not the first high school in Maine to convert to a wood boiler. Leavitt High School in Turner switched to burning wood about seven years ago, but the Mt. Abram boiler is the first in Maine to burn wood pellets. The Leavitt boiler burns wood chips.

“I’m very happy with it,” Worcester said.

“I think it’s fair to say the governor is impressed,” Clark said.

In other business, Clark revealed there was grant money available for a program to provide new equipment to increase physical activity among students. The funds would also cover the cost of facilitators to help carry out the program.

A grant application must be submitted by the end of the month. A vote was taken by the board to approve the grant effort as well as request more information on the program.

Clark is waiting for state figures to allow the district to put together its budget for fiscal year 2009-10. A federal stimulus package being considered by Congress will have an impact on how much money the state is able to give to school districts.

“There’s a huge range of variables,” Clark said.