Facing a winter where home heating oil likely will be $4.50 or more a gallon, a task force created by the governor believes the public is ready to start making the switch back to the state’s most plentiful homegrown resource – wood.

The goal is to convert 10 percent of home oil-based heating systems to wood in five years, using pellet or wood chip technology, according to a draft report released by Gov. John Baldacci’s Wood-to-Energy Task Force.

Department of Conservation Commissioner Pat McGowan, who serves on the task force, also would like to see a similar conversion in public buildings, like schools, state government offices, municipal buildings and prisons.

McGowan said last week his department may recommend a bond package next year to help fund that conversion for schools.

McGowan declined to estimate the size of the bond, saying he wants to first see what incentives the federal Department of Energy under a new administration will be offering, but government must play a role.

“We will recommend more intensive conversion of Maine schools and it could be matched with a bond proposal in 2009,” McGowan said.

The task force will be recommending a government buy-back program to get old, inefficient and polluting wood-burning stoves out of homes and replace them with more efficient burners.

“The task force is concerned that high heating oil costs will shift more homes and small businesses into the use of already installed, older, highly polluting wood stoves. This is not only an air pollution concern, but also a more general public safety concern over the potential for increased chimney fires,” the report says.

No price tag has been put on that initiative.

Not everybody likes the wood-to-energy idea. The state’s oil dealers see a loss of business; conservationists worry about the stress more wood-burning could put on Maine forests; and, pulp and paper manufactures see the price of their wood supply going up with new competition in the market.

But, few can deny the state’s vulnerable position.

An estimated 80 percent of Maine homes are heated by oil – the highest percentage of any state in the country.

And, home heating oil hit a statewide average price of $4.60 per gallon last week, according to a survey done by the state.

Les Otten, the former owner of Sugarloaf and Sunday River and one-time part owner of the Boston Red Sox, was picked by the governor to be chairman of the task force. His role has sparked controversy since he announced in May that he was starting a company in Maine to sell wood pellet furnaces. His partners in that venture – William Strauss and Harry Dresser – also serve as members of the task force.

Otten said the governor picked him knowing he planned to start the company – something the governor’s office confirmed – because of his enthusiasm for wood energy.

“This group was formed because the governor is interested in pellets,” he said. “This isn’t helping my business.”

Wood pellets can be made from either hardwood or softwood. The wood is dried and pulverized and then forced under pressure through the holes in a die. Under the system Otten is selling, which is made by the German appliance maker, Bosch, the pellets would be delivered by a service truck into a storage bin that would feed the furnace on demand.

Right now the demand for pellets is most manifest anecdotally in the sale of wood pellet stoves, rather than the full-blown heating systems that Otten is selling for around $13,000. Those stoves are seen as an auxiliary to an oil-burning furnace.

And Otten admits the task force’s work, in general, is more long-term.

“We can’t do anything about this winter,” he said, because getting 10 percent of homes off oil will take five to seven years.

The more immediate concern of some task force members is the potential for air pollution if there is a big shift to cord wood burning this winter, particularly in old stoves or outdoor wood burners not up to emission standards.

The report specifically mentioned outdoor wood boilers, which have become popular in some areas.

“Outdoor wood boiler systems will not be recommended since they are known heavy polluters that have measured significant environmental impact,” the draft report says.

The American Lung Association of Maine is currently doing an inventory of what people are heating with now so it can estimate pollution problems this winter.

“We are expecting there are not going to be a good number of EPA-approved stoves brought into use,” said Ed Miller of the American Lung Association in Maine. “There will be more complaints. More people with concerns about their kids’ asthma.”

That, however, may be a reality Maine has to live with in the short term.

“What are you going to do?” asked task force member, Strauss. “We can’t tell them to turn it off and freeze to death.”

The task force will meet again next week, with the goal of finalizing its report at the end of July. After a public hearing, the report will be presented to Baldacci, who can then recommend policy changes to the Legislature.