The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources has released a Biomass Sustainability and Carbon Policy study, which it commissioned in November 2009. The study was performed by a research team led by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences. Findings indicate that the use of sustainably harvested forest biomass to replace oil heat would likely begin to yield benefits in greenhouse gas emissions reduction in as little as five years, but electricity from biomass compares unfavorably with fossil fuels, including coal.