An Anti-Biomass Movement Beyond Borders

-  Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work

[graph­ic: Steve Adams Illus­tra­tion]

Then a very good thing—concern with cli­mate change—opened the flood­gates to some­thing very bad—billions of dol­lars of gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies for bio­mass. Like a pack of hun­gry rats, the bio­mass indus­try gorged itself on the tax­pay­er-fund­ed gov­ern­ment cheese. A rash of bio­mass incin­er­a­tor pro­pos­als erupt­ed across the nation like an out­break of acne. Qui­et com­mu­ni­ties found them­selves fac­ing pol­lut­ing mon­strosi­ties being erect­ed a stone’s throw away from their homes or their children’s schools.

Enter the grass­roots anti-bio­mass movement…

Com­mu­ni­ties across the North­west, the Rock­ies, the Upper Mid­west, the North­east, the Mid-Atlantic region, and the South­east began band­ing togeth­er to con­front the bio-mon­ster. Draw­ing on state­ments by pub­lic health orga­ni­za­tions such as the Amer­i­can Lung Asso­ci­a­tion and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als like Dr. Bill Sam­mons of Mass­a­chu­setts, Dr. Nor­ma Kreilein of Indi­ana, Dr. Bill Black­ley of North Car­oli­na, and Dr. Ron Saff of Flori­da, cit­i­zens sound­ed the alarm on health threats from an ener­gy source that typ­i­cal­ly spews out more asth­ma-caus­ing par­tic­u­late mat­ter and car­cino­genic volatile organ­ic com­pounds per unit of ener­gy than a coal burn­ing plant. Bio­mass busters across the nation col­lect­ed one sci­en­tif­ic study after anoth­er debunk­ing the bio­mass industry’s “car­bon neu­tral” myth and shoved them under the noses of politi­cians and the media.

Thanks, in no small part, to the grass­roots anti-bio­mass move­ment, the bio-mess is now impos­si­ble for the gen­er­al pub­lic to ignore. And we’re help­ing to slow down the bio-mas­sacre, too. Over the last few years, dozens of bio­mass facil­i­ties have been pro­posed only to be with­drawn, the devel­op­ers run out of town by unfa­vor­able eco­nom­ics, ner­vous investors, clear-sight­ed politi­cians, and locals unwill­ing to bear the bur­den of anoth­er dirty pow­er plant.

The ghosts of defeat­ed bio­mass pro­pos­als harm­less­ly roam the streets of towns such as Shel­ton, Wash­ing­ton; Tra­verse City, Michi­gan; Mill­town and Scotts­burg, Indi­ana; Green­field, Mass­a­chu­setts; Val­dos­ta, Geor­gia; and Port St. Joe, Flori­da, and many more (with more to come).

The hand­ful of incin­er­a­tors that bought their way into exis­tence faced a tough fight every step of the way, and are now being watched like hawks by irate com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in towns like Gainesville, Flori­da; Roth­schild, Wis­con­sin; and Eugene, Ore­gon. Every tax hike, safe­ty over­sight, and air per­mit vio­la­tion is broad­cast across the nation­al net­work to pre­vent oth­er tox­ic bio­mass pow­er plants from tak­ing root.

And some­times the vic­to­ries are bit­ter­sweet. Kings Beach, Cal­i­for­nia and Pow­nal, Ver­mont both man­aged to keep bio­mass prof­i­teers from break­ing ground in their towns. But like hock­ey-masked Jason from the Fri­day the 13th movies, the devel­op­ers didn’t die, only set up shop in poor­er, less-orga­nized towns a bit fur­ther down the road in Plac­er Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia and Fair Haven, Ver­mont. Only strong statewide net­works can keep the bio-mon­ster at bay.

But even statewide efforts aren’t enough, as devel­op­ers have just learned to avoid the more trou­ble­some states and set their sights on the ones with­out active resis­tance. Which is where the nation­al Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion cam­paign comes in.

If local fights are the “heart” of the anti-bio­mass move­ment, the nation­al cam­paign is the sys­tem of arter­ies and veins that keep the blood flow­ing. To date, over 50 orga­ni­za­tions across 35 US states have unit­ed in sol­i­dar­i­ty on a clear and com­pelling mes­sage oppos­ing “all indus­tri­al, com­mer­cial and insti­tu­tion­al burn­ing of bio­mass and bio­fu­els for ener­gy.” If your orga­ni­za­tion hasn’t already signed the plat­form, what are you wait­ing for? Join the nation­al move­ment by email­ing Traci [at] ener­gyjus­tice [dot] net. 

Of course, the bio­mass bat­tle isn’t only being waged in the Unit­ed States. US and UK-based Bio­fu­el­watch has demon­strat­ed with­out a shad­ow of a doubt that the anti-bio­mass move­ment must go inter­na­tion­al, point­ing towards Europe’s increas­ing demand for bio­mass from the US and the glob­al south. On April 15, 2013, Aus­tralian-based Biomassacre.com host­ed the first Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Bioen­er­gy, where hun­dreds of peo­ple around the world in Aus­tralia, UK, US, Ger­many and Italy held up signs to show anti-bio­mass sol­i­dar­i­ty on an online visu­al petition.

It’s become crys­tal clear that if we want to clean up the bio­mess once and for all, the anti-bio­mass move­ment needs to move beyond bor­ders and take the resis­tance beyond NIMBY (Not In My Back­yard) to NOPE (Not On Plan­et Earth)!