Category: Blog entry

  • Forest Thinning Will Increase Wildfire Risk

    - by Charles Thomas, The Ore­gon­ian As fires again rage across the West, sen­a­tors from John McCain, R‑Ariz., to Ron Wyden, D‑Ore., echo the refrain “thin the forests” to pre­vent wild­fires. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, most of the advo­cat­ed thin­ning will actu­al­ly stoke the wild­fires of the future rather than lessen their occur­rence and impacts. Thin­ning pre­scrip­tions pro­posed in…

  • 2014: The Year of the Smokestack Smackdown [Energy Justice Now, August 2014]

    Pre­pare your­self for the August issue of Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work’s new pub­li­ca­tion, Ener­gy Jus­tice Now! - “2014 a Ban­ner Year for Victories” - “Derail­ing NYC Trash Train in Chester, PA” - “Ver­mont Yan­kee: Out of the Fis­sion and Into the Fire?” …and more!!! Please share the August 2014 issue of Ener­gy Jus­tice Now with your friends, col­leagues, neigh­bors, media, and elect­ed officials! Sub­scribe to month­ly email…

  • Vermont Yankee: Out of the Fission and Into the Fire?

    - by Ann Dar­ling, The Safe and Green Campaign The Ver­mont Yan­kee nuclear pow­er sta­tion in south­east­ern Ver­mont will close in Decem­ber of this year after oper­at­ing for over 40 years. The own­er, Enter­gy Nuclear, is based in New Orleans and is the sec­ond largest nuclear pow­er com­pa­ny in the U.S. As a mem­ber of the Safe…

  • Biomass Rejected in Favor of Solar in Springfield, VT

    -  by Susan Small­heer, July 17, 2014, Rut­land Herald North Spring­field, Vt. — Out with bio­mass, in with solar panels. Win­stan­ley Enter­pris­es announced Wednes­day that it was seek­ing state approval to build five, 500-kilo­watt solar arrays in the North Spring­field Indus­tri­al Park. Some of the land that will be used was ear­li­er pro­posed to be the…

  • More Logging and Biomass Burning Won’t Solve Job Woes

    -  by Rob Handy, July 6, 2014, Reg­is­ter Guard Dur­ing my tenure as a Lane Coun­ty com­mis­sion­er, I watched Lane County’s tim­ber har­vest rise from 337 mil­lion board feet in 2009 to 590 mil­lion board feet in 2012, report­ed con­cise­ly by the state Depart­ment of Forestry. In spite of this huge surge, a 75 per­cent increase, I…

  • Wood Stoves a Major Contributor to “Unhealthy” Air Days in Clallam County, WA

    Read The Bio­mass Mon­i­tor’s cov­er­age of the sto­ry behind these air pol­lu­tion tests: “Track­ing Bio­mass Air Pol­lu­tion on the Olympic Penin­su­la”  -  by Arwyn Rice, July 14, 2014, Penin­su­la Dai­ly News   PORT ANGELES — Air qual­i­ty in cen­tral and east­ern Clal­lam Coun­ty is gen­er­al­ly good, but wood burn­ing for home heat­ing and trans­porta­tion-relat­ed pol­lu­tants are con­tribut­ing to occa­sion­al “unhealthy”…

  • Council Concerned Over Reports of Land Contamination from Oklahoma Incinerator

    -  by Josh New­town, April 23, 2014, Tahle­quah Dai­ly Press TAHLEQUAH — Nego­ti­a­tions involv­ing the pur­chase of near­ly 20 homes on 7 acres of land near Basin Avenue hit a snag Mon­day night when con­cerns sur­faced over poten­tial con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the area. Tahle­quah May­or Jason Nichols had pro­posed the city pur­chase the homes and duplex­es as a large…

  • Group Calls for Probe of Nova Scotia Biomass Logging

    [The for­est foot­print for a bio­mass incin­er­a­tor is mas­sive. Will be inter­est­ing to see if any probe is done in regards to this facil­i­ty. ‑Ed.] -  by Erin Pot­tie, June 27, 2014, Cape Bre­ton Bureau A Cape Bre­ton envi­ron­men­tal group is call­ing for an emer­gency review of har­vest­ing prac­tices at Nova Sco­tia Power’s bio­mass plant in…

  • Biomass Industry Lashes Out at Solar Subsidies

    [The heav­i­ly-sub­si­dized, pol­lut­ing bio­mass ener­gy indus­try cries foul over get­ting a small­er slice of the tax­pay­er pie than smoke­stack-free solar ener­gy in Cal­i­for­nia. ‑Ed.]  -  by Bon­ner R. Cohen, July 15, 2014, Heart­land The Cal­i­for­nia Wind Ener­gy Asso­ci­a­tion and oth­er renew­able ener­gy groups crit­i­cized a new law extend­ing spe­cial tax breaks to the Cal­i­for­nia solar pow­er…

  • Massachusetts Grants Millions to Biomass Industry

    [Mil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars go to pol­lut­ing bio­mass incin­er­a­tion under the guise of “clean” ener­gy. ‑Ed.] -  by Anna Simet, June 5, 2014, Bio­mass Magazine Mass­a­chu­setts has ded­i­cat­ed $3.5 mil­lion to nine renew­able ther­mal projects in the state through a new grant pro­gram, the Mass­a­chu­setts Renew­able Ther­mal Busi­ness Invest­ment Financ­ing Program. Funds for the pro­gram are…