Category: Blog entry

  • Dirty Air for Power We Don’t Need

    Dirty Air for Pow­er We Don’t Need - by Dick Stokes, Sep­tem­ber 19, 2013. Source: Gainesville-Sun The “big lie” method involves mak­ing a claim so pre­pos­ter­ous peo­ple assume it must be true. Gainesville Region­al Util­i­ties made the pre­pos­ter­ous claim that the air will be clean­er after the bio­mass incin­er­a­tor (the Gainesville Renew­able Ener­gy Cen­ter) starts burn­ing tons of wood…

  • Doctor Talks Incineration

    Doc­tor Talks Incineration - by Mitchell Kirk, Sep­tem­ber 25, 2013. Source: Pharos-Tribune More than 50 peo­ple came out for a pre­sen­ta­tion Tues­day at Logans­port Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal about how incin­er­a­tion plants can affect health. The event was orga­nized by Cit­i­zens’ Alliance for Respon­si­ble Ener­gy, or CARE, a group of cit­i­zens who oppose the pro­posed pow­er plant project in…

  • Biomass Energy Never Carbon Neutral

    Bio­mass Ener­gy Nev­er Car­bon Neutral -by Karen Orr, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network Bio­mass ener­gy is not car­bon neu­tral and nev­er will be. For years sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies have shown that bio­mass ener­gy isn’t car­bon neu­tral in any use­ful time frame. A 2012 study from Nor­way demon­strates that log­ging forests for bio-ener­gy leads to a per­ma­nent increase in atmos­pher­ic car­bon diox­ide.…

  • Biofuels Company Granted $4M from DOE after Hosting Obama at Fundraiser

    Green com­pa­ny grant­ed $4M from DOE after financier hosts Oba­ma at DSCC fundraiser - by Lach­lan Markay, Sep­tem­ber 20, 2013. Source: The Wash­ing­ton Free Beacon [Read “Cel­lu­losic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool’s Errand” to learn more about the bio­fu­els com­pa­ny LanzaTech.] The Depart­ment of Ener­gy recent­ly award­ed a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar con­tract to a green ener­gy com­pa­ny financed by a major Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty fundrais­er…

  • (September 2013) ANTI-BIOMASS CAMPAIGN CALL RECORDING & NOTES: “A Pediatrician’s Perspective on Air Pollution and Children”

    Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign — Nation­al Con­fer­ence Call Notes Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 5, 2013 at 3pm EST Top­ic: “A Pedi­a­tri­cian’s Per­spec­tive on Air Pol­lu­tion and Chil­dren” — We dis­cuss the human health impacts of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion and oth­er forms of indus­tri­al air pol­lu­tion, with a focus on our nation’s most vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tion: our children. Guest speak­er: Dr. Nor­ma Kreilein, MD, Fel­low…

  • Biomass Industry Fans Flames of Wildfire Hysteria

    Bio­mass Indus­try Fans Flames of Wild­fire Hysteria  California’s Rim fire, expect­ed to be ful­ly “con­tained” by Octo­ber after ignit­ing in Yosemite Nation­al Park on August 17, will ulti­mate­ly ben­e­fit the forests it has passed through. While media accounts sen­sa­tion­al­ize such large wild­fires as “cat­a­stroph­ic” and “dis­as­trous,” sci­ence demon­strates that, to the con­trary, fire is a vital com­po­nent of…

  • Wildland-Urban Fire—A Different Approach

    Wild­land-Urban Fire–A Dif­fer­ent Approach - by Jack D. Cohen, Rocky Moun­tain Research Sta­tion, U.S. For­est Service Wild­land-urban fire occurs when a fire burn­ing in wild­land veg­e­ta­tion fuels gets close enough with its flames and/or fire­brands (loft­ed burn­ing embers) to poten­tial­ly cre­ate igni­tions of the res­i­den­tial fuels (But­ler 1974). Res­i­den­tial fire destruc­tion is the prin­ci­pal prob­lem dur­ing wild­land-urban fires,…

  • Wind Drives All Large Blazes

    Wind Dri­ves All Large Blazes  - by George Wuerthner As large fires have spread across the West in recent decades, we hear increas­ing demands to reduce fuels—typically through log­ging. But log­ging won’t reduce the large fires we are expe­ri­enc­ing because fuels do not dri­ve large fires. You can have tons of fuel per acre as occurs…

  • The Ecological Importance of California’s Rim Fire

    The Eco­log­i­cal Impor­tance of California’s Rim Fire  - by Chad Han­son, John Muir Project  Pho­to: Doug Bevington Since the Rim fire began in the cen­tral Sier­ra Neva­da on August 17, there has been a steady stream of fear­ful, hyper­bol­ic, and mis­in­formed report­ing in much of the media. The fire, which is cur­rent­ly 188,000 acres in size and cov­ers por­tions…

  • USDA to Expand Taxpayer Handouts to Biomass Industry

    USDA Announces Ini­tia­tive to Expand U.S. Wood-to-Ener­gy Efforts - by Sue Ret­ka Schill, Sep­tem­ber 13, 2013. Source: Bio­mass Mag­a­zine  The USDA announced a part­ner­ship agree­ment to expand wood ener­gy use, which will help improve the safe­ty and health of U.S. forests. The new part­ner­ships include USDA, the Alliance for Green Heat, the Bio­mass Pow­er Asso­ci­a­tion, the Bio­mass…