Category: Blog entry

  • Energy Justice Network Pushes for Clean Air in Allentown, PA

    Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work Push­es for Clean Air in Allen­town, PA June 18, 2013. Source: Col­in McEvoy, The Express Times  A clean air bill pro­posed by oppo­nents of the planned Allen­town waste-to-ener­gy plant may be at odds with state law. The city released a copy of a let­ter today from the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion argu­ing that…

  • Tree plantations and bioenergy with carbon capture: far from “safe” geoengineering

    Tree plan­ta­tions and bioen­er­gy with car­bon cap­ture: far from “safe” geo­engi­neer­ing J June 11, 2013. Source: Almuth Ern­st­ing, Hands Off Moth­er Earth.  Amongst geo­engi­neer­ing meth­ods, ‘afforesta­tion’, Bioen­er­gy with Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (BECCS) and biochar are com­mon­ly pro­mot­ed as ‘safe’, benign’ or ‘soft’ options – unlike, say, shoot­ing sul­phur par­ti­cles into the stratosphere. Accord­ing to a 2011…

  • Trafford, UK Council Plans Biomass Incinerator Appeal

    Traf­ford, UK Coun­cil Plans Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tor Appeal May 31, 2013. Source: BBC News A gov­ern­ment inquiry was held into Peel Ener­gy’s plans for a £70m plant in Davy­hulme after Traf­ford Coun­cil and hun­dreds of res­i­dents objected. An inspec­tor said health fears were out­weighed by the plan­t’s ben­e­fits. Coun­cil­lors said they believed they had rea­son­able grounds for…

  • Huge Biomass Incinerator Gets Go-ahead in Scotland

    Huge Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tor Gets Go-ahead in Scotland June 3, 2013. Source: The Her­ald Scotland Scot­land’s largest com­bined heat and pow­er bio­mass plant has been giv­en the go-ahead by the Scot­tish Government. Plan­ning con­sent was grant­ed for the £465 mil­lion devel­op­ment which, when fin­ished, should have the capac­i­ty to con­tin­u­ous­ly heat the equiv­a­lent of 1,000 Olympic-sized swim­ming…

  • EU: Oil, Biofuel Companies May Have Colluded on Price Distortion

    EU: Oil, Bio­fu­el Com­pa­nies May Have Col­lud­ed on Price Distortion May 14, 2013. Source: Frances Robin­son, Wall Street Journal BRUSSELS–The Euro­pean Union’s antitrust author­i­ties raid­ed the offices of oil and bio­fu­el com­pa­nies in two EU mem­ber states and Nor­way on sus­pi­cion of dis­tort­ing prices, the EU Com­mis­sion said Tuesday. “On 14 May 2013, Com­mis­sion offi­cials car­ried…

  • A Biomassacre Down Under

    A Bio­mas­sacre Down Under  A new report out of Aus­tralia, Bio­mas­sacre: How Log­ging Australia’s Native Forests for Bioen­er­gy Harms the Cli­mate, Wildlife and Peo­ple, by Mar­kets for Change, high­lights the harm to forests, cli­mate, wildlife and human health from log­ging native forests for indus­tri­al-scale bioenergy. Instead of being a clean, green solu­tion to wean Aus­tralia off of fos­sil…

  • 129 Gigawatts of Biomass by 2020?

    Elec­tric­i­ty Gen­er­a­tion from Bio­mass: Installed Capac­i­ty Fore­casts for Ded­i­cat­ed, Co-Fired, Anaer­o­bic Diges­tion, and Biore­fin­ery Facilities May 27, 2013. Source: PR Newswire  Account­ing for 3% of glob­al elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion capac­i­ty, bio­mass pow­er gen­er­a­tion (“biopow­er”) offers reli­able base­load pow­er to the grid and is expect­ed to play a cor­ner­stone role in meet­ing renew­able ener­gy tar­gets world­wide. Capac­i­ty expan­sion…

  • Biomass Incinerator Proposal for Klamath Falls, Oregon Withdrawn

    Project with­drawn after fed­er­al fund­ing source issues June 14, 2013. Source: Andrew Creasey, Her­ald and News A pro­posed and con­tro­ver­sial bio­mass plant off High­way 66 will not be built due to com­pli­ca­tions with its fed­er­al fund­ing source. Kla­math Falls Bioen­er­gy with­drew its appli­ca­tion for a site cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Tues­day. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process had been mired in delays with…

  • Biomass Incinerator is Vermont’s Biggest Polluter

    Fac­ing cli­mate change: Vermont’s biggest polluters May 29, 2013. Source: Audrey Clark, VT Digger Vermont’s rep­u­ta­tion as a green state was upheld this year when the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) released an inter­ac­tive map of the biggest point sources of green­house gas­es in the coun­try. In spite of, or thanks to, these facil­i­ties, Ver­mont has…

  • Proposed Klamath Falls, Oregon Biomass Incinerator Will Not Be Built

    Pro­posed Kla­math Falls, Ore­gon Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tor Will Not Be Built June 13, 2013. Source: Her­ald and News A pro­posed bio­mass plant off High­way 66 will not be built, due to com­pli­ca­tions with its fed­er­al fund­ing source. Kla­math Falls Bioen­er­gy with­drew its appli­ca­tion for a site cer­ti­fi­ca­tion on Tuesday. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process had been mired in delays with the…