Category: Blog entry

  • Biomass Energy: Dirty and Unsustainable

    Bio­mass Ener­gy: Dirty and Unsustainable - by Ron Zeller Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s con­tin­u­ing “all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above” ener­gy strat­e­gy still sup­ports bio­mass ener­gy devel­op­ment despite its increas­ing­ly obvi­ous prob­lems, numer­ous aban­doned facil­i­ties, and pub­lic rejection.  An assert­ed need to reduce Amer­i­ca’s reliance on import­ed oil is fre­quent­ly cit­ed in argu­ments made for fund­ing projects which are oth­er­wise…

  • Cellulosic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool’s Errand?

    Cel­lu­losic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool’s Errand? The good news is that the cel­lu­losic ethanol industry—turning trees and woody plants into liq­uid fuels—has yet to take off. And with­out an end­less stream of tax­pay­er hand­outs to devel­op this pol­lut­ing and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive ener­gy source, it prob­a­bly nev­er will. Under the guise of tak­ing action on cli­mate change, the US…

  • VICTORY against Maryland’s “Waste Portfolio Standard” — the Latest Creative Way to Prop Up Incinerators

    - by Mike Ewall What does an incin­er­a­tor indus­try do when they can’t com­pete?  Change the rules.  Bio­mass and trash incin­er­a­tors are the most expen­sive way to make ener­gy, and trash incin­er­a­tion costs more than direct­ly land­fill­ing the waste.  These indus­tries sur­vive to the extent that they can change the rules to get monop­oly waste con­tracts, become ‘renew­able’ ener­gy in…

  • Biomass Moratorium Called for in Oregon

    - by Save Our Rur­al Oregon Due to the Clean Air Act vio­la­tions both Kla­math Falls and Lake­view, Ore­gon have expe­ri­enced this win­ter, Save Our Rur­al Ore­gon is request­ing an emer­gency mora­to­ri­um on pro­posed bio­mass and bio­fu­els projects in both communities. Let­ters have been for­ward­ed to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency and Ore­gon Gov­er­nor John Kitzhaber,…

  • Burlington, Vermont Ignores Biomass Emissions

    It’s good news that IBM is help­ing Burling­ton, Ver­mont low­er its impact on the cli­mate. [“IBM Wants to Help Burling­ton Reduce Its Car­bon Foot­print,” Sev­en Days, March 27]. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the city’s refusal to fix glar­ing errors in its Cli­mate Action Plan pre­vents an hon­est look at Burlington’s actu­al con­tri­bu­tions to run­away glob­al cli­mate change. The Burling­ton…

  • Biomass Battle Casts Spotlight on Environmental Justice

    Some­times what seems like defeat in the short term can actu­al­ly turn out to be vic­to­ry in the long run. One such case involves the oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of Seneca Sawmill’s bio­mass pow­er incin­er­a­tor in Eugene, Ore­gon. While the facil­i­ty fired up its smoke­stacks for the first time in 2011, the effort to edu­cate…

  • Allentown Residents for Clean Air bring Incinerator Issue to the Voters

    An exper­i­men­tal trash and sewage sludge incin­er­a­tor, planned in the heart of the His­pan­ic com­mu­ni­ty in the City of Allen­town, Penn­syl­va­nia is being chal­lenged by Allen­town Res­i­dents for Clean Air (ARCA). The group just sub­mit­ted over 2,000 sig­na­tures to put a Clean Air Ordi­nance we wrote on the Novem­ber bal­lot as an ini­tia­tive. If this bal­lot ini­tia­tive pass­es, Delta Ther­mo Ener­gy will…

  • San Francisco reports record 80% diversion rate

    This is from Octo­ber 2012, but still worth cel­e­brat­ing. We keep deal­ing with com­mu­ni­ties where local offi­cials want to pur­sue incin­er­a­tion (not real­iz­ing that it’s the most expen­sive and pol­lut­ing way to make ener­gy or to dis­pose of waste) while they haven’t even tried to get seri­ous about zero waste pro­grams (redesign / reduce / reuse / recy­cle…

  • Genetically Engineered Trees for Bioenergy Pose Major Threat to Southern Forests

    Genet­i­cal­ly Engi­neered Trees for Bioen­er­gy Pose Major Threat to South­ern Forests -by Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project In response to indus­try plans to devel­op euca­lyp­tus plan­ta­tions across the US South, envi­ron­men­tal groups are rais­ing seri­ous con­cerns about the impacts of euca­lyp­tus plan­ta­tions on forests, rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, wildlife and the cli­mate, espe­cial­ly if those trees are genet­i­cal­ly engineered.…

  • The Ohio Biomess

    - by Nathan John­son, Buck­eye For­est Council News broke on Jan­u­ary 30th that Todd Snitch­ler, chair­man of the Ohio Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion (PUCO) was a keynote speak­er at the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Council’s (ALEC) task-force meet­ing in April 2011. As many read­ers know, ALEC has been aggres­sive­ly push­ing for the repeal of renew­able ener­gy stan­dards at state leg­is­la­tures across the…