Category: Blog entry
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Study: Permanent Increase in Atmospheric CO2 from Biomass Energy
A new study out of Norway demonstrates what opponents of biomass energy have been saying for years: logging forests for bioenergy leads to a permanent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Bjart Holtsmark’s study, “The outcome is in the assumptions: analyzing the effects on atmospheric CO2 levels of increased use of bioenergy from forest biomass,” published…
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Photos Show Whole Trees Burned for Biomass Power
Photos Show Whole Trees Burned for Biomass Power New evidence has emerged once again proving that biomass power incinerators burn whole trees—not just wood “residues”—for fuel. The photographs below (taken in December 2012) show thousands of trees stacked and awaiting the chipper at Hemphill Power and Light, a 14-megawatt biomass power incinerator in Sullivan County, New Hampshire. Click here for…
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Green Group Appeals California Biomass Proposal
Green Group Appeals California Biomass Proposal Center for Biological Diversity, a national nonprofit environmental organization based in Arizona, is appealing a December 2012 Placer County Planning Commission decision to adopt a conditional use permit and certify the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Cabin Creek Biomass Energy Facility. Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) alleges that the EIR for…
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The Cellulosic Myth
The Cellulosic Myth - by Brian Tokar [Excerpted from “Biofuels and the Global Food Crisis,” in Fred Magdoff and Brian Tokar, eds., Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict Resistance, and Renewal, New York: MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS, 2010.] Logging for biomass energy in Vermont As concerns about agrofuels’ implications for food supplies and the environment have become more widespread,…
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Electronic Map Tracks Logging for Biomass Energy
Electronic Map Tracks Logging for Biomass Energy The first and only electronic map tracking logging sites sourcing wood to a biomass energy facility has been released by Energy Justice Network, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization with field offices in Vermont, Pennsylvania and Oregon and Biofuelwatch, an international organization based in Vermont and the UK. McNeil Biomass Incinerator The initial…
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Report: Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage a Mistake
A new report by Rachel Smolker and Almuth Ernsting of Biofuelwatch condemns carbon capture and storage (CCS) as setting the stage for increased burning of climate-busting biomass and fossil fuels for energy, in effect keeping us from looking at the way the way we produce—and consume—energy. BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage): Climate saviour or dangerous…
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A “Sustainable” Military?
- by Rachel Smolker, Biofuelwatch In December 2012, the U.S. Senate voted to strike language from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have limited military use of biofuels by requiring that they only purchase biofuels at costs comparable to petroleum fuels. Further, they amended the bill to allow defense spending on refinery construction, previously prohibited. That…
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Gainesville Sun’s Biomass Cover-Up
- by Karen Orr, Energy Justice Network One of the tragedies of life in Gainesville, Florida is that there is so little reality based journalism. In today’s SUN, editorial page editor Ron Cunningham continues the newspaper’s disinformation campaign on the city’s Gainesville Renewable Energy Center (GREC) boondoggle. Cunningham rewrites history when he states: “I just wish they had been here hotly debating…
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Help Energy Justice Help You
Friends: We’ve always done excellent work on a shoe-string budget. Our small crew has been providing critical support to community environmental leaders all over the U.S., enabling countless victories against coal, gas, incineration and other existing and proposed polluters. We need to raise $50,000 to bring us through 2013. We aimed to raise $10,000 of that…
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Trash and Biomass Incineration Worse for the Climate than Coal
After bringing together the nation’s grassroots “No New Coal Plants” network in 2006, helping stop over 100 coal plant proposals, we’ve focused back on biomass and trash incinerators, which are far more polluting, expensive and worse for the climate. On climate pollution, here’s where they fall: Please note that, especially with the practice of fracking, natural gas is actually worse…