Category: Blog entry

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…