Category: Blog entry

  • Study: solar, wind and storage can provide 99.9% of power By 2030

    A new study has deter­mined that renew­ables could eco­nom­i­cal­ly ful­ly pow­er a util­i­ty scale elec­tric grid 99.9% of the time by 2030 — and with­out gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies, if the prop­er mix is imple­ment­ed.  This new study affirms what we’ve been say­ing for a decade now: we don’t need nuclear, coal, oil, gas, bio­mass/incin­er­a­tion or oth­er dirty ener­gy sources.  We can…

  • The Biomass Tide is Turning

    Dear Bio­mass Oppo­nent, Thank you for being a part of the nation­al Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign. As I’m sure you already know, over the past few years our grass­roots net­work across 32 states has shed light on the harm­ful health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts from bio­mass incin­er­a­tion at the local, region­al, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al level. Indus­tri­al-scale bio­mass ener­gy has gone…

  • EPA Sued for Ignoring Paper Mill CO2 Emissions

    Mas­sive emis­sions of green­house gas­es in the form of car­bon diox­ide make bio­mass and coal burn­ing facil­i­ties major con­trib­u­tors to cli­mate change. Yet one large source of cli­mate pol­lu­tion that’s been fly­ing under the radar has been pulp and paper mills—until now. Inter­na­tion­al Paper’s Ticon­dero­ga Mill , New York (pho­to: itsgettinghotinhere.org)  A law­suit against the US Envi­ron­men­tal…

  • Biomass Profiteering Trumps Children’s Health in Rothschild, Wisconsin

    For many peo­ple, noth­ing typ­i­fies the Amer­i­can Dream more than buy­ing a house in a small town to start a fam­i­ly. Five years ago school teacher Robert Hugh­es and his wife pur­chased a home in Roth­schild, Wis­con­sin, pop­u­la­tion 5,000 and had two chil­dren, now three years and three months old. Today, the Hugh­es’ dream is…

  • Report Predicts Bioenergy Crop Invasion

    A new report released by the Nation­al Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion (NWF) details yet anoth­er in a long and grow­ing list of eco­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic threats from indus­tri­al-scale bio­mass ener­gy: the risk of bioen­er­gy crops becom­ing inva­sive species. Grow­ing Risk: Address­ing the Inva­sive Poten­tial of Bioen­er­gy Feed­stocks dis­cuss­es the neg­a­tive impacts on the envi­ron­ment and the econ­o­my that are like­ly…

  • Medical Doctors Brief Congress on Biomass Energy Health Hazards

    Three med­ical doc­tors and a sci­en­tist pre­sent­ed the first-ever Con­gres­sion­al brief­ing on the health haz­ards of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion in the U.S. Con­gress in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2012. The brief­ing was arranged and spon­sored by Save Amer­i­ca’s Forests and the pre­sen­ta­tions can be viewed online here. Pedi­a­tri­cians William Sam­mons, M.D., of Mass­a­chu­setts and Nor­ma Kreilein, M.D., of…

  • New Report Slams “Sustainable” Biomass Energy

    Bio­mass ener­gy is not sus­tain­able at an indus­tri­al scale, accord­ing to a new report by Bio­fu­el­watch, an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion based in the US and Unit­ed King­dom (UK). Sus­tain­able Bio­mass: A Mod­ern Myth sounds the warn­ing bell on trends that would make the UK the world’s largest con­sumer of bio­mass elec­tric­i­ty, along with the inevitable impacts on the cli­mate,…

  • Carbon Accounting Errors Skew Burlington, Vermont’s Climate Plan

    The City of Burling­ton, Vermont’s Draft Cli­mate Action Plan reports only a frac­tion of the car­bon diox­ide (CO2) smoke­stack emis­sions from the McNeil Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion [pic­tured below]—a 50 megawatt bio­mass incin­er­a­tor sup­ply­ing rough­ly one-third of the city’s electricity—hindering the city’s efforts to accu­rate­ly mea­sure and reduce its car­bon footprint.  The U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) cal­cu­lates McNeil’s CO2 emis­sions alone at 444,646 tons…

  • Obama and Romney Unite on Destructive Bioenergy Policy

    Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and Repub­li­can Par­ty Nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney may not see eye to eye on issues like same-sex mar­riage, immi­gra­tion, or abor­tion, but when it comes to the can­di­dates’ harm­ful stances on bio­mass ener­gy and bio­fu­els, the two might as well be run­ning on the same ticket. Gov­er­nor Mitt Romney  Tech­ni­cal­ly, Romney’s white paper on ener­gy pol­i­cy, The…

  • EPA to Revise Particulate Matter Standards

    - by Rachel Smolker Med­ical pro­fes­sion­als agree that particulates—especially the small­er ones that can enter deep into the lungs—are harm­ful to human health, so much so that there is, in fact, no “safe lev­el” of expo­sure. Yet, the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency is tasked with set­ting a lev­el for par­tic­u­late emis­sions from bio­mass and oth­er pow­er plants—as…