Category: Blog entry
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…