Category: Blog entry

  • Top Five Biomass Boosters in the U.S. Senate

    - by Erin Voegele, April 3, 2015, Bio­mass Magazine A group of five sen­a­tors recent­ly sent a let­ter to two sub­com­mit­tees of the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Appro­pri­a­tions ask­ing them to sup­port fund­ing for pro­grams that bol­ster the devel­op­ment of ther­mal and elec­tric bio­mass ener­gy tech­nolo­gies, sup­ply chains and mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties. The let­ter was signed by Sens.…

  • Bill to Subsidize California Biomass Facilities

    - by John Cox, April 6, 2015, Bak­ers­field Californian Local farm­ers are adding their sup­port to leg­is­la­tion that would divert rev­enue from California’s cap-and-trade pro­gram to bio­mass plants that gen­er­ate pow­er by burn­ing agri­cul­tur­al and urban green waste. Last month the Kern Coun­ty Farm Bureau co-host­ed a meet­ing in Delano to raise aware­ness of Assem­bly Bill 590…

  • Public Weighs in on Plumas County, CA Biomass Proposal

    - by Debra Moore, April 5, 2015, Plumas Coun­ty News The Sier­ra Insti­tute is poised to receive $2.6 mil­lion from the Cal­i­for­nia Ener­gy Com­mis­sion, but first the pub­lic will have a chance to com­ment on the bio­mass boil­er that would be built near the county’s health and human ser­vices build­ing in Quincy. The com­mis­sion announced March 10…

  • Company to Burn Biomass in Escanaba, Michigan Coal-Fired Plant

    - by Jen­ny Lan­cour, April 3, 2015, Escan­a­ba Dai­ly Press Any­one want­i­ng to express com­ments on a com­pa­ny’s recent pro­pos­al to buy Escan­aba’s pow­er plant can attend a pub­lic hear­ing next week at city hall, accord­ing to city officials. A pub­lic hear­ing on a pur­chase pro­pos­al sub­mit­ted by Ster­ling Ener­gy Group, Inc. will be held dur­ing the…

  • Reject the Exelon Takeover of Pepco

    Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work tes­ti­fied in D.C. against Exelon ener­gy cor­po­ra­tion’s takeover of Pep­co, elec­tric ser­vice provider to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. and Maryland.  This takeover is a bad deal for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and is not in the pub­lic inter­est. It would hit DC ratepay­ers with high­er elec­tric­i­ty bills, would under­mine renew­able ener­gy and would not…

  • Biofuels Gain Traction at Minnesota Legislature

    - by Jon Collins, March 31, 2015, Min­neso­ta Pub­lic Radio A bill to cre­ate a $5 mil­lion tax cred­it to advance the devel­op­ment of the bio­fu­el indus­try in Min­neso­ta is gain­ing trac­tion at the state Legislature. New­er tech­nolo­gies allow the use of plants like native prairie grass­es or alfal­fa for con­ver­sion ethanol. The so-called advanced bio­fu­el tax…

  • Plainfield, Connecticut Biomass Facility Changes Hands Again

    - by Bri­an Dowl­ing, March 25, 2015, Hart­ford Courant Lei­dos Inc. is sell­ing its Plain­field wood-fired pow­er plant to Green­leaf Pow­er, a Sacra­men­to com­pa­ny that is buy­ing bio­mass plants across North America. Green­leaf Pow­er announced Wednes­day it has agreed to buy the 37.5‑megawatt pow­er plant in a deal it expects to close lat­er this year. The com­pa­ny…

  • Obama Loves Biomass Thermal

     by Bio­mass Ther­mal Ener­gy Coun­cil, March 23, 2015, Bio­mass Magazine [Bio­mass indus­try groups over­joyed with the President’s most recent sup­port for bio­mass ener­gy. –Josh]  The Bio­mass Ther­mal Ener­gy Coun­cil  and the Pel­let Fuels Insti­tute (PFI) com­mend Pres­i­dent Obama’s com­mit­ment to expand­ing the use of renew­able ther­mal ener­gy with the issuance of Exec­u­tive Order “Plan­ning for Fed­er­al…

  • Study: The Dark Side of Forest Carbon Sequestration

    Sci­ence has taught us that humans and trees have a sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship: humans and oth­er liv­ing crea­tures exhale car­bon diox­ide, which trees absorb to pro­duce oxy­gen, which we then breathe. It’s a per­fect cir­cle that main­tains life on Earth as we know it. But a recent study out of Rhode Island’s Miska­ton­ic Uni­ver­si­ty has iden­ti­fied…

  • More California Biomass Facilities Closing

    - by Seth Nide­v­er, March 26, 2015, Han­ford Sentinel [Notice not a sin­gle men­tion of health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of bio­mass facil­i­ties. ‑Josh]  Once upon a time, local orchard farm­ers tak­ing out trees piled them up in large heaps and struck a match, send­ing huge plumes of smoke into the air. More recent­ly, the waste has gone…