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Tag: climate

  • Hawaii’s Only Coal-fired Power Plant May Switch to Biomass

    - by Duane Shim­gawa, August  28, 2014,  Pacif­ic Busi­ness News The only coal-fired pow­er plant in Hawaii, which is the sin­gle largest gen­er­at­ing plant on Oahu, is under finan­cial stress because there is no finan­cial reserve, accord­ing to the Hawai­ian Elec­tric Co.‘s new ener­gy plan released this week. Hawai­ian Elec­tric is also ask­ing AES Hawai­ito con­vert some of the ener­gy…

  • Proposed Washington Biomass Incinerator Nets $200k State Grant

    [Anoth­er bio­mass incin­er­a­tor that would require the log­ging of pub­lic lands. ‑Ed.]  - by Eric Florip, August 27, 2014, The Columbian A $200,000 state grant will sup­port a new bio­mass-fueled pow­er plant near Steven­son expect­ed to be oper­a­tional next year, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Wednes­day. The mon­ey will go to Wind Riv­er Bio­mass Util­i­ty, which has…

  • Santa Barbara, CA Eyes $50 Million Trash Anaerobic Digestion Project

    [NOTE: this is a pro­pos­al for anaer­o­bic diges­tion of munic­i­pal sol­id waste, not an incin­er­a­tor.  Ener­gy Jus­tice sup­port diges­tion of unre­cy­clable resid­u­als before land­fill­ing as part of a zero waste plan.] - by Joshua Moli­na, August 16, 2014, Noozhawk San­ta Bar­bara Coun­ty is propos­ing a $50 mil­lion trash-to-ener­gy project that would dou­ble the life of the Tajiguas land­fill and rad­i­cal­ly rede­fine trash diver­sion as…

  • Intergovernmental Climate Report Leaves Hopes Hanging on Fantasy Technology

    This year, the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) has con­firmed for us, once again, that the plan­et is warm­ing, even more and even faster than pan­el mem­bers thought. In fact, it is get­ting even warmer even faster than they thought the last time they admit­ted to hav­ing under­es­ti­mat­ed the prob­lem. We humans are in…

  • Fanning the Northeastern Biomass Flame

    [The bio­mass indus­try is team­ing up with envi­ron­men­tal­ists to increase the amount of forests burned for pol­lut­ing ener­gy in the Great North Woods.] Fan­ning the North­east­ern Bio­mass Flame - by Joseph Sey­mour, March 11, 2014. Source: Bio­mass Magazine Migrat­ing 1 mil­lion homes to bio­mass heat is optimistic—let alone 6 million—but recent devel­op­ments in the north­east­ern U.S. are dri­ving…

  • Biomass Thermal: The Logs That Break the Forest’s Back

    Bio­mass Ther­mal: The Logs That Break the Forest’s Back A sec­tor of the bio­mass incin­er­a­tion indus­try claims to be turn­ing over a new “green” leaf by build­ing small­er, slight­ly more ener­gy-effi­cient facil­i­ties focused on heat­ing rather than elec­tric­i­ty. Mean­while, behind the smoke­screen, bio­mass ther­mal advo­cates are sup­port­ing much of the same for­est-raid­ing, cli­mate-bust­ing, and lung-sear­ing…

  • Push for Ethanol Production Carries Costs to Land

    - by Dina Cap­piel­lo and Matt Apuz­zo, Novem­ber 12, 2013, Source: AP The hills of south­ern Iowa bear the scars of America’s push for green ener­gy: The brown gash­es where rain has washed away the soil. The pol­lut­ed streams that dump fer­til­iz­er into the water supply. Even the ceme­tery that dis­ap­peared like an appari­tion into a cornfield.…

  • 250 Scientists Concerned about Post-fire Logging

    250 Sci­en­tists Con­cerned about Post-fire Logging Novem­ber 4, 2013, Source: Yuba.net In an open let­ter to the U.S. Con­gress, 250 sci­en­tists request that Con­gress show restraint in speed­ing up log­ging in the wake of this year’s wild­fires, most notably the Rim fire in the Stanis­laus Nation­al For­est and Yosemite Nation­al Park. The sci­en­tists raised con­cerns that cur­rent­ly pro­posed…

  • $10 Million Taxpayer Money to Convert Beetle-Killed Trees to Biofuel

    $10 Mil­lion Tax­pay­er Mon­ey to Con­vert Bee­tle-Killed Trees to Biofuel - by Ash­ley Sanchez, Novem­ber 6, 2013, Source: ABC Fox Montana The Uni­ver­si­ty of Mon­tana is award­ed part of a $10 mil­lion grant to find ways to turn bee­tle-killed trees into biofuel. Pine bee­tle infes­ta­tions have impact­ed more than 42 mil­lion acres of U.S. forests for more…

  • Wood – An Imperfect Biomass

    Wood – An Imper­fect Biomass - by Jack Dini, Novem­ber 12, 2013, Source: Cana­da Free Press The largest, so-called renew­able fuel used in Europe is not solar pow­er or wind pow­er, but wood. As The Econ­o­mist reports, “In its var­i­ous forms, from sticks to pel­lets to saw­dust, wood (or to use its fash­ion­able name, bio­mass) accounts for about half…