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Tag: climate

  • Biofuels and Biomass Lose Favor: Investors Beware!

    Bio­fu­els and Bio­mass Lose Favor: Investors Beware! - by Rachel Smolk­er, Biofuelwatch Hav­ing spent the past eight years or so of my life fight­ing back against large-scale com­mer­cial and indus­tri­al bioen­er­gy, it feels good to final­ly see the tides turn­ing, albeit slow­ly, maybe not always for the right rea­sons, and per­haps too lit­tle too late.…

  • Tree plantations and bioenergy with carbon capture: far from “safe” geoengineering

    Tree plan­ta­tions and bioen­er­gy with car­bon cap­ture: far from “safe” geo­engi­neer­ing J June 11, 2013. Source: Almuth Ern­st­ing, Hands Off Moth­er Earth.  Amongst geo­engi­neer­ing meth­ods, ‘afforesta­tion’, Bioen­er­gy with Car­bon Cap­ture and Stor­age (BECCS) and biochar are com­mon­ly pro­mot­ed as ‘safe’, benign’ or ‘soft’ options – unlike, say, shoot­ing sul­phur par­ti­cles into the stratosphere. Accord­ing to a 2011…

  • A Biomassacre Down Under

    A Bio­mas­sacre Down Under  A new report out of Aus­tralia, Bio­mas­sacre: How Log­ging Australia’s Native Forests for Bioen­er­gy Harms the Cli­mate, Wildlife and Peo­ple, by Mar­kets for Change, high­lights the harm to forests, cli­mate, wildlife and human health from log­ging native forests for indus­tri­al-scale bioenergy. Instead of being a clean, green solu­tion to wean Aus­tralia off of fos­sil…

  • Biomass Incinerator is Vermont’s Biggest Polluter

    Fac­ing cli­mate change: Vermont’s biggest polluters May 29, 2013. Source: Audrey Clark, VT Digger Vermont’s rep­u­ta­tion as a green state was upheld this year when the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) released an inter­ac­tive map of the biggest point sources of green­house gas­es in the coun­try. In spite of, or thanks to, these facil­i­ties, Ver­mont has…

  • Report: Tree Plantations in the South to Generate Energy in the North

    Report: Tree Plan­ta­tions in the South to Gen­er­ate Ener­gy in the North -by Rachel Smolker It is always help­ful to hear the per­spec­tive of peo­ple in the “glob­al south,” espe­cial­ly when it is their land in the trop­ics that is so often tar­get­ed as a source of bio­mass ener­gy for the “north.” World Rain­for­est Move­ment (WRM) has been…

  • Report: “Unintended Consequences” from Biomass Boom

    Report: “Unin­tend­ed Con­se­quences” from Bio­mass Boom  - by Josh Schlossberg Add anoth­er one to the stack of stud­ies shat­ter­ing the bio­mass industry’s illu­sion of car­bon neu­tral­i­ty. One would assume that the sci­en­tif­ic community’s repeat­ed debunk­ing of the alleged cli­mate ben­e­fits of bio­mass would already have knocked the pol­lut­ing ener­gy source off its “green” pedestal. How­ev­er, in…

  • Cellulosic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool’s Errand?

    Cel­lu­losic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool’s Errand? The good news is that the cel­lu­losic ethanol industry—turning trees and woody plants into liq­uid fuels—has yet to take off. And with­out an end­less stream of tax­pay­er hand­outs to devel­op this pol­lut­ing and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive ener­gy source, it prob­a­bly nev­er will. Under the guise of tak­ing action on cli­mate change, the US…

  • Burlington, Vermont Ignores Biomass Emissions

    It’s good news that IBM is help­ing Burling­ton, Ver­mont low­er its impact on the cli­mate. [“IBM Wants to Help Burling­ton Reduce Its Car­bon Foot­print,” Sev­en Days, March 27]. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the city’s refusal to fix glar­ing errors in its Cli­mate Action Plan pre­vents an hon­est look at Burlington’s actu­al con­tri­bu­tions to run­away glob­al cli­mate change. The Burling­ton…

  • 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…

  • 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…