Tag: forests

  • 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…

  • Electronic Map Tracks Logging for Biomass Energy

    Elec­tron­ic Map Tracks Log­ging for Bio­mass Energy The first and only elec­tron­ic map track­ing log­ging sites sourc­ing wood to a bio­mass ener­gy facil­i­ty has been released by Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work, a Wash­ing­ton, DC-based non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion with field offices in Ver­mont, Penn­syl­va­nia and Ore­gon and Bio­fu­el­watch, an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion based in Ver­mont and the UK. McNeil Bio­mass Incinerator The ini­tial…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Biomass Incinerator Looms on Horizon for Gypsum, Colorado

    An 11.5 megawatt bio­mass pow­er incin­er­a­tor pro­pos­al for the 6,400 per­son cen­tral-Col­orado town of Gyp­sum is mov­ing along swift­ly, despite con­cerns of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and at least one town councilor. Utah-based Eagle Val­ley Clean Ener­gy LLC’s facil­i­ty would burn 70,000 bone-dry tons per year of wood chips from whole trees—living and beetle-killed—tree branch­es and limbs, and “urban wood waste…

  • Everything’s Bigger in Texas, Including Biomass Incinerators

    Baby back ribs aren’t the only things being cooked in Texas nowa­days. With the Nacog­doches Gen­er­at­ing Facil­i­ty fir­ing up for the first time in July—at 100 megawatts, it’s one of the largest bio­mass pow­er incin­er­a­tors in the U.S.—Texas will also be cook­ing a heck of a lot of trees. At least one mil­lion green tons of wood…

  • Report: Carbon Neutral Biomass a Scam

    A new report by Spain-based Car­bon Trade Watch cri­tiques plans by the Unit­ed King­dom gov­ern­ment and Euro­pean Union Emis­sions Trad­ing Sys­tem (EU ETS) to ramp up indus­tri­al-scale bio­mass ener­gy pro­duc­tion under the guise of “car­bon neu­tral­i­ty,” despite its mas­sive green­house gas emis­sions and threats to pub­lic health and glob­al bio­di­ver­si­ty. An esti­mat­ed 80 to 300 mil­lion tons of wood…