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Tag: forests

  • Burn It Up?

    - by Vic Ste­blin, Source: WoodBurnerSmoke.net Humans have been burn­ing for much of his­to­ry. Africa burns its savan­na annu­al­ly and the smoke can be seen from space. Aus­tralia and Mediter­ranean areas reg­u­lar­ly burn off haz­ardous under­growth. Log­ging com­pa­nies burn off residue accord­ing to pro­fes­sion­al forestry codes. Ranch­ers and farm­ers burn old grass and crops to release nutrients. Even light­ning…

  • Biofuels Plant Won’t Protect Us from Wildfire

    - by Vir­ginia Moran, May 16, 2014, Source: The Union Regard­ing the pro­posed “bio­fu­els” plant (i.e. accel­er­a­tion of cli­mate change) project, here is what I find “scary”: that res­i­dents of west­ern Neva­da Coun­ty are nev­er allowed to live our lives in peace. If we are twitchy and irri­ta­ble it is because we are con­stant­ly on guard…

  • Biomass Burner Short on Fuel

    - by Aaron Beswick, May 15, 2014, Source: Truro Bureau Nova Sco­tia is hav­ing trou­ble keep­ing up with the require­ment for fibre at the bio­mass boil­er at Point Tup­per, says the nat­ur­al resources minister. “There’s not enough fibre right now in the province to sup­port demands placed on that sec­tor,” Zach Churchill said Thurs­day, refer­ring to…

  • High-Grade Wood Going to Nova Scotia Biomass Incinerator

    - by Tom Ayer , May 12, 2014, Source: Cape Bre­ton Bureau Pho­to: Erin Pot­tie, Cape Bre­ton Bureau Top sto­ries in Halifax Busi­ness own­ers in Cape Bre­ton who rely on the for­est for a liv­ing say high-qual­i­ty hard­woods are mak­ing their way into Nova Sco­tia Power’s bio­mass plant in Point Tup­per, con­sum­ing a wood sup­ply that…

  • 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…

  • Trees Are Not the Solution to Our Electricity Needs

    - by Mar­vin Rober­son, April 27, 2014. Source: Detroit Free Press There is a lot of con­cern in Michi­gan, espe­cial­ly the Upper Penin­su­la, about meet­ing future elec­tri­cal needs. Many aging, pol­lut­ing coal plants are soon to go offline, as they should. New coal plants are unlike­ly to replace them, and would be a poor choice even if…

  • Are Climate Claims for Burning Renewable Trees a Smokescreen?

    - by Robert McClure, April 21, 2014. Source: The Tyee/Investigate West Nes­tled into a sea­side for­est on the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Columbi­a’s lands, amid a car­pet of sword ferns and salal, sits a gleam­ing indus­tri­al facil­i­ty that’s been hailed as a sig­nif­i­cant step toward a car­bon-neu­tral future for B.C., Cana­da and even the world. The wood-gas fired…

  • Biomass Energy Drives Wood Shortage in Nova Scotia

    -  Rachel Brighton, Octo­ber 10, 2014, The Chron­i­cle Herald [More evi­dence of bio­mass ener­gy com­pet­ing for lim­it­ed wood source.] Open­ing up long-term access to west­ern Crown lands will relieve some of the pres­sure that has been build­ing in the forestry sec­tor this year. This week the province announced that 16 sawmills and man­u­fac­tur­ers had been grant­ed 10-year…

  • Bioenergy Corporation to Cut and Burn Public Forests in Washington

    - by Kate Prenga­man, Octo­ber 29, 2014 Yaki­ma Herald-Republic Sci­en­tists are search­ing for the fuels of the future in high-tech lab­o­ra­to­ries around the world, but last week one research team debuted its new tech­nol­o­gy at a wood-chip­ping plant tucked in the for­est out­side Cle Elum. That’s because their tech­nol­o­gy runs on wood chips. Roast­ing the wood, which might…

  • Vermont: The Little State that Could?

    - by Rachel Smolk­er, Biofuelwatch nosag­bigsign I am for­tu­nate to live in the tiny state of Ver­mont, a state that has bold­ly led the way on so many issues it’s hard to list them all. We were the first to pass same-sex mar­riage and to take seri­ous steps to make health care acces­si­ble to all.…