Tag: renewable energy

  • Study Finds Ethanol Worse For Air Quality Than Gasoline

    - by Bill Hud­son, Decem­ber 17, 2014, CBS Min­neso­ta For years, the state’s corn and ethanol indus­tries have tout­ed the envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits of burn­ing the alter­na­tive fuel in our vehicles. But new­ly released research from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta Col­lege of Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing is rais­ing eyebrows. The study com­pared pol­lu­tion lev­els from gaso­line fuel and…

  • 2014 Farm Bill Logs National Forests for Bioenergy

    - Decem­ber 17, 2014, U.S. Depart­ment of Agriculture Agri­cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tom Vil­sack today announced that more than 200,000 tons of bio­mass were removed from fed­er­al lands through the Bio­mass Crop Assis­tance Pro­gram (BCAP). BCAP, reau­tho­rized by the 2014 Farm Bill, pro­vid­ed incen­tives for the removal of dead or dis­eased trees from Nation­al Forests and Bureau of…

  • Minnesota Ethanol Plant Fined $25K for Air Pollution and Noise

    - Decem­ber 11, 2014, Asso­ci­at­ed Press The Corn Plus ethanol plant in the south-cen­tral Min­neso­ta city of Win­neba­go has agreed to pay a $25,000 penal­ty and take steps to reduce its air pol­lu­tion and noise levels. The cor­rec­tive actions announced by the Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency on Wednes­day mark the lat­est step by offi­cials to bring the…

  • $181,000 Fine for Ethanol Air Pollution in Albany, NY

    - by Bri­an Near­ing, Decem­ber 12, 2014, Times Union An oil ter­mi­nal oper­a­tor at the Port of Albany has been hit with a $181,000 penal­ty by the state Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Con­ser­va­tion for air pol­lu­tion vio­la­tions that last­ed near­ly a year. Buck­eye Part­ners failed to prop­er­ly con­trol vapor emis­sions from ethanol — a corn-based bio­fu­el used as a gaso­line…

  • Covanta Settles for $536,211 in Lawsuit Over Biomass Ash Testing

    -Decem­ber 11, 2014, Bak­ers­field Californian Dis­trict attor­neys from eight Cal­i­for­nia coun­ties announced Thurs­day the set­tle­ment of a civ­il envi­ron­men­tal enforce­ment action against three sub­sidiaries of a New Jer­sey-based company. The set­tle­ment cov­ers Cov­an­ta Ener­gy LLC’s Kern Coun­ty bio­mass ener­gy facil­i­ty in Delano, along with oth­er com­pa­ny facil­i­ties in Men­do­ta and Oroville. Kern Coun­ty will receive about…

  • Tampa Man Sentenced for $3 Million Biofuels Fraud

    - by Susan Sal­is­bury, Decem­ber 9, 2014, Palm Beach Post     A Tam­pa man was sen­tenced today on charges he scammed investors out of more than $3 mil­lion after promis­ing returns on bio-ener­gy crops such as cameli­na that were not even planted William A. Vas­den Jr. who once head­ed the Flori­da Feed­stock Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, was sen­tenced…

  • Windfarms More Efficient than Biofuels?

    - by Aidan Har­ri­son, Decem­ber 5, 2014, Northum­ber­land Gazette Its obses­sion with ‘mar­kets’ has already placed our rail­ways and util­i­ties in the hands of big for­eign state and cor­po­rate-owned monopolies. The first thing to make clear is that the tech­nol­o­gy of wind pow­er is noth­ing like as inef­fi­cient as its fanat­i­cal detrac­tors claim. In terms of ener­gy…

  • Incinerator in Frederick, MD Canceled After Decade-Long Fight

    - by Patrice Gal­lagher, No Incin­er­a­tor Alliance On Novem­ber 20, 2014, Fred­er­ick Coun­ty, Mary­land’s Board of Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers can­celled plans to build a 1500 ton-per-day waste-to-ener­gy incin­er­a­tor, end­ing a 10 year cit­i­zens’ effort to kill the project and put bet­ter alter­na­tives for com­mu­ni­ty waste man­age­ment in place. The vote was 3 to 2, and all three…

  • From Shock to Victory: The Planet’s “Immune System” at Work

    - by Jan Baty, Newark Res­i­dents Against the Pow­er Plant As I saw Alex Lotor­to (cam­pus and com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er for Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work) step out of his car, unload­ing mate­ri­als for the meet­ing he was to lead at my house, I had a flash back to how I had dis­cov­ered the Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work. In Newark…

  • Ethanol Spill in Greensboro, North Carolina

    - Decem­ber 8, 2014, Bio­fu­els International Fire­fight­ers in Greens­boro, North Car­oli­na, respond­ed to a leak­ing tanker at a Ryder truck rental facility. Approx­i­mate­ly 2,000 gal­lons of ethanol spilled in an acci­dent in south Greens­boro North Carolina. A tanker filled with ethanol burst after the land­ing gear, which is used to keep the trail­er upright when not…