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Tag: renewables

  • Biomass Power Facilities Idle for Months

    One of bio­mass energy’s main sell­ing points is that it’s a base­load source of ener­gy avail­able 24/7, unlike solar and wind. Despite these promises–and hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars of tax­pay­er sub­si­dies, grants and loans–several bio­mass pow­er facil­i­ties across the U.S. have been sit­ting idle for months at a time, thanks to fires, equip­ment fail­ure,…

  • Media Disinformation on Biomass

    - by Chris Mat­era, Mass­a­chu­setts For­est Watch  Some peo­ple might call it a media fail­ure that tree-fueled bio­mass ener­gy, one of the dirt­i­est, most car­bon-inten­sive forms of ener­gy that exists, has a “clean” and “green” rep­u­ta­tion with much of the public.  It is not a media fail­ure, it is a media suc­cess when we acknowl­edge that…

  • Biofuels Gain Traction at Minnesota Legislature

    - by Jon Collins, March 31, 2015, Min­neso­ta Pub­lic Radio A bill to cre­ate a $5 mil­lion tax cred­it to advance the devel­op­ment of the bio­fu­el indus­try in Min­neso­ta is gain­ing trac­tion at the state Legislature. New­er tech­nolo­gies allow the use of plants like native prairie grass­es or alfal­fa for con­ver­sion ethanol. The so-called advanced bio­fu­el tax…

  • More California Biomass Facilities Closing

    - by Seth Nide­v­er, March 26, 2015, Han­ford Sentinel [Notice not a sin­gle men­tion of health and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of bio­mass facil­i­ties. ‑Josh]  Once upon a time, local orchard farm­ers tak­ing out trees piled them up in large heaps and struck a match, send­ing huge plumes of smoke into the air. More recent­ly, the waste has gone…

  • Plainfield, Vermont Biomass Continues to Rile Neighbors

    - by Eric Blais­dell, March 27, 2015, Ver­mont Pub­lic Radio Things got so heat­ed at Plainfield’s Select Board meet­ing Mon­day night in a dis­cus­sion about God­dard College’s planned bio­mass-fueled heat plant, that one elect­ed offi­cial told board mem­bers they’d be in “deep water” if they dis­re­gard­ed some res­i­dents’ wish­es to have anoth­er meet­ing on it. The school is…

  • Garden Variety Environmentalism: The Band-Aid Wing of the Green Growth Economy

    - by Michael Don­nel­ly, March 13, 2015, Coun­ter­punch It was 60+ degrees and sun­ny – had been for weeks – in west­ern  Ore­gon, as I arrived in Eugene for the annu­al Pub­lic Inter­est Envi­ron­men­tal Law Con­fer­ence (PIELC) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon Law School – the planet’s old­est such con­fer­ence. The con­fer­ence, attend­ed by over 3000 attor­neys,…

  • Planned La Pine, Oregon Biomass Incinerator Hinges on Market

    - by Dylan J. Dar­ling, March 17, 2015, Bend Bul­letin A wood-burn­ing pow­er plant remains a pos­si­bil­i­ty for La Pine, with the city now tak­ing the lead on the project from Deschutes Coun­ty and the com­pa­ny behind it wait­ing for a change in the ener­gy market. “It’s just been on hold due to mar­ket con­di­tions,” said…

  • U.S. Added 254 Megawatts of Biomass Energy in 2014

    - by Erin Voegele, Feb­ru­ary 6, 2015 Bio­mass Magazine The Fed­er­al Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Commission’s Office of Ener­gy Projects has released the Decem­ber edi­tion of its Ener­gy Infra­struc­ture Update, report­ing the U.S. added 254 MW of bio­mass ener­gy capac­i­ty last year. In Decem­ber, the U.S. added five bio­mass gen­er­at­ing units with a com­bined capac­i­ty of 23 MW. Dur­ing…

  • Citizens Urge EPA and Congress to Choose Public Interest Over Politics on Energy Policy

    - Mike Ewall and Saman­tha Chirillo In Decem­ber, 900 Amer­i­cans, includ­ing 100 orga­ni­za­tions across the U.S. col­lec­tive­ly voiced their con­cerns about major parts of Pres­i­dent Obama’s Clean Pow­er Plan, in com­ments sub­mit­ted to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA). Cit­i­zens specif­i­cal­ly asked the EPA to: ·      set more aggres­sive tar­gets and address envi­ron­men­tal justice ·      not encour­age more…

  • Ohio Bioenergy Corporation Owes Over $50K in Taxes, Fees

    - by David E. Mal­loy, Decem­ber 29, 2014, Her­ald Dispatch Bio­mass, a Ken­tucky-based com­pa­ny that owns the for­mer South Point Ethanol prop­er­ty adja­cent to The Point indus­tri­al park, will have to pay more than $53,000 in back tax­es, penal­ties and costs by Jan. 27 to main­tain the 78-acre parcel. Lawrence Coun­ty Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Brigham Ander­son filed…