Report: “Unintended Consequences” from Biomass Boom  

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

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 a world where 97% of climate scientists attribute global warming to human activity and only 57% of Americans believe them, it’s clear that science alone can’t change people’s minds.

Campaigners Challenge Environment Agency

- by The Breathe Clean Air Group 

Trafford, UK-based Breathe Clean Air Group has challenged the Environment Agency over a serious irregularity in issuing the controversial Barton Renewable Energy Plant in Greater Manchester, with an Environmental Permit.

Biomass Energy: Dirty and Unsustainable

- by Ron Zeller

President Obama's continuing "all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above" energy strategy still supports biomass energy development despite its increasingly obvious problems, numerous abandoned facilities, and public rejection. An asserted need to reduce America's reliance on imported oil is frequently cited in arguments made for funding projects which are otherwise environmentally and economically dubious.

Cellulosic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool’s Errand?

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

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 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, expanding it under the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007.

- by Mike Ewall

What does an incinerator industry do when they can't compete?  Change the rules.  Biomass and trash incinerators are the most expensive way to make energy, and trash incineration costs more than directly landfilling the waste.  These industries survive to the extent that they can change the rules to get monopoly waste contracts, become 'renewable' energy in state mandates, or as we're seeing in Maryland: worse.

In 2011, Maryland became the first state to change their state Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) law -- a law that mandates "renewable energy" use -- to move trash incineration from the dirtier "Tier II" to the not-quite-as-dirty "Tier I" (where wind and solar, but also biomass and landfill gas compete).  Many states with RPS laws have two tiers, where the cheaper, already-built, and dirtier technologies (usually trash incineration and big old hydroelectric dams) are put in a second tier menu of options where the credits are cheaper, and in Maryland's case, where the mandate gets phased out over time.  Putting trash incineration in the same tier as wind power creates a much larger and growing market with more valuable credits.  Since this, several other states have seen proposals to do the same.

In 2013, Maryland tried to set an ever worse precedent.  Covanta (the nation's largest waste incinerator corporation) wrote a bill that gets more creative: a municipal solid waste portfolio standard.  Taking the notion from renewable energy laws, this law would phase in a 50% recycling goal, but also phase out direct landfilling of waste.  By doing so, the law would create a strong incentive to incinerate waste before burying the ash.  Zero waste, as defined by the Zero Waste International Alliance, means diverting as much waste as possible (90%+) from both landfills AND incinerators.  However, the incinerator industry has managed to hijack the "zero waste" idea by pushing this "zero waste to landfill" rhetoric which many cities and corporations are mimicking -- which really means "toxic ash to landfills."

On April 8th, the Maryland legislature came very close to passing this awful precedent, but thanks to work by Community Research, Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Energy Justice Network and 13 other groups who lent their name to opposing this bill, it died a quiet death in the state House after passing the state Senate earlier in the last day of the 2013 legislative session.  Covanta's lobbyist was fuming and we can now focus back on stopping the two large new waste incinerators planned for the state, without worrying that they'll be propped up by yet another pro-burn state policy.  Keep an eye out for this tactic in your state.

- by Save Our Rural Oregon

Due to the Clean Air Act violations both Klamath Falls and Lakeview, Oregon have experienced this winter, Save Our Rural Oregon is requesting an emergency moratorium on proposed biomass and biofuels projects in both communities.

Letters have been forwarded to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, asking for their support of an emergency moratorium on biomass and biofuels projects in both Klamath Falls and Lakeview. The letter asks for a stay on the issuance of any new or modified air quality discharge permit related to biomass and biofuels projects and on awarding site certificates on those projects not yet adjudicated by the Oregon Energy Facilities Siting Council.

- by Josh Schlossberg, Energy Justice Network

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.

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

Sometimes what seems like defeat in the short term can actually turn out to be victory in the long run. One such case involves the opposition to the construction of Seneca Sawmill’s biomass power incinerator in Eugene, Oregon. While the facility fired up its smokestacks for the first time in 2011, the effort to educate neighborhood residents about the health threats of the industrial polluter morphed into a powerful environmental justice movement in the low-income community surrounding the facility.

Alison Guzman (center) and Lisa Arkin (left) of Beyond Toxics in Eugene, Oregon

Biomass Industry Fights Transparency

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

I was pleased to see the VT Digger opinion piece by Bill Kropelin, chief forester for Burlington Electric Department’s McNeil biomass incinerator, in response to Energy Justice Network’s McNeil Biomass Forest Map—since a public discussion on the health and environmental impacts of industrial-scale “biomass” energy in Vermont is long overdue. 

Logging for McNeil biomass incinerator in Buels Gore, Vermont

An experimental trash and sewage sludge incinerator, planned in the heart of the Hispanic community in the City of Allentown, Pennsylvania is being challenged by Allentown Residents for Clean Air (ARCA). The group just submitted over 2,000 signatures to put a Clean Air Ordinance we wrote on the November ballot as an initiative. If this ballot initiative passes, Delta Thermo Energy will have to comply with strict requirements to do real-time monitoring of many toxic pollutants, and will have to disclose the data on a website real-time. They'll also have to control their emissions so that they are as clean as a gas-burning power plant of the same size.  Considering that the company is appealing the most minimal requirements set by the state, it's unlikely that they'll proceed to build the incinerator if they have to comply with real standards for accountability.  Read on for the group's press release or check out a flyer summarizing the issue and the Clean Air Ordinance.