Josh's blog

Electricity Generation from Biomass: Installed Capacity Forecasts for Dedicated, Co-Fired, Anaerobic Digestion, and Biorefinery Facilities

May 27, 2013. Source: PR Newswire 

Accounting for 3% of global electricity generation capacity, biomass power generation ("biopower") offers reliable baseload power to the grid and is expected to play a cornerstone role in meeting renewable energy targets worldwide. Capacity expansion is likely in this decade across a range of conversion platforms, including dedicated greenfield facilities that burn biomass exclusively, brownfield biomass and coal co-fired plants, anaerobic digesters producing biogas, and industrial biorefineries utilizing cogeneration.

Project withdrawn after federal funding source issues

June 14, 2013. Source: Andrew Creasey, Herald and News

A proposed and controversial biomass plant off Highway 66 will not be built due to complications with its federal funding source.

Klamath Falls Bioenergy withdrew its application for a site certification Tuesday. The certification process had been mired in delays with the Energy Facility Siting Council, the state body that oversees the regulation of large electric generating plants.

Facing climate change: Vermont’s biggest polluters

May 29, 2013. Source: Audrey Clark, VT Digger

Vermont’s reputation as a green state was upheld this year when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an interactive map of the biggest point sources of greenhouse gases in the country. In spite of, or thanks to, these facilities, Vermont has the lowest emissions in the nation. 

Proposed Klamath Falls, Oregon Biomass Incinerator Will Not Be Built

June 13, 2013. Source: Herald and News

A proposed biomass plant off Highway 66 will not be built, due to complications with its federal funding source. Klamath Falls Bioenergy withdrew its application for a site certification on Tuesday.

Gas Leak at Thai Biomass Incinerator Investigated

June 13, 2013. Source: MCOT, Pattaya Mail

TRANG, June 11 – Thai police continued their investigation into a gas leak at a biomass power plant which killed a New Zealand engineer and a Thai employee in this southern province early yesterday morning.

Trang governor Tirayuth Eiamtrakul led industrial engineers and related officials to inspect Para Veneer 2002 Co in Yan Ta Khao district where a gas production facility with a production capacity of five megawatts was under construction.

VIDEO: Fire at Forest Energy pellet plant forces closure of US 60 in Arizona

June 11, 2013. Source: WMICentral.com 

Link to video: http://www.wmicentral.com/news/latest_news/video-fire-at-forest-energy-pellet-plant-forces-closure-of/video_210a5d1a-d2fb-11e2-a0e0-001a4bcf887a.html

New Report Spells Out Potential Negative Impacts of Bioeconomy and Markets in Environmental Services on Women

Garbage In, Garbage Out

- by Mercedes Brugh

One of the unanswered questions about the pyrolyzation garbage-to-electricity proposal for Logansport, Indiana has been about emissions.

No proof has been offered about emissions. We have been told that the Pyrolyzer plant will have to follow the “strictest emissions rules,” but that is no comfort. Indiana consistently ranks among the worst of the states for pollution.

We have heard the pyrolyzation theory and that the syngas has been approved for use in adapted natural gas turbines. This is promising but should not be confused with proof that the plant’s emissions will be safe.

- by Rick and Jeannie Falknor

Transylvania County residents deserve all the facts about the proposed biofuel plant at the airport site in Penrose [North Carolina], especially the negative impacts such a business can have on our county.

First, biomass power generation is a dirty industry. According to a Wall Street Journal-cited study conducted in early 2012, of the 107 operating biomass plants in the United States, 85 have been cited by federal or state regulators for the violation of clean air or water standards laws over the past 5 years. And the dirty reality goes further. These biomass generators have been shown to release high levels of fine particulate air pollution that can cause breathing problems, and volatile organic compounds linked to cancer.

Report: Tree Plantations in the South to Generate Energy in the North

-by Rachel Smolker, The Biomass Monitor

It is always helpful to hear the perspective of people in the “global south,” especially when it is their land in the tropics that is so often targeted as a source of biomass energy for the “north.” World Rainforest Movement (WRM) has been at the forefront of opposition to industrial tree plantations for decades, so they know full well what the consequences of vast new demands for biomass will be.