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Tag: renewable energy

  • Spatial Justice Tests

    - by Aaron Krei­der, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network  One of the main goals of Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work’s Jus­tice Map project is to demon­strate the role that income and race play in the sit­ing of dirty facil­i­ties. You can use Jus­tice Map (by click­ing on Advanced Mode) to ana­lyze the race and income of peo­ple who live with­in, say,…

  • Waste Done Right

    - by Ruth Tyson, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network In 2012, Amer­i­cans dis­posed of 251 mil­lion tons of trash, accord­ing to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA). The Sto­ry of Stuff Project neat­ly lays out the way mate­ri­als move through our econ­o­my from extrac­tion to pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, con­sump­tion, and dis­pos­al. Most con­sumers don’t think beyond the “con­sump­tion”…

  • Study: Thinning Forests for Bioenergy Can Worsen Climate

    A new study out of the Geos Insti­tute in Ash­land, Ore­gon con­cludes that selec­tive­ly log­ging or “thin­ning” forests for bioen­er­gy can increase the amount of car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere and exac­er­bate cli­mate change. The study, “Thin­ning Com­bined With Bio­mass Ener­gy Pro­duc­tion May Increase, Rather Than Reduce, Green­house Gas Emis­sions,” by D.A. Del­laSala and M. Koop­man, chal­lenges…

  • 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,…

  • Compost Chicken Manure, Don’t Burn It

    - by Mike Ewall, Decem­ber 19, 2014, Bal­ti­more Sun  Dan Rodricks’ recent col­umn urged the new gov­er­nor to get a large-scale poul­try waste incin­er­a­tor built on the East­ern Shore (“Lar­ry Hogan has a chance to be a green gov­er­nor,” Dec. 13). This awful idea has been float­ed for 15 years now and has gone nowhere despite an array…

  • AUDIO: Energy’s Water Footprint in the Western Drought

    Drought in the west­ern U.S. is in the news every day, yet most media cov­er­age ignores the impact from water with­drawals for indus­tri­al pow­er facil­i­ties. While munic­i­pal and agri­cul­tur­al use are major drains on lim­it­ed water resources, so too are bio­mass, coal, nat­ur­al gas, and nuclear pow­er facilities.  On August 20, EJN spoke with Sta­cy Tellinghuisen,…

  • If You Build It, They Will Cut

    Gen­er­at­ing bio­mass ener­gy doesn’t result in more log­ging, accord­ing to the bio­mass indus­try, whose spokesper­sons claim facil­i­ties only make use of “waste” wood already com­ing from exist­ing log­ging operations. Ron Kotr­ba, Senior Edi­tor for Pel­let Mill Mag­a­zine, wrote in the May/June 2015 issue that bio­mass is the “most unlike­ly of the for­est prod­ucts to dri­ve…

  • When Zero Waste is Environmental Racism

    - by Kaya Ban­ton, Chester Envi­ron­men­tal Justice My name is Kaya Ban­ton and I have been a res­i­dent of Chester, Penn­syl­va­nia all of my life.  Chester is a small city right out­side of Philadel­phia known as one of the worst cas­es of envi­ron­men­tal racism. There are a num­ber of pol­lut­ing facil­i­ties in and sur­round­ing Chester.…

  • WE WON!! Environmental Justice Victory in DC, as Mayor Pulls Incinerator Contract

    - by Mike Ewall, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network We just stopped Wash­ing­ton, DC from approv­ing a $36–78 mil­lion con­tract that was award­ed to Cov­an­ta to burn the Dis­tric­t’s waste for the next 5–11 years. In a rigged bid­ding process, the city allowed just four incin­er­a­tors (no land­fills) to bid to take 200,000 tons of waste a year.…

  • EJ Victory! Taking Responsibility for Where Your Trash Goes…

    - by Mike Ewall, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network I’m excit­ed to open this issue by shar­ing our first vic­to­ry of its kind: stop­ping a major city (Wash­ing­ton, DC) from sign­ing a long-term incin­er­a­tion con­tract that was expen­sive, pol­lut­ing, unhealthy, and racist. The worst thing that can hap­pen with your waste is for it to be burned.…