climate change

- by Suzanne McLaughlin, August 20, 2014, MassLive

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"221","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 250px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Massachusetts Land Court has granted Palmer Renewable Energy’s request to reinstate its building permit for a biomass wood-burning plant in East Springfield, undoing the Springfield Zoning Board of Appeals’ decision that the building permit was invalid.

The decision states that no special permit is needed and the building permit is reinstated, City Solicitor Edward Pikula said. Pikula said he is still reviewing the decision.

Palmer Renewable Energy proposed building a 35-megawatt, wood-to-energy plant on the grounds of Palmer Paving Co. property near the intersection of Page Boulevard and Cadwell Drive.

- by Kelly Hatton, July 17, 2014, Western Confluence

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"242","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 319px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: Western Confluence"}}]]On a morning in early March, I ride with Cody Neff, owner of West Range Reclamation (WRR), in his truck from Frisco, Colorado, to the company’s nearby worksite in the White River National Forest. Light is just starting to reach over the high snow-covered slopes surrounding Frisco, but Neff is awake and ready to talk. He tells me that originally it was a love of cattle, not forests, that brought him west to the University of Wyoming, where he studied rangeland ecology while raising beef on a piece of leased land outside Laramie. Now, fifteen years later, he’s running a fifty-employee company and supervising forestry projects on Colorado’s Front Range and in Wyoming’s Medicine Bow National Forest. It’s a position he didn’t necessarily imagine for himself, but one that he has taken on with enthusiasm.

Neff and wife, Stephanie—who Neff credits for his success—started WRR in 2001. They saw a need for what Neff calls responsible and beneficial rangeland and forest management.

From behind the steering wheel, Neff interrupts himself to point out areas on the slopes where the company has completed projects. As he steers up the rough road, he takes phone calls, fields questions, and jots notes for himself on the pad of paper nested in the truck’s console.

When we turn off the main highway and bump slowly along the temporary dirt road that winds up the mountain, Neff points out tightly packed, small-diameter lodgepole pine as illustrative of the problems of this forest. The stands of thin trees are all the same species, the same age, and all are competing for the same resources, susceptible to the same pests. These stands are an easy target for bark beetles. Out the passenger window, I see the impact. Dead trees stand like skeletons among the green.

At the road’s end, the forest opens into a clearing where a fleet of machinery cuts, hauls, and chips trees marked by the Forest Service for removal. Neff hands me a hardhat and a neon vest to put on before we walk over to the semi parked on the edge of the clearing.

-  by Jo Nova, August 5, 2014, JoanneNova.com.au

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"236","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 275px; height: 413px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]The headline at Science Daily is that wildfires and other burns lead to climate change. The paper itself asks: “As such, particle burn-off of clouds may be a major underrecognized source of global warming.” For me what matters are the deaths in the here and now:

“We calculate that 5 to 10 percent of worldwide air pollution mortalities are due to biomass burning,” Jacobson said. “That means that it causes the premature deaths of about 250,000 people each year.”

 This is similar to Indur Goklany’s conclusion in 2011:

Killing people with “concern”? Biofuels led to nearly 200,000 deaths (est) in 2010.

In a study  published in  Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Indur Goklany calculated the additional mortality burden of biofuels policies and found that nearly 200,000 people died in 2010 alone, because of efforts to use biofuels to reduce CO2 emissions.

Goklany (2011) estimated that the increase in the poverty headcount due to higher biofuel production between 2010 and 2004 implies 192,000 additional deaths and 6.7 million additional lost DALYs in 2010 alone.

-  by Morgan Watkins, August 5, 2014, Gainesville Sun

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"235","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 225px; height: 154px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: State of Florida"}}]]Local residents worried about the biomass plant showed up Tuesday evening for a public meeting on its draft Title V air operation permit, which could be approved this fall, to make their concerns known.

Folks milled around the Hall of Heroes Community Room at the Gainesville Police Department on Northwest Eighth Avenue, talking over the issues with fellow residents as well as with Florida Department of Environmental Protection officials who were on hand to answer questions.

Several people submitted written comments to the FDEP at the meeting, which was styled as an open house, although others stopped by a table in an adjacent room to give verbal comments instead.

The Gainesville Renewable Energy Center has applied to the FDEP for the five-year permit, which would be effective Jan. 1. This would be its initial Title V permit.

The biomass plant drew complaints of noise, odor and dust issues in the past from residents of the Turkey Creek Golf & Country Club, while government employees who work nearby at Alachua County's Public Works facility complained about odor and dust problems as well.

[The heavily-subsidized, polluting biomass energy industry cries foul over getting a smaller slice of the taxpayer pie than smokestack-free solar energy in California. -Ed.] 

-  by Bonner R. Cohen, July 15, 2014, Heartland

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"222","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"253","style":"width: 200px; height: 253px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: kids.esdb.bg","width":"200"}}]]The California Wind Energy Association and other renewable energy groups criticized a new law extending special tax breaks to the California solar power industry. Wind power, biomass, and geothermal power groups say the special benefits for solar power tilt the playing field against other renewable power options.

Senate Bill 871, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on June 20, extends until 2025 an exemption for solar power systems from state property taxes. The existing exemption was not scheduled to expire until 2017, but the legislature rushed the new exemption into law at the end of the session with almost no advance notice or opportunity for debate.

Renewable Groups Criticize Solar Deal
"There is no reason for the State Legislature and Governor Brown to extend a property tax exemption to large scale solar energy projects at this time," said Nancy Rader, executive director of the California Wind Energy Association, in a press statement.

"What is disturbing is this tax break for the solar industry comes at a time when existing biomass projects are shutting down," Julee Malinowski-Ball, executive director for the California Biomass Energy Alliance, said in the same press statement. "Wind and geothermal renewable energy producers are also facing challenges in getting utilities to recontract for their existing resources. California needs these resources to balance our energy portfolio and meet long-term greenhouse gas reduction goals."

[Millions of taxpayer dollars go to polluting biomass incineration under the guise of "clean" energy. -Ed.]

-  by Anna Simet, June 5, 2014, Biomass Magazine

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"221","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"360","style":"width: 333px; height: 250px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]Massachusetts has dedicated $3.5 million to nine renewable thermal projects in the state through a new grant program, the Massachusetts Renewable Thermal Business Investment Financing Program.

Funds for the program are being drawn from the state’s Alternative Compliance Payment funds, which are payments made by electricity suppliers when they do not meet state renewable energy portfolio standard obligations. Payment amounts vary according to technology class and compliance year. For example, in 2014, suppliers in RPS Class I—which includes sources installed after 1997—must pay $66.16 per MWh not achieved.

 Each year, ACP funds are allocated by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. Through the new program, a variety of technologies are eligible for funding, including woody biomass, grass pellets, advanced biofuels, biogas, solar thermal, and inverter driven air and ground source heat pumps.

-  June 23, 2014, Bioenergy Insight

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"219","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 200px; height: 129px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: Lufkin Daily News"}}]]InventivEnergy, an asset management firm, has selected NRG Energy Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of NRG Energy, to restart the Aspen Power biomass plant located in Lufkin, Texas.

NRG will also operate and maintain the facility once it resumes operation. The plant first opened in August 2011 and was the first wood-fired biomass power plant in the state. It can consume about 525,000 tonnes of logging debris and municipal wood waste per year.

The Aspen power plant has the capacity to deliver approximately 50MW to the grid and uses locally sourced clean wood-waste biomass as its fuel supply. Work to restart the facility began in mid-May and commercial operations are expected to be achieved by late July. NRG is in the process of hiring the site management team and operating staff.

'The Aspen Power facility was shut down in the fall of 2012 due to market economics. Since then, our projections show an attractive opportunity for the plant to resume operations and provide competitively-priced clean energy to the Texas market,' says John Keller, CEO and founder of InventivEnergy.

- by Larry Phillips, June 30, 2014, Leader and Times

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"216","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 480px; height: 300px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: Chris Linenbroker"}}]]Firefighters responded to an explosion Sunday evening at Conestoga Energy’s Arkalon Ethanol Plant. Fortunately, no one was injured from the blast or subsequent fire, according to Seward County Fire Chief Mike Rice.

“We got the page at 7:04 p.m. (Sunday) about a possible explosion at the plant at 8000 Road P,” Rice said earlier today. “Preliminary reports from plant staff is they had a natural gas explosion in a combustion burner in the feed dryer system on the second floor.”

- by Erin Voegele, June 24, 2014, Biomass Magazine

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"139","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 222px; height: 221px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;"}}]]On June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision on the U.S. EPA’s Tailoring Rule. While the court invalidated a portion of the rule, it essentially held up EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for certain facilities, specifically those required to obtain a Prevention of Significant Deterioration permit due to the emission of other regulated pollutants. The court’s ruling, however, did nothing to address the uncertainty faced by those in the biomass industry with regard to the EPA’s treatment of biogenic emissions.  

In its decision, the Supreme Court indicated that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority when it interpreted the Clean Air Act to require PSD and Title V permitting for stationary sources based on their GHG emissions. “Specifically, the agency may not [GHGs] as a pollutant for purposes of defining a ‘major emitting facility’ (or a ‘modification’ thereof) in the PSD context or a ‘major source’ in the Title V context. To the extent its regulations purport to do so, they are invalid. EPA may, however, continue to treat [GHGs] as a ‘pollutant subject to regulation under this chapter’ for purposes of requiring [best available control technology (BACT)] for ‘anyway’ sources,” wrote the Supreme Court in its decision.