renewable energy

- by Biomass Thermal Energy Council, March 23, 2015, Biomass Magazine

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"444","attributes":{"alt":"wood pellet biomass heating","class":"media-image","style":"width: 255px; height: 190px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]][Biomass industry groups overjoyed with the President’s most recent support for biomass energy. –Josh] 

The Biomass Thermal Energy Council  and the Pellet Fuels Institute (PFI) commend President Obama’s commitment to expanding the use of renewable thermal energy with the issuance of Executive Order “Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade.”

The Executive Order calls for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions across federal operations by at least 40 percent through 2025 through a broad host of measures, including building energy conservation, energy procurement inclusive of renewable thermal technology, and fleet management.

- by Seth Nidever, March 26, 2015, Hanford Sentinel

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"438","attributes":{"alt":"biomass in california","class":"media-image","height":"410","style":"width: 333px; height: 284px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Graphic: Airqualityguy.wordpress.com","width":"480"}}]][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 to biomass power plants that crank out electricity, meet stricter air pollution requirements and provide a renewable energy component.

But now that the whole biomass industry in California is threatened with extinction, the issue has become a hot topic in the ag industry.

Growers are asking: If you can’t burn orchard trees that have been removed, and you’ve got no biomass plant to send them to, where does it all go?

- by Eric Blaisdell, March 27, 2015, Vermont Public Radio

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"437","attributes":{"alt":"biomass ","class":"media-image","height":"221","style":"width: 322px; height: 148px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Graphic: Bumbeck/Seven Days","width":"480"}}]]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 applying for a 40-year Rural Development loan from the USDA that would cover 90 percent of the costs for the plant. As part of that process, it needs a letter of support from the town.

Goddard emailed the Select Board on Thursday looking for that support. Chairman Bram Towbin, speaking for himself, replied that the school has “mishandled the community relations aspect of this project” by not telling residents what was going on since the project began. Towbin invited someone from Goddard to attend the board’s meeting Monday to plead its case.

Residents who live near the plant’s site have been fighting it every step of the way. On Town Meeting Day in March 2013, voters rejected a nonbinding article asking the college to halt construction until it could be proven the nanoparticles emitted would be harmless. The debate got nasty, with neighbors accusing each other of being “liars,” “losers” and “jerks.”

- by Dr. Ian Fairlie, Ecologist

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"435","attributes":{"alt":"safe nuclear power?","class":"media-image","height":"292","style":"width: 333px; height: 203px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Cartoon: cravensworld.wordpress.com","width":"480"}}]]On 23rd August, The Ecologist published very clear evidence of increased cancers among children living near nuclear power stations around the world, including the UK.

The story sparked much interest on social media sites, and perhaps more importantly, the article's scientific basis (published in the academic peer-reviewed scientific journal the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity) was downloaded over 500 times by scientists.

Given this level of interest and the fact that the UK government is still pressing ahead with its bizarre plans for more nuclear stations, we return to this matter - and examine in more detail an important aspect which has hitherto received little attention: massive spikes in radioactive emissions from nuclear reactors.

- by Erin Voegele, March 19, 2015, Ethanol Producer Magazine

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"434","attributes":{"alt":"burning money","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 153px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]On March 12, the U.S. Energy Information Administration published a report on direct federal financial interventions and subsidies in energy for fiscal year (FY) 2103. The report, which responds to a request from Reps. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, is an update of two earlier EIA reports covering FY 2007 and FY 2010.

Overall, the report finds the total value of direct financial interventions and subsidies in the energy markets decreased by nearly 25 percent between FY 2010 and FY 2013, declining from $38 billion to $29.3 billion. In FY 2010, $11.69 billion in subsidies were electricity related, with $10.7 billion in subsidies for fuels used outside the electricity sector and $15.57 billion in subsidies for conservation, end uses, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. In FY 2013, the breakdown included $16.11 billion in electricity-related subsidies, with $5.21 billion in subsidies for fuels used outside the electricity sector and $7.94 billion in subsidies for conservation, end uses, and LIHEAP.

- by Michael Donnelly, March 13, 2015, Counterpunch

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"432","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"width: 333px; height: 353px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"453"}}]]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, activists, wonks and government officials, is put on by law students at the U of O. Other students from other top environmental law schools (Lewis and Clark, Vermont Law …) also pitch in organizing and moderating panel discussions. The organizers did a remarkable job juggling speakers, attendees and all the little things necessary.

While suffering from a bigger than usual allergy attack brought on by many types of trees and flowering plants budding out at the same time; I, as usual, perused the conference brochure for panels and Keynote addresses that would take on the big eco-threats of the day.

Out of over 200 panel presentations and twelve Keynote speakers, there were  1) three panels on citizen  activism (two at the same time); 2) one panel on Consumption; 3) one panel on Population; 4) one on the “false solution” of “Green” Energy;…and NONE at all on Biomass/Biofuels! Not at all promising.

- by Dylan J. Darling, March 17, 2015, Bend Bulletin

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"431","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"width: 333px; height: 347px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Graphic: Bend Bulletin","width":"460"}}]]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 Rob Broberg, president of Biogreen Sustainable Energy Co., based in Vancouver, Washington. “And we plan on holding out until we are able to market and sell power.”

The company must find an energy buyer to make the planned plant economically viable, said Rick Allen, La Pine city manager.

“They need to find a power company that wants to buy their power,” he said. “…That’s really the issue.”

The $75 million, 25-megawatt biomass plant would produce enough electricity to power about 19,000 homes, Broberg said. The plant would burn wood — limbs and other scrap left over after logging, debris from thinning projects and urban waste — to heat water, create steam and turn a turbine. Interested power companies would likely be in California, where the state requires an increasing percentage of its power to come from “greener” sources such as biomass, wind and solar.

- by Chris D’Angelo, March 5, 2015, The Garden Island

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"427","attributes":{"alt":"Biomass logging in Hawaii","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 221px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: Chris D'Angelo/The Garden Island"}}]]It is unlike any other logging operation in Hawaii’s history.

And the $90 million biomass-to-energy facility the logs are destined for is as unique as the project itself, state officials say.

“This is the largest operation that we’ve had,” said Lisa Hadway, administrator of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife, on a tour of the once-charred grounds Wednesday. “Given that the biomass plant is here on this island, I think this is a great way to help us improve this forest for recreation, for the watershed and for the restoration of this area.”

Now well underway, the Kokee Forest Restoration and Replanting Project calls for the removal of an estimated 15,000 tons of eucalyptus and pine trees from about 300 acres of forest reserve land scorched during fires in the summer of 2012, followed by the replanting of native and non-invasive species.

In January 2013, former Gov. Neil Abercrombie green-lighted the project via an emergency proclamation. Its purposes include “mitigating the post-fire damage” from the three blazes that burned about 4,000 acres in the Kokee area and eliminating the threat to public health and safety from potentially devastating post-fire effects, including flash flooding and erosion.